The Technical Chamber of Greece organised with great success the Green Deal Greece 2021 Conference, which was held in Athens, on June 29, 2021. The theme of the Conference was “2020-2030: a decade of a green revolution” and it focused on the opportunities and the challenges that Greece has to face regarding the European Green Deal.     NTUA contributed actively with the following presentation: 

•  Electrobility, Sustainable mobility, Green transport

The Transportation Public Health Link (TPH Link) organised with great success the International Conference on Transport & Health (ICTH) which was held online, on 14-30 June. ICTH provided valuable insights into the health impacts of transport and urban planning, governance, strategic management, policy-making, performance metric tools and the potential return on investment of a dynamic system. 

The UK Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety (PACTS) organised with great success the PACTS Conference: Safe and healthy travel, which was held online, on 29 June 2021.  The Conference was supported by the Department for Transport and Highways England and focused on Vision Zero, active travel,  micro-mobility, speed and infrastructure.   NTUA Professor George Yannis contributed the following key note presentation: 

•  Road Safety in Greece on the way to Vision Zero

Τhe European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) together with the Flemish Foundation for Traffic Knowledge (VSV) and Fundación MAPFRE have recently published the LEARN! Manual envisaged as a starting point for those who design, test, implement and evaluate educational activities on traffic safety and mobility, and are embarking upon the creation of new, or updating existing, activities. The new resource should also be useful to Ministries, Authorities, Schools and Organisations when deciding on which activities and projects to buy or fund.  

The International Transport Forum (ITF) together with the Swedish Transport Administration, VTI, the International Motorcycling Federation (FIM), and the motorcycle manufacturers associations (IMMA and ACEM) organised with great success the “Motorcyclists Safety Workshop: Riding in a Safe System” which was held online on 9-23 June. It was a follow-up to the Third Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety and focused on the nine recommendations of the Academic Expert Group and their application to motorcyclists’ safety.  

Τhe European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) organised with great success the LEARN! Manual Webinar, which was held online, on 23 June. The LEARN! Manual is a handbook for developing and evaluating activities and programmes for traffic safety and mobility education. It sets out recommendations, criteria and guidance to develop and implement sound educational activities in an accessible way. This webinar presented the LEARN! Manual, and showed how its different steps can be applied in practice through examples from across Europe.

Transport MEPs say that the goal of zero deaths on European roads by 2050 (Vision Zero) calls for more robust measures on road safety, such as, 30 km/h speed limit, zero-tolerance for drink-driving and more safety features in infrastructure and vehicles. Transport MEPs call on the Commission to establish a European road transport agency to support sustainable, safe and smart road transport and to consider the incorporation of a “driving safe mode” for mobile and electronic devices of drivers in order to inhibit distractions while driving. 

The Horizon 2020 projects BeOpen (European forum and Observatory for open science in transport) and OSCAR (Open ScienCe Aeronautic & Air Transport Research) co-organised with great success the “BE OPEN meets OSCAR: Open Science Collaboration” joint workshop, which was held online, on 16 June 2021. The event focused on providing general guidelines for Open Science promotion, regulatory schemes for Open Science operationalization and presenting interactive tools for enhancing Open Science collaboration amongst transport stakeholders.   NTUA contributed actively with the following presentation:  European Code of Conduct of Open Science in Transport

The 7th Congress of the European Academy of Neurology (EAN) took place virtually with great success, on 19-22 June, 2021.  The theme of the congress was “Towards Precision Neurology”. Latest best practices in neurology was discussed, including cognitive impairment role in fitness to drive.  NTUA contributed actively with the following presentation:  Alzheimer’s Dementia and predictors of Driving Cessation: Results from a 4-year Longitudinal Study  

According to the Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT) road crashes data for 2019 in Greece, 29% of road fatalities are passenger car occupants, whereas 33% of road fatalities are power two wheelers. Most car occupant fatalities occur outside built-up areas while most motorcycle and pedestrian fatalities occur inside built-up areas. Crash severity is five times higher outside built-up areas for all transport modes. 

According to the Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT) data for 2019, the majority of road crashes and fatalities in Greece occur during clear sky, both inside and outside built-up area. However, both road crashes and fatalities share outside built-up areas is much higher during rainy conditions than normal conditions of clear sky. Furthermore, crash severity is increased by almost 20% during raining. 

