Author: agouma
The World Health Organisation – Regional Office for Europe (WHO-Europe) recently published a Report titled: “Supporting healthy urban transport and mobility in the context of COVID-19“. The recommendations in this guidance can help in achieving multiple societal objectives, including: transport safety and efficiency; improved quality of urban life; reduced emission of air pollutants and greenhouse gases, and reduced noise; and greater opportunities to adopt a physically active lifestyle, while supporting economic recovery. 
Elsevier has published the International Encyclopedia of Transportation on May 2021. Containing almost 600 articles, the Encyclopedia brings a cross-cutting and integrated approach to all aspects of transportation from a variety of interdisciplinary fields including engineering, operations research, economics, geography and sociology in order to understand the changes taking place. Emphasising the interaction between these different aspects of research, it offers new solutions to modern-day problems related to transportation. NTUA actively contributed with the following paper: Traffic Flow Volume and Safety 
Professor Dinesh Mohan passed away on 21 May 2021. Mohan was one of the world’s leading experts on traffic safety issues and human tolerance to injury. His work has significantly advanced motorcycle helmet design, pedestrian and bicyclist safety and child restraint regulations, and helped develop safer ways for various modes of transportation to safely share the roadways. During his distinguished career he was the recipient of many honours and awards, including the 1991 International Association for Accident & Traffic Medicine’s International Award and Medal for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Traffic Medicine.
RSI Panos Mylonas together with the Cyprus Automobile Association (CAA) and within the framework of the Sixth UN Global Road Safety Week, organised with great success a series of Actions and Events under the theme “Roads for Life“, which took place on 17-23 May. The aim of the campaign was to inform and to contribute to the pledge of the UN Global Road Safety Week, through the presentation of four informational videos and the promotion of an online petition on a legislation for speed limits of 30km/h in urban areas, endorsed also by NTUA.
The UN Road Safety Collaboration organised with great success the global campaign for the Sixth UN Global Road Safety Week, with was held on 17-23 May 2021. The 6th Global Road Safety Week will have as theme Managing Speeding, with focus on city streets safety and the introduction of 30km/h speed limit in cities. It was a great opportunity to mobilise the global population (Authorities, stakeholders, citizens) and launch the global plan for the proclaimed Second Decade of Action for Road Safety 2021-2030. During that week, several road safety events were organised worldwide, including the active participation of NTUA.
NTUA participated actively in the Sixth UN Global Road Safety Week by organising a key Scientific Workshop titled “Innovation in Road Safety Research” held online on 20 May 2021 
, contributing at the Together for Safer Roads Vision Zero Fleet Forum and several other workshops and endorsing the pledge of the UN Global Road Safety Week for speed limits of 30km/h in urban areas, together with the United Nations, World Health Organisation, International Road Federation, World Bank GRSF, ETSC/FEVR, RSI P.Mylonas, EFTHITA, Interamerican.
, contributing at the Together for Safer Roads Vision Zero Fleet Forum and several other workshops and endorsing the pledge of the UN Global Road Safety Week for speed limits of 30km/h in urban areas, together with the United Nations, World Health Organisation, International Road Federation, World Bank GRSF, ETSC/FEVR, RSI P.Mylonas, EFTHITA, Interamerican.
Together for Safer Roads organised with great success the Vision Zero Fleet Forum, which was held online on May 19th, 2021. With focused contributions from key safety experts, this fleet-specific forum, focused on Vision Zero practices that maximize global learning and impact for fleet safety managers, city authorities, vision zero practitioners and city streets users. NTUA actively contributed in the section Commercial Fleets, Vision Zero & Data Sharing.
NTUA actively contributed in the section Commercial Fleets, Vision Zero & Data Sharing.
