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TRANSED International Conference, Lisbon 2015

The 14th International Conference on Mobility and Transport for Elderly and Disabled persons (TRANSED) took place with great success in Lisbon on 28-31 July 2015. The main objective of the Conference was to promote and encourage the development of transport services and systems that meet the needs of people with some sort of disability through the exchange and dissemination of knowledge and experience. New cases and experiences and new knowledge were presented with focus on ambitious aim setting and management for inclusive access for all types of temporary or permanent disabilities.

NTUA presentations concerned:

Road traffic casualties in the elderly in Europe: analysis of macroscopic and in-depth data

Assessing driving behaviour in the elderly: methodological issues

How does distracted driving affect reaction time of older drivers?

Driving performance profiles of drivers with parkinson’s disease

Driving difficulties as reported by elderly drivers with MCI and without neurological impairment: implications for road design

WRI Cities Safer by Design 2015

A new Guide titled ‘Cities Safer by Design‘ has recently been published by the World Resources Institute. It is a is a Global Reference Guide to assist cities save lives from traffic fatalities through improved street design and smart urban development, that taps examples from cities worldwide and includes 34 different design elements to improve safety and quality of life.

TRA 2016 – EU Champions of Transport Research Competition 2016

The 6th European Transport Research Conference Transport Research Arena 2016 to take place in Warsaw between 18-21 April 2016 is organising the EU Champions of Transport Research Competition. The competition recognises and celebrates leading researchers who are, or have recently been, contributing to surface transport EU‐funded projects. Successful candidates will have to demonstrate excellence and proven impacts in their field of research. This competition will provide a platform to further disseminate knowledge and results from research projects in Surface Transport, promoting future synergies and further development of innovative ideas, in line with the strategic objectives of the TRA stakeholders. The Champions of Research Competition will act as a showcase for the very best EU‐funded research and encourage the identification of current and future leaders in the field. The deadline for submission of entries is 30 September 2015.

Road Safety Foundation – Engineering Safer Roads Report 2015

The Road Safety Foundation has released a report titled ‘Engineering Safer Roads – Star Rating roads for in-built safety‘. Previous annual launches of Risk Mapping and Performance Tracking results have prompted the questions:

– What has been done on the ‘most improved’ roads?

– What is wrong with the ‘persistently higher risk’ roads?

– What should be done?

This report answers those questions with a focus on safe road design. The purpose of this report is to demonstrate pathfinding work carried out with the assistance of leading authorities on the application of Star Ratings in Britain.

Panagiotis Papantoniou awarded outstanding Conference Poster, London 2015

Panagiotis Papantoniou, NTUA PhD Candidate and Researcher at the Department of Transportation Planning and Engineering in the School of Civil Engineering of the National Technical University of Athens has been awarded with the outstanding conference poster award of the 1stInternational Conference on Transport & Health Changing Perspectives, which took place in London, 6-8 July 2015. The outstanding conference poster award concerned the poster presentation on “How cell phone use affects reaction time of older drivers” co-authored by Costas Antoniou, George Yannis, Eleonora Papadimitriou, Dimosthenis Pavlou and John Golias.

UCL – International Conference on Transport and Health – London 2015

The 1st International Conference on Transport and Health organised by the University College London (UCL) and the Transportation Public Health Link (TPH Link) took place with great success in London on 6-8 July 2015. This innovative event combined presentations of submitted work with cross-disciplinary workshops lead by teams of transport and public health professionals on several topics, including Global Road Safety & Injury Prevention.

NTUA presentations concerned:

Investigating the different distraction mechanism between cell phone use and conversation with the passenger, through a driving simulator experiment

How cell phone use affects reaction time of older drivers

How drivers with brain pathologies deal with in-vehicle distraction, what are their emotions and driving habits: a questionnaire assessment

Assessing Selected Cognitive Impairments Using a Driving Simulator: A Focused Review – 2015

A paper titled ‘Assessing Selected Cognitive Impairments Using a Driving Simulator: A Focused Review‘ co-authored by Vardaki Sophia, George Yannis and Sokratis Papageorgiou is now published in Advances in Transportation Studies. The paper offers a focused review of studies investigating driving performance as assessed on simulators, targeting cognitive impairments which are age-related or caused by neuro-degenerative disorders, including mild cognitive impairment (MCI), Alzheimer’s disease (AD), Parkinson’s disease (PD) and stroke. The paper references selected findings highlighting what they reveal about several key methodological issues: gauging task demands in relation to actual driving; how differences in cognitive ability affect performance, and how this varies for different driving tasks; issues related to scenario design, such as simulator limitations, scenario authoring and simulated driving tasks; the need to develop operational definitions and comparability; limitations that affect the generalizability of simulator studies; the simulator adaptation syndrome; the bias in performance assessment that can result when drivers have not adequately adapted to the simulator; and driving simulator validation. The issues covered would help readers recognize the many confounding variables and sources of measurement error that can flaw research of this type, and their implications for future investigations.

