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American Academy of Neurology Annual Meeting, Washington 2015

The 67th AAN Annual Meeting organised by the American Academy of Neurology took place with great success in Washington, DC, on 18-25 April 2015. A special session ondriving performance contained very interesting contributions.

NTUA presentations concerned:

City and rural driving performance in healthy controls, MCI, and AD patients: Preliminary results from a driving simulation experiment with the use of distraction

Motor abilities and driving performance in Parkinson’s disease (PD)

Motorway driving performance in healthy controls, MCI, and AD patients: Preliminary results from a driving simulation experiment

9th Panhellenic Conference of Alzheimer Disease and Related Disorders, Thessaloniki 2015

The 9th Panhellenic Conference of Alzheimer Disease and Related Disorders organised by the Greek Association of Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Disorders took place in Thessaloniki, on 23-26 April 2015.

NTUA presentations concerned:

Relationship between depression and driving behavior of people with mild cognitive impairment

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

RTSA – Road Safety in Local Communities Conference, Kragujevac 2015

The Road Traffic Safety Agency of Serbia (RTSA) together with several Serbian and international road safety Governmental, Academic and other organisations organised with great success the 10th Jubilee International Conference on Road Safety in Local Communities, in Kragujevac, Serbia, on 22-25 April 2015. More than 150 national and international road safety decision makers, experts and stakeholders contributed to very fruitful discussion focussing all five pillars of the Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011-2020.

NTUA presentation concerned: ‘Integrated speed management strategies in local communities in South East Europe‘

University of Cyprus – Round Table discussion on the young drivers’ safety 2015

A Round Table discussion dedicated to the young drivers’ safety organised by the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (Laboratory of Transportation Engineering) of the University of Cyprus, will take place inNicosia, on 29 April 2015. The event is taking place right before the summer period begins, to promote road safety behavior of the public (especially young drivers) and Cyprus’s visitors for vacation and recreation.

IBSR – International Symposium on Road Safety Behaviour Measurements and Indicators, Brussels 2015

An International Symposium on Road Safety Behaviour Measurements and Indicators, organised by the Belgian Road Safety Institute, took place with great success in Brussels, on 23 April 2015. The event featured presentations by international experts on behaviour monitoring, exchange of experiences in implementing behaviour measurements and discussions about methodologies used to build representative indicators.

All the presentations of the conference are now available.

NTUA presentation concerned: ‘Star rating driver traffic and safety behaviour through OBD and smartphone data collection‘

FEHRL Infrastructure Research Meeting – Brussels 2015

The Forum of European National Highway Research Laboratories (FEHRL) organised the FEHRL Infrastructure Research Meeting (FIRM15), which took place in Brussels, on 22-23 April 2015. This key event, gathered some 120 transport infrastructure innovation and research experts, including European and national policy makers, leading industry, standardisation agencies, SME’s and the media.

With the theme of “Innovative maintenance of Transport Infrastructure. Faster, cheaper, more reliable, safer, greener”, FIRM15 featured multiple information sessions on the following themes:

• Infrastructure level: Engineering and technical solutions

• System level: operations including monitoring inspections

• Governance level: management and financial issues

All the presentations of the event are now available.

European Commission – Road Infrastructure Safety Management Report 2015

The European Commission has recently released a ‘Study on the effectiveness and on the improvement of the EU legislative framework on road infrastructure safety management‘, prepared by Transport & Mobility Leuven. The overall objective of this study was to assist the European Commission with the evaluation of Directive 2008/96/EC on road infrastructure safety management and to investigate possible changes in the light of new technological developments. The specific objectives of the study were:

1) To carry out an ex-post evaluation of the application of Directive 2008/96/EC. What were the main impacts of its application on road safety? What steps were taken to implement the Directive? What is the relevance of the Directive?

2) To provide a preliminary analysis of the possible areas of improvement with regards to road safety and the safety of road infrastructure in particular.

NTUA Professor George Yannis contributed to the respective stakeholder consultation.

European Commission online tool for all driving licenses models in the EU 2015

The European Commission has launched a new online search tool that displays most valid driving licence models issued in the European Economic Area (Liechtenstein, Norway and Iceland) countries. The tool showspictures of the licence and other information such as explanation of national categories, national codes and administrative validity of the document and will be particular useful for national authorities working on road side checks or dealing with the administrative exchange of driving licences.