NTUA within the framework of the Sixth UN Global Road Safety Week organised with great success a Scientific Workshop titled “Innovation in Road Safety Research” which was held online on May 20th, 2021. The objective of this Workshop was to highlight through an intensive flow of presentations the main findings and challenges of key road safety research projects carried out within the NTUA Department of Transportation Planning and Engineering and to open up the discussion in a round table with high-level experts on key innovations in road safety research in Greece, in Europe and worldwide. NTUA supports actively the UN Global Road Safety Week pledge for speed limits of 30km/h in urban areas.
- Workshop Programme:
- Team Photo:
- Workshop Video:
The NTUA Road Safety Observatory- Driver needs and behaviour in automated traffic – Drive2theFuture
- Societal impacts of connected and automated vehicles – Levitate
- Shared Automation Operating Models for Worldwide Adoption – Show
- Holistic Approach for Driver Role Integration into Automation – Hadrian
- Driver-vehicle-environment interactions and safety tolerance – i-Dreams
- Smart city mapping for safer and eco driver behaviour – SmartMaps
- Smartphone applications for driver safety behaviour support – BeSmart
- Development of the Road Safety Strategic Plan in Greece 2021-2030
- Collection of Road Safety KPIs in Greece – Baseline-G
- EU Methodology for Road Safety KPI Collection – Baseline-I
- Open science in road safety – BeOpen
- A Methodology for Network-wide Road Assessment – NetSafety
- Modelling crash modification factors globally – i-SafeModels
- Road Safety Audit of the Hellinikon Metropolitan Pole
- Monitoring road safety attitudes globally – Esra2
- Investigation of driver distraction effect using big data from smartphones
- Safety behaviour assessment of older drivers in real driving conditions
- Covid-19 impact on mobility and safety
- Model traffic and parking arrangements for the Athens Great Walk
- Electromobility as driver for sustainable mobility and safety – e-Mopoli
- Socio-economic impact of environmental transport charging – EcoCharge
- Safety Innovations in Automation and Connectivity, Prof. Andrew Morris
- How are Emerging Data Enabling Smarter Safety Applications?, Prof. Constantinos Antoniou
- Innovations for Safe Driver Behaviour, Prof. Tom Brijs
- Which Values for Future Safety Technologies, Ass.Prof. Eleonora Papadimitriou
The Province of Brescia, leader partner of the Interreg Europe project Electro MObility as driver to support POLicy Instruments for sustainable mobility (e-MOPOLI) organised with great success the e-MOPOLI Final Interregional Conference (phase 1) which was held online, on 19 May 2021. The meeting focused on presentation of project outputs, such as good practices, recommendations and on 9 partners regional action plan from Italy, Slovenia, Greece, Flanders, Finland, Norway, Romania and Latvia. It also presented key results and future scenarios of alternative fuel mobility. NTUA actively contributed with the following presentations:
NTUA actively contributed with the following presentations:
A paper titled “Spatial analysis of harsh driving behavior events in urban networks using high-resolution smartphone and geometric data” authored by Apostolos Ziakopoulos was recently published in Accident Analysis & Prevention. Naturalistic driving big data collected through the OSeven smartphone application were map-matched to the segments that each driver traversed, and thus geometrical, road network and driver behavior spatial data frames were obtained per road segment. Segment length and pass count are positively correlated with harsh braking frequencies, while gradient and neighbourhood complexity are negatively correlated with harsh braking frequencies. Curvature, segment length, pass count and the presence of traffic lights are positively correlated with harsh acceleration frequencies.
According to the 8th Euro-Barometer for Responsible Driving, recently published by the Fondation VINCI Autoroutes, Greece has the highest rate of drivers (16%) that have been involved or almost involved in a road accident due to mobile phone use in Europe (EU average 11%). 57% of Greek drivers admitted calling while driving using a Bluetooth system, 53% using headphones and 42% without using any hands-free equipment. Moreover, 27% of Greek drivers stated sending and reading text messages or e-mails on their mobile phones while driving, whereas the respective European average is 22%. In addition, 11% of drivers in Greece report to have watched a film or video on a smartphone or tablet while driving, whereas the European average is 7%.