TIRF Road Safety Campaigns Report 2015

The Traffic Injury Research Foundation (TIRF) has recently released the report ‘Road Safety Campaigns – What the Research Tells Us‘. This report represents the first phase of a two-phase project that has been conducted by the Traffic Injury Research Foundation (TIRF) with funding from the Canadian Automobile Association (CAA). Road safety campaigns are one of the most popular and flexible tools to encourage behaviour change and improve road safety. This very interesting report contains an overview of leading theories that provide the foundation for road safety campaigns. It is combined with a comprehensive summary of the research evidence related to the effectiveness of road safety campaigns generally, and examples of individual campaign evaluations from North America and Europe regarding drinking and driving, distracted driving, seatbelt use, speeding and vulnerable road users. It also highlights what is known about learning styles based on educational theories and shares recommendations to help communities develop effective road safety campaigns.

NTUA/UOA – Cognition, Behaviour and Driving Inter-disciplinary Conference, Athens 2015

A targeted Interdisciplinary Conference on Cognition, Behaviour and Driving took place with great success on June 26^th, 2015 in Athens, co-organised by the Department of Transportation Planning and Engineering of the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), the Department of Neurology, Psychiatry and Social Medicine, and the Department of Psychology of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (UoA).

At this Conference, the results of the following two interdisciplinary research projects were presented:

DRIVERBRAIN – Performance of drivers with cerebral diseases at unexpected incidents, within the framework of the ARISTEIA research programme,
DISTRACT – Causes and impacts of driver distraction: a driving simulator study, within the framework of the THALES research programme,

both granted through open and highly competitive procedures by the Hellenic Ministry of Education, Lifelong Learning and Religious Affairs. Conference presentations concerned:

Driving errors, accidents and their predictors in patients with cognitive disorders

Design of a dedicated driving simulator experiment on driving behaviour

Investigating driver distraction with driving simulator experiments

A multimodal model for the prediction of driving behavior

Driving Behaviour and Mental Status Correlation Models

Driver distraction in patients with neurodegenerative diseases

The effect of driver distraction on driving performance

Psychiatric symptoms and disorders in driving

Driving behaviour, elderly and Mild Cognitive Impairment

Driving behaviour and Parkinson disease

Driving behaviour and mild Dementia

Self-assessment of driving in relation to driving performance

The effect of driver distraction on patients with brain diseases

The role of memory on patients with mild cognitive impairment

Good Practices on Cost-Effective Road Infrastructure Safety Investments – 2016

A paper titled ‘Good Practices on Cost – Effective Road Infrastructure Safety Investments‘ co-authored by Eleonora Papadimitriou, George Yannis and Petros Evgenikos is published in the International Journal of Injury Control and Safety Promotion. The paper presents the findings of research aiming to quantify and subsequently classify several infrastructure-related road safety measures, based on the international experience attained through extensive and selected literature review and additionally on a full consultation process including questionnaire surveys addressed to experts and relevant workshops. The results suggest that the overall cost effectiveness of a road safety infrastructure investment is not always in direct correlation with the safety effect and is recommended that cost-benefit ratios and safety effects are always examined in conjunction with each other in order to identify the optimum solution for a specific road safety problem in specific conditions and with specific objectives.

1st Congress of the European Academy of Neurology, Berlin 2015

The 1st Congress of the European Academy of Neurology took place with great success in Berlin, on 20-23 June 2015. More than 6.000 participants from more than 100 countries attended with an overwhelmingly positive feedback 8 Symposia, 25 Teaching courses, 23 Focused workshops, 5 Hands-on courses, 3 Interactive sessions, 5 Special Sessions and showed 1.546 posters, including 2 Scientific and 17 Industry Satellite Symposia. Few sessions concerned cognitive impairment and driving.

NTUA presentations concerned:

Accident risk of drivers with cognitive impairments

Assessment of driving performance of drivers with cognitive impairments: which are the critical measures?