Hellenic Institute of Transport – Safe School Transport Workshop 2015

A workshop on ‘Safe School Transport: New technologies pave the way for optimizing the organization and upgrading the safety of school transport system’, organised by the Hellenic Institute of Transport of the Centre for Research and Technology Hellas (CERTH) took place in Thessaloniki, on March 27th, 2015. The event was organised under the framework of the project ‘Integrated System for the Safe Transport of Students‘ – i-student trip.

Road fatalities per million population, European Union 2005 – 2014

Nine countries have a better performance than the EU average. Greece is ranked 22nd in 2014. Spain reached more than 65% reduction of the rate fatalities per population in the last decade.

ΤISPOL New three-year Strategic Plan 2015

A NEW three-year strategic plan has recently been published by TISPOL. The plan sets out how TISPOL will play its part in reducing deaths, serious injuries and crimes on Europe’s roads, and in so doing will be the most effective police road safety network in the world. Four strategic objectives form the centrepiece of the plan: – A safer road network for all users – Detecting and preventing crime on the road network within Europe – Engaging in effective partnership activity – Ensuring an efficient organisational and financial plan These objectives are underpinned by TISPOL’s values of service, professionalism, integrity, compassion, equality and fairness.

EU road safety statistics show small improvement for 2014

The European Commission has published the most recent statistics on road fatalities, based on provisional data for 2014 road deaths in Europe. The number of road fatalities has decreased by approximately only 1% compared to 2013; the decrease rate has slowed down in 2014 following on the 8% decrease in 2012 and 2013. The average EU fatality rate for 2014 is expected to be 51 road deaths per million inhabitants. Country by country statistics show that the number of road deaths still varies greatly across the EU, from less than 30 (Malta, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom) to above 90 (Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania and Romania) deaths per million inhabitants.

In the respective accompanying European Commission road safety statistics report, the basic safety trends, statistics and challenges in the EU 2010-2014 are highlighted, with focus on pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists.

IOAS/HITE Road Safety Week 2015

The 8th Road Safety Week organised by the Road Safety Institute ‘Panos Mylonas’ and the Hellenic Institute of Transportation Engineers on 16-23 March 2015, under the framework of UN activities for Road Safety 2015, with focus to children traffic safety. Most of the activities of this year’s road safety day took place in Athens and in Patras and were devoted to children with the interactive traffic education program ‘On the Road to Safety’.

Feasibility analysis of installing pedestrian bridges in major road axes in Athens 2015

A Diploma Thesis titled ‘Feasibility analysis of installing pedestrian bridges in major road axes in Athens‘ was presented by Natalia Vraka in March 2015. Sixteen hazardous road locations for the five year period 2007 – 2011, were identified through the Quality Control method, assessing accident data concerning pedestrians and traffic volume data regarding eleven central road axes of Athens with a high pedestrian traffic. Then, a before-and-after accident analysis method with a large control group was applied , which demonstrated a strong dissimilarity between the six examined pedestrian bridges. As a result, no clear conclusions could be drawn about the impact of pedestrian bridges in accidents frequency and severity. However, based on in situ observations made at the 16 dangerous road sections, the conclusion drawn was that there is high potential for the construction of pedestrian bridges in four of them, whereas in four others specific additional interventions would be needed.

UN/ECE Round Table on Power Two Wheeler Safety 2015

The Working Party on Road Traffic Safety of the United Nations – Economic Commission for Europe on the occasion of its 70th meeting has organised with great success in Geneva, on 23 March 2015 a Round Table on Power Two Wheeler Safety. Several international PTW safety experts contributed state of the art developments from around the world on traffic safety of motorcycles, scooters and mopeds, available at the UN/ECE website.