The New Traffic Safety Research Interdisciplinary Journal aims to become a reference point for the international research community within the domain of road safety. The Journal’s overaching objective is to contribute to the global shift to the Safe System paradigm within the road transportation domain. The journal promotes publication of innovative research within engineering, psychology, sociology, medicine and other related fields in attempt to explain and address the phenomenon of road casualties. Proactive methods and analyses as well as multidisciplinary views on the road traffic safety problems are encouraged.
The Horizon 2020 research project SHOW (SHared automation Operating models for Worldwide adoption) has recently released the SHOW 2nd Newsletter. The Newsletter provides a short overview of the technical progress at demo sites and project level, as well as a selection of fresh outputs relevant to share with the wider CCAM community, including for example a market analysis of mobility services, a first version of the SHOW open modular system architecture and an introduction to the tool that will be used to collect user opinions on social media.
The International Transport Forum (ITF) organised with great success the 2021 ITF Summit which was held online, on 17-28 May. ITF’s research unit supported the Summit with topical analyses and a pre-summit Research Day was organised with leading institutions to provide cutting-edge academic input to the Summit debate. Side events hosted by ITF partner organisations took place in and around the Summit thereby allowing greater opportunities for presentations of recent work and dialogue on key issues complementing the Summit theme.
A paper titled “Identifying the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on driving behavior using naturalistic driving data and time series forecasting” authored by Christos Katrakazas, Eva Michelaraki, Marios Sekadakis, Apostolos Ziakopoulos, Armira Kontaxi and George Yannis is published in Journal of Safety Research. Based on data collected through the OSeven smartphone application, the results of this Paper revealed the intensity of the impact of COVID-19 on driving, especially on average speed, speeding, and harsh braking per 100 km. Road crashes in Greece were reduced by 49% during the months of COVID-19 compared to the non-COVID-19 period.
A paper titled “Investigation of accidents involving powered two wheelers and bicycles – A European in-depth study” authored by L.Brown, A.Morris, P.Thomas, K.Ekambaram, D.Margaritis, R.Davidse, D.Shingo Usami, M.Robibaro, L.Persia, I.Buttler, A.Ziakopoulos, A.Theofilatos, G.Yannis, A.Martin and F.Wadji, is published in Journal of Safety Research. Highly detailed data have been collected for 500 accidents involving PTWs or bicycles in the EU, which were analyzed on a case-study basis and led to detailed insights on such accidents. Analysis results suggest that ‘looked but failed to see’ remains a common cause, and in many cases the actions of the other vehicle were the critical factor, though PTW rider speed or inexperience played a role in some cases.
The Research in Mobility Committee of the UITP organised with great success an online event on 27 April, in which Road Safety and many other interesting topics were discussed.
NTUA actively contributed with the following presentation: Mobility and Safety Research Challenges in Public Transport
Mobility and Safety Research Challenges in Public Transport
The EU-funded Horizon 2020 project Levitate (Societal Level Impacts of Connected and Automated Vehicles) organised with great success a Webinar on Road safety assessment of automated vehicles, which was held online, on 27 May. The Webinar offered a discussion on which road safety impacts can be expected from Connected and Automated Transport Systems and how best the different types of impacts can be quantified. Key findings from the Levitate project analyses were presented including estimation of impacts using microsimulation and those focusing on Vulnerable Road Users.
The Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering of National University of Science and Technology of the Sultanate of Oman (NU) organized with great success the first lecture in the context of International Webinar series on Sustainable Road Safety, which was held on 5 May. Dr. Stergios Mavromatis, NTUA Assistant Professor, delivered a webinar titled Role of Infrastructure design in achieving sustainable Road safety. The Webinar provided a deep insight into current issues in accident analysis and discussed the proactive and reactive strategies with appropriate examples. The Vision Zero and Safe System Approach were presented, while the improvement of road design to reduce potential crashes was explained with practical examples.