Cerebral diseases and distractibility while driving

Self-awareness of performance in cognitive testing: differences between healthy elderly and patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD)

Self-assessment of change in driving in relation to current driving performance on a driving simulator in patients with various neurological conditions

Assessing incidental memory in cognitively intact individuals versus patients with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI)

The role of sleeping abnormalities on the driving performance of individuals with Mild Cognitive Impairment

Exploring indexes of driving performance in cognitively intact drivers and drivers with Parkinson’s Disease (PD)

5th-international-symposium-on-highway-geometric-design-vancouver-2015

The 5th International Symposium on Highway Geometric Design organised by TRB (Trasport Research Board), UBC (University of Columbia) and TRANSOFT took place with great success in Vancouver, on 22-24 June 2015. More than 300 road experts from more than 40 countries contributed to the discussions of more than 150 presentations on geometric design issues throughout the world, together with country reports featuring recent developments in road design, policy and practices, design and research products.

NTUA presentations concerned:

Design Considerations of Modern Roundabouts

3D SSD Control on Left-turn Curves of Freeways Overlapped with Vertical Curves

ETSC – Managing Young Drivers at Work 2015

A report on ‘Managing Young Drivers at Work‘ has recently been published by ETSC. Evidence shows that young people have the highest collision involvement of any road user group. Approximately one in four young people who die within Europe’s borders do so as a result of a road collision. This report looks into the direct and indirect factors associated with higher collision rates of young drivers at work and makes recommendations on how to assess and mitigate the specific risks associated with this group.

ETSC PIN Report – Ranking EU Progress on Road Safety 2015

The European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) has recently released the PIN Annual Report at the PIN Annual Conference on June 18th, 2015 in Brussels. In 2014, the worst annual reduction in EU road deaths since 2001 was observed.25,845 people were killed in the EU28 as a consequence of road collisions compared to 26,009 in 2013, representing a decrease of only 0.6%, compared with the decrease of 6.7% that is needed to reach the target for 2020 by equal annual reductions. Out of the 32 countries monitored by the PIN Programme, only 18 registered a drop in the number of road deaths between 2013 and 2014, 13 saw an increase while progress stagnated inone country. At this ETSC PIN Annual Report, it was also highlighted what the EU and member states need to do to get progress back on track to reach the EU’s 2020 road fatalities’ reduction targets. NTUA contributed actively to this ETSC PIN Annual Report.

SiEBEN / NTUA – Road Safety and Tunnel Users, Athens 2015

A very interesting workshop targeting the upgrade of road transport safety through the improvement of tunnel user behaviour with new training technologies took place in Athens, on 16 June 2015. The workshop was organised by SiEBEN, Mediascape, SYNERGEIA and the Laboratory of Industrial Engineering of the School of Mechanical Engineering of NTUA and concerned very interesting presentations and discussions on the findings of the respective research project safetunnels4u, funded by the Greek General Secretariat for Research and Technology.

NTUA presentation concerned: ‘Road Safety Infrastructure management‘

European Commission Interim Evaluation of Road Safety Policy 2011-2020

The Interim Evaluation of the road safety policy framework has been recently released by the European Commission, taking stock of action taken to date and assessing progress made towards the target of halving of the number of road deaths over the period 2011-2020. The main conclusions of this Interim Evaluation are:

– the policy framework remains relevant, – the fatality reduction target is an important tool, – the target is still within reach, but will be a challenge, – more attention needs to be paid to vulnerable road‑users and serious injuries, – future challenges: an ageing population, distracting technical devices.

The complete documentation of the European Commission Road Safety Policy Interim Evaluation is now available: The Interim Evaluation Report and the Staff Working Document , The Support study and its Annexes by Jeanne Breen, Policy orientations on road safety 2011-2020 and Transport White Paper 2011.

National Conference of the Hellenic Neurological Society, Alexandroupolis 2015

The 27th National Conference of the Hellenic Neurological Society took place with great success in Alexandroupolis, on 6-9 June 2015. One of the conference sessions was dedicated to neurological diseases and driving.