According to the latest Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT) data for 2019, most road fatalities in Greece occur at daytime and at night with good street lighting inside built-up area, or with no street lighting outside built-up area. Crash severity is increased 3 to 5 times more at night with no street lighting, but also at night crashes outside built-up areas. 

Greece was awarded with the 2021 Annual Road Safety Award of the European Transport Safety Council for achieving the 2010-2020 target of reducing road fatalities by 50% (performing 54% decrease from 1.258 road fatalities in 2010 to 579 in 2020), making also NTUA proud of its contribution. This significant improvement over the last decade is the result of constantly increasing effort by the Public Authorities and all road safety stakeholders on infrastructure improvements (new motorways, new urban mobility schemes, etc.), legislation (new traffic fines scheme, driving licence, etc.), campaigns and education schemes. As a result, Greek drivers changed significantly their safety behaviour, initially triggered by the economic crisis but maintained also well after, demonstrated in a constantly improving road safety culture of a more mature society. However, even if Greece progressed from 26th to 20th position during the decade, collective efforts should continue as it still lags well behind the EU average.  

According to the Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT) final road crash data for 2019, come off the road and at angle collisions are the two most common crash types outside built-up areas. Pedestrian crashes, at angle collisions, come off the road and side impact collisions are the most common crashes types inside built-up areas. Crash severity is more than 7 times higher outside built-up areas at pedestrian crashes. 

The 4th Newsletter of the EU funded Horizon 2020 project Levitate (Societal Level Impacts of Connected and Automated Vehicles) was recently released focusing on the results of the latest Levitate Webinar titled “Road safety assessment of automated vehicles“, and on several events and news on Road Safety.

The RADAR project within the framework of Interreg Danube Transnational Programme, organised on 15 June 2021 the 6th Road Safety Expert Group online Meeting with focus on road infrastructure safety management. Key experts contributed into a vivid discussion on the challenges and opportunities brought by the new EU Directive on road infrastructure safety management.    NTUA actively contributed with the following presentation:   Network-wide Road Safety Assessment

The European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) published the 15th edition of PIN Annual Report , with the active contribution of NTUA, presented at the 2021 ETSC Road Safety Performance Index Award event which took place online with great success on 16 June 2021. While the collective EU road death reduction target for 2020 was not met, all countries made improvements, and saved lives by trying to reach it. Only Greece reached the target with a 54% reduction in road deaths. Portugal, Spain, Croatia, Belgium, Slovenia, Italy, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Denmark, Austria and Hungary achieved a decrease above the EU average of 37%, while the other countries progressed to a lesser extent. The progress was slowest in the Netherlands with a 5% decrease and the UK with 14%. 

According to the Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT) data, among the 688 persons killed in Greece in 2019: 318 were outside built-up areas and 370 were inside built-up areas. 53% of road fatalities outside built-up area occurred on national roads. More than 80% of road crashes and half of fatalities occurred inside built-up areas. However, crash severity is 4 times higher outside built-up areas in total. 

According to Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT) data, 688 persons were killed in Greece in 2019: 470 drivers, 73 passengers and 145 pedestrians. Male drivers account for 64% of all road fatalities in Greece. Young male drivers aged 15-24 years old account for 15% of all male driver fatalities and older people account for 46% of all pedestrian fatalities. The higher crash severity was found in crashes involving older persons (6.2 fatalities per 100 crashes) and young people 15-24 years old (3.3 fatalities per 100 crashes). 

The Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA), in collaboration with the International Transport Forum (ITF), has launched the FIA Disabled Motoring Website. The FIA Disabled Motoring website provides access to information on facilities and options for people with disabilities travelling by car in different countries around the world. It is based on data collected from FIA Member Clubs and ITF Member States around the globe. The website is also a resource for everyone travelling outside their own country who are unsure about the rules and conditions for disabled drivers. 

The  Australasian College of Road Safety (ACRS) has recently published the Journal of Road Safety, May 2021 Edition. The JRS accepts papers from all countries and regions around the world and publishes a diverse range of high-quality papers on road safety from researchers, policy makers, program implementers and other road safety experts, providing anyone interested in road safety with a rich source of current knowledge, evidence, developments and best practice in road safety implementation. 

Basic characteristics of road fatalities in Greece for the period 1991-2019 are summarised in a comprehensive Table prepared by the NTUA Road Safety Observatory (data source: ELSTAT). According to these time series data a spectacular decrease in road fatalities for children 0-14 years old (-60%), young drivers (-54%) and outside built-up areas (-52%) is observed during the last decade. On the contrary, fatalities decrease during the last decade is quite limited (but important) for older drivers (-24%) and pedestrians (-19%). 