The International Commission for Driver Testing (CIECA) organised with great success the 53rd CIECA Congress, which was held online, on 26-28 May 2021. With this congress, entitled “Different drivers & vehicles. Safety for all”, CIECA focused on exploring the challenges that new trends in mobility, and the inclusion of modern technologies in vehicles present for driver training and testing.
The fifth Newsletter of the Horizon 2020 project BeOpen (European forum and observatory for open science in transport) was recently released with the results of the second event held virtually at the US TRB (Transportation Research Board) 2021 Annual meeting and successive presentations of the TOPOS Observatory and Forum key features to the transport and open science community.
The European Commission announced the winners of the European sustainable mobility Αwards. Mönchengladbach was winner of the EUROPEANMOBILITYWEEK Award 2020 for larger municipalities, while Lilienthal for smaller municipalities. The 9th SUMP Award was won by Greater Grenoble Area Mobility Authority (SMMAG) for Grenoble-Alpes SUMP, and the EU Urban Road Safety Award went to Bilbao. The awards were presented during an online ceremony hosted by European Commissioner for Transport, Adina Vălean, and Deputy Director-General of the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Transport and Mobility, Matthew Baldwin.
The European Commission has recently published the Study on market development and safety of personal mobility devices (PMDs) and L-category vehicles, prepared by the Transport Research Laboratory (TRL). The main objectives of this Study were to provide an inventory of the various types of personal mobility devices available on the market, to provide a detailed analysis of the market and the influence of the existing legislations at EU and national level and to provide a collection and evaluation of available data and information on accidents involving personal mobility devices.
The German Federal Highway Research Institute (BASt) recently published a Report titled Safety Performance Indicators in road traffic – Overview and experiences from international practice. The findings of this Report contribute to the conceptual framework of the “Road Safety Research Programme 2019” of the German Federal Highway Research Institute, aiming to describe indicators that precede a potential accident event as a description of the state of the road traffic system and predictors of the accident.
The Transport Community published statistics on road fatalities in 2020 for the Western Balkans’ regional participants, which show that the numbers of road fatalities per million inhabitants are higher in the Western Balkans than the EU average, highlighting the need for intensification of efforts for all pillars of road safety.
The European Commission together with ARCADE project organised with great success the third European Conference on Connected and Automated Driving (EUCAD 2021), which was held online on 20-22 April 2021. Participants enjoyed a blend of policy-oriented plenary sessions, as well as thematic breakout sessions to discuss specific R&I challenges. A virtual exhibition of projects was accessible throughout the three-day event.
According to the European Commission almost 4.000 (-17%) fewer people lost their lives on EU roads in 2020 compared to 2019. Lower traffic volumes, as the result of the Covid-19 pandemic, had a clear impact on the number of road fatalities. Over the previous decade between 2010 and 2020, the number of road deaths dropped by 36%. This was short of the target of 50% fewer deaths that had been set for that decade. However, with 42 road deaths per 1 million inhabitants, the EU has the safest roads in the world.
The European Commission organised with great success the EU Road Safety Results Conference which was held online on 20 April. The Conference was an opportunity to engage with EU Member State authorities and all stakeholders on the progress being made with implementing the Safe System approach. In particular, it allowed participants to learn how work towards the Key Performance Indicators set out in the Next Steps Towards Vision Zero policy framework is moving forward.
A paper titled “Are driving errors and driving performance correlated? A dual structural equation model” authored by Panagiotis Papantoniou, George Yannis and Eleni Vlachogianni is now published in Advances in Transportation Studies. The objective of this paper is to investigate several factors (including driver distraction, driver characteristics and road environment) that affect overall driving error behaviour and estimates a new unobserved variable which underlines driving errors. This estimation is performed with data obtained from a driving simulation experiment in which 95 participants covering all ages were asked to drive under different types of distraction (no distraction, conversation with passenger, cell phone use) in rural and urban road environment, as well as in both low and high traffic conditions.