NTUA presentations concerned:

Relationship between sleep disorders and driving behavior of people with mild cognitive impairment

Self-awareness of cognitive performance: differences between healthy elderly and patients with mild cognitive impairment

Walking in a direct line as a prognosis indicator of fitness to drive in Parkinson disease patients

ETSC – Europe must boost safety for cyclists and walkers 2015

The European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) has just published the PIN Flash Report ‘M aking walking and cycling on Europe’s Roads Safer‘, with the contribution of NTUA.Around 138,400 pedestrians and cyclists lost their lives on EU roads between 2001 and 2013. Deaths of unprotected road users have been decreasing at a slower rate than those of vehicle occupants. In the last ten years deaths among pedestrians decreased by 41%, those among cyclists by 37% and those among power two wheeler (PTW) users by 34% compared to a 53% decrease for vehicle occupants. Since 2010 the reduction in the number of pedestrian and cyclist deaths has slowed down markedly. The safety of unprotected road users should therefore receive special attention from policymakers at the national and European levels.

National Congress on Psychological Research, Nicosia 2015

The 15th National Congress on Psychological Research organised by the Hellenic Psychological Society and the University of Cyprus took place with great success in Nicosia, Cyprus, on 27-31 May 2015. The theme of the conference was ‘Psychology in Greece and the Mediterranean‘ and included topics on driver psychology.

NTUA presentation concerned: ‘Neuropsychological factors in driving with or without distraction‘

SafetyCube Road Safety Decision Support System Workshop, Brussels 2015

The Stakeholders Workshop on the European Road Safety Decision Support System to be developed by the SafetyCube Horizons 2020 research project is scheduled for June 17th 2015 in Brussels. The purpose of this Workshop it to identify the needs and initiate the discussion between key road safety experts and stakeholders for the development of a European Road Safety Decision Support System (DSS) which will provide reliable and easily accessible information for the identification of the most cost-effective measures addressing each specific road safety problem.

The Workshop programme focuses on two main goals:

– to identify user for the European Road Safety Decision Support System

– to identify “hot topics” in terms of risk factors, safety effects and cost-benefit analyses to be considered in the SafetyCube DSS

Attendance is free on first-come first-served basis to those registered at the following link

New EU Regulation for eCall 2015

The EU 2015/758 Regulation concerning the type-approval requirements for the deployment of the eCall in-vehicle system based on the 112 service is just published in the Official Journal on 19 May 2015. This Regulation foresees the mandatory fitting of 112-based eCall in-vehicle system on all new types of M1 and N1 vehicles from 31 March 2018 onward, as well as the right of the vehicle owner to use a TPS eCall in-vehicle system providing a similar service, in addition to the 112-based eCall in-vehicle system. The 112 eCall automatically dials Europe’s single emergency number 112 in the event of a serious road accident and communicates the vehicle’s location to the emergency services.

EUSDR – First Danube Region Road Safety Conference, Ljubljana 2015

The First Danube Region Road Safety Conference: “Towards an Increased Road Safety in the Danube Region, towards Zero Vision”, organised by the EU Strategy for the Danube Region Programme (EUSDR PA1b), together with the Ministry of Infrastructure of the Republic of Slovenia and the Ministry of Construction, Transport and Infrastucture of the Republic of Serbia, took place with great success in Ljubljana, Slovenia, on 20 – 21 May 2015.

More than 100 policy makers, lead experts and international academia gathered in Ljubljana to discuss present and future road safety relevant challenges, solutions and best practices for the 14 countries of the Danube macro-region and beyond, including road safety soft and hard measures, improvement and development of road infrastructure, road safety management and human behaviour in traffic.

All presentations are now available.

NTUA presentation concerned: ‘Monitoring Road Safety Policies and Performance‘

European Commission – Benefit and feasibility of new technologies 2015

The European Commission has recently released a report titled ‘Benefit and feasibility of a range of new technologies and unregulated measures in the field of vehicle occupant safety and protection of vulnerable road users‘ prepared by Transport Research Laboratory (TRL). The report names technologies including Intelligent Speed Assistance (ISA), Automated Emergency Braking (AEB) and seat belt reminder systems in passenger seats as ‘feasible in terms of the technology required’, already available on the market and offering a positive benefit-cost ratio.

FEMA – RIDERSCAN project Completed – 2015

The RIDERSCAN project, a project co-funded by theEuropean Commission and coordinated by the Federation of European Motorcyclists’ Associations (FEMA), is now completed, gathering existing information on motorcycle safety in Europe, identifying needs for action and creating a crossborder knowledge-based network. All project Deliverables are now available

, including comprehensive Country Facts Sheets andRecommendations for policy actions. NTUA contributed to the various activities of the RIDERSCAN project.