A paper titled “To cross or not to cross? Review and meta-analysis of pedestrian gap acceptance decisions at midblock street crossings” authored by Athanasios Theofilatos,  Apostolos Ziakopoulos, Oscar Oviedo-Trespaliacios and Andrew Timmis was recently published by the Journal of Transport & Health. The paper explores pedestrian gap acceptance decisions in urban midblock locations. Fixed effects and random-effects meta-analyses are used to investigate the overall effect of critical variables. Results indicate that a unit increase in vehicle speed decreases pedestrians’ odds of crossing by 10%, while a unit increase in temporal gap size increases the odds of crossing by 7.2 times. Each crossing attempt increases the odds of crossing more than 16 times. 

EFTHITA Rhodes participated very actively in the Sixth UN Global Road Safety Week with several actions promoting speed limits of 30km/h in urban areas. Cyclists’ teams joined the cause and posters for road safety were distributed with the messages #StreetsforLife and #Love30, to raise awareness on how low-speed streets can save lives. 

The first meeting of the Road Safety Governmental Committee was held on 9 June 2021 at the Hellenic Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport. The Road Safety Governmental Committee holds the administrative accountability of planning, implementing and supervising the National Road Safety Action Plan. In the meeting, there was a presentation of data regarding the basic pillars of the Action Plan, as well as an evaluation of the actions taken towards the Plan’s implementation. Participants in the committee were: the Deputy Minister of Infrastructure and Transport Yannis Kefalogiannis as chairman, the Deputy Minister of Citizen Protection Eleftherios Oikonomou as vice-chairman,  the Alternate Minister of Interior Stelios Petsas, the Alternate Minister of Health Vasilis Kontozamanis, the Deputy Minister of Education and Religious Affairs Zeta Makri and the Deputy Minister of Digital Governance Georgios Georgantas. 

The Civil Engineering School of the National Technical University of Athens was ranked 4th globally (2nd in Europe) according to ShanghaiRanking’s Global Ranking of Academic Subjects (GRAS) 2021, being the best performance of any Higher Education School in Greece.  The GRAS use a range of objective academic indicators and third-party data to measure the performance of world universities in respective subjects, including research output, research influence, international collaboration, research quality, and international academic awards.  NTUA road safety activities have contributed to this ranking.  

A paper titled “Correlations of multiple rider behaviors with self-reported attitudes, perspectives on traffic rule strictness and social desirability“, authored by Apostolos Ziakopoulos, Dimitris Nikolaou and George Yannis is  published in Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour. Numerous statistical relationships were discovered and quantified correlating the four examined unsafe rider behaviors with eight latent unobserved variables. All covariances between unsafe behaviors were found to be positive and statistically significant, indicating that a rider who will engage more frequently in every single one of the four examined unsafe riding behaviors is more likely to also engage in all the others as well. 

The RADAR project team organised with great success the 5th Road Safety Expert Group (RSEG) Meeting, which was held online, on 27 May 2021, under the theme: “Transport Safety and COVID-19“. There is a reasonable threat that investments in road infrastructure safety will be largely affected by the covid-19 and will shrink already small budgets dedicated to road infrastructure safety. Improving road infrastructure safety in the Danube area in this critical time requires action to demonstrate by facts the real impact of the pandemic outbreak on road safety.  NTUA actively contributed with the following presentation:  COVID-19 impact on mobility and safety

SAFER Vehicle, the Université Gustave Eiffel and the University of New South Wales co-organised the 8th International Conference on Driver Distraction and Inattention (DDI2022), which was held in Gothenburg, on 19-20 October 2022. DDI2022 is the primary international event on this topic, attracting delegates from more than 20 countries. It is designed to bring participants – from academia, industry and government – up-to-date on the developments and trends in the field of inattention and distraction in driving. 

The European Commission officially relaunched its European Road Safety Charter, the largest platform on road safety in civil society, to support the Vision Zero ambition of reducing road deaths to almost zero by 2050. The Charter was founded in 2004 by the Road Safety Unit of  DG Move as part of its Road Safety Action Programme. To create more awareness and to have a bigger presence at the local and national level, DG MOVE will work intensively with a network of National Relays in the 27 EU Member States.