Olympia Odos – Workzone Safety Video 2015

A video explaining the traffic arrangements in Olympia Odos has recently been released by Olympia Odos Operation Company. Olympia Odos is one of the hardest road infrastructure projects built today in Greece, because it has a major specificity; it is the only highway made while being in use by significant traffic volumes, as the under construction new motorway follows the route of the old road. In the video, the reasons for all the traffic arrangements and how they contribute in the safety of those who use the motorway and those working for the construction of the new motorway are illustrated.

Third United Nations Global Week on Children and Road Safety 2015

The global campaign for the Third United Nations Global Road Safety Week, organised by the UN Road Safety Collaboration took place the Week 4-10 May 2015, on the theme children and road safety. The campaign #SaveKidsLives was seeking to highlight the plight of children on the world’s roads; generate action to better ensure their safety; and promote the inclusion of safe and sustainable transport in the post-2015 development agenda. The campaign invited all road safety policy-makers and advocated to “sign it”, “show it”, and “deliver it” to those in charge of road safety in countries and communities during the Week.

Hundreds of international and national organisations participated actively at the campaigns for the road safety of children, including the World Health Organisation (WHO) which issued the ten strategies for keeping children safe on the road

, the European Commission

, the International Transport Forum

and the NTUA

UN Special Envoy on Road Safety 2015

The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has appointed FIA President Jean Todt as his Special Envoy for Road Safety at a meeting held today in Paris. In this capacity, he will assist the UN Secretary General in mobilizing sustained political commitment towards road safety. Mr. Todt will also advocate and raise awareness about the United Nations road safety legal instruments, and share established road safety good practices, through his participation in global and regional activities on road safety.

NTUA – IFSTTAR – Modelling Pedestrian Behaviour Workshop – Paris 2015

A Workshop on Observation and Modelling of Pedestrian Behaviour in Urban Areas organised by the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) and the French Institute of Science and Technology for Transport, Development and Networks (IFSTTAR) took place with great success in Marne-la-Valée – Paris, on 4 May 2015, within the framework of the Post Doctoral research project “PEDMOD- Models of pedestrian behaviour and safety” of NTUA Research Associate Dr. Eleonora Papadimitriou. The objective of the Workshop was the analysis of the state of the art on pedestrian behaviour observation and modelling, through the exchange of experiences in implementing meaningful pedestrian behaviour measurements, testing novel methodologies to explore pedestrian strategies, choices and behavioural patterns, and developing flexible and robust models to predict and understand pedestrian walking and crossing behaviour in urban areas.

All presentations are now available:

The PEDMOD research project – Overview (George Yannis – NTUA)

Analysis of pedestrian trajectories: behavioural patterns and individual practices (Sylvain Lassarre – IFSTTAR)

Integration of human factors in pedestrian crossing choice models (Eleonora Papadimitriou – NTUA)

Methods for observing pedestrian behaviour: ethologic observation and declared questionnaire (Marie-Axelle Granié – IFSTTAR)

Observation of children pedestrian behaviours – the ESSAIM project (Marie-Soleil Cloutier – INRS)

Pedestrian trajectories in stations (Zoi Christoforou & Pierre Argoul – LVMT/ENPC)

Pedestrian behaviour through experimental studies on street-crossing simulator (Aurelie Dommes – IFSTTAR)

Modelling for the pedestrians simulation (Jean-Michel Auberlet – IFSTTAR)

OSCE Road Safety Regional Conference, Pristina 2015

A Regional Conference on Road Traffic Safety and activities within the Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011-2020″, organised by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) – Mission for Kosovo, took place in Pristina, Kosovo on 29 April 2015. More than 50 road safety decision makers, experts and stakeholders adressed all current and future aspects of road safety in Kosovo.

NTUA presentation concerned: ‘Monitoring Road Safety Policies and Performance‘

NTUA Civil Engineering School ranked 29th worldwide 2015

The Civil Engineering School of the National Technical University of Athens was ranked this year 29th among all Civil Engineering Schools worldwide and 8th in Europe. This ranking is produced by the QS Organisation based on the following criteria: Research, Teaching, Employability, Facilities, Internationalization, Innovation, Engagement and Access. NTUA road safety activities have contributed to this ranking.

Professor Demetris Koutsoyiannis, Dean of the Civil Engineering School said that this great improvement is the result of the systematic and collective efforts of all Faculty members for academic and research excellence.