NTUA Professor George Yannis made an invited presentation on ‘Improved Safety of Motorcycles, Scooters and Mopeds‘

Global NCAP – Millions of new cars worldwide fail UN safety standards 2015

The Road Map for Safer Cars 2020 has recently been published by Global NCAP with ten key recommendations for safer cars. Millions of new cars sold in middle and low income countries fail to meet the UN’s basic safety standards for front and side impacts revealed international automotive safety watchdog Global NCAP. A package of minimum safety regulations for adoption by the end of the UN Decade, measures to promote a market for safety among car buyers in the rapidly motorising countries, policies to sustain the safety of the vehicles once in use, and a proposed industry voluntary commitment to implement minimum occupant safety standards to all new passenger cars are included in the Road Map. If this Road Map is followed by 2020, all new cars in the world would pass the minimum UN standards for crashworthiness and crash avoidance. This would spread the advances in automotive safety technology across all countries, mitigate the risks of rapid motorisation, and help achieve a world free from many avoidable and unnecessary road traffic fatalities.

Investigation of the effect of vehicle collision type on road accident severity in Greece – 2015

A Diploma Thesis titled ‘Investigation of the effect of vehicle collision type on road accident severity in Greece‘ was presented by Olga Reitzopoulou in March 2015. Appropriately processed data for the period 2007-2011 in Greece were used from the ELSTAT datafile based on Traffic Police records and special log-rate analysis models were developed. Severity has been chosen to be expressed as the rate of number of persons killed and seriously injured divided by the number of slightly injured persons. The analysis led to the investigation of the impact on accident severity of the area type and the vehicle type involved. It appears that the severity is higher for passenger car and motorcycle occupants, while the vehicle type of the opponent car that affects more the severity is passenger car and truck. This impact is higher outside urban areas.

EuroRAP – How Safe Are You On Europe’s Trade Routes? 2015

Benefit results of road improvement programmes are now available fromEuroRAP. In terms of crash costs alone, more than 2% of European GDP is lost annually. The expected Benefit-Cost ratio is 5 for applying EuroRAP recommendations across the TEN-T, as highlighted in a recent EuroRAP infographic.

NTUA / HITE – 6th Pan-hellenic Road Safety Conference, Athens 2015

The National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) and the Hellenic Institute of Transportation Engineers organised the 6th Pan-Hellenic Conference on Road Safety, which took place with great success in Athens at the Amphitheater of the Ministry of Infrastructure, on 12-13 March 2015. The main objectives of the conference were to explore and assess the level of road safety in the country and the efforts and innovations implemented to improve the road safety of drivers, vehicles and pedestrians in Greece. More than 300 road safety experts and stakeholders participated at the 8 sessions with 35 oral and 24 poster presentations.

The Conference Proceedings and the respective presentations are available at the Conference website.

NTUA presentations concerned:

Road Safety Patterns in South-East European Regions

A Speed Management Strategy for the Peloponnese

Forecasting the number of road traffic fatalities in Greece

Road Safety Management in Greece

Exploratory analysis of the effect of distraction on driving behaviour through a driving simulator experiment

Driving performance profiles of drivers with brain pathologies in rural roads

Comparative analysis of factors affecting driving under the influence of alcohol of car drivers and motorcyclists

Investigation of the relationship between working memory and Parkinson’s disease in a driving simulator

Investigation of the impact on road safety of increasing the speed limit on motorways

Safety Practices of Nursery School Travel: Preliminary Results from Ilioupoli

A review of the impact of traffic volume on road accidents

Identification of potential hazardous locations on existing roads as related to road alignment

Investigation of the influence of the road grade in determining the Stopping Sight Distance

Safety considerations in road infrastructure design

Road accident data analysis: from correlation to causation and policy support

Olympia Odos Road Safety advices 2015

Road Safety advice is now available on Olympia Odos webpage. Useful advice is given for different driving scenarios, for example driving inside tunnels, what to do in the case of fire etc.

Akis Theofilatos obtained the NTUA Thomaidion Award 2015

Athanasios Theofilatos, 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, obtained theNTUA Thomaidion Αward 2013 for the publication of the paper titled “Pedestrian Gap Acceptance for Mid-Block Street Crossing”, co-authored by Prof. George Yannis and Dr. Eleonora Papadimitriou in the Journal of Transportation Planning and Technology.

ETSC – Ranking EU progress on improving motorways safety 2015

The European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) has just published the PIN Flash Report ‘Ranking EU progress on improving mororways safety‘, with the contribution of NTUA. Motorways are the safest roads by design and regulation. Nevertheless in 2013, around 1,900 people were killed on the motorway network in the EU, representing 7% of all road deaths. Nearly 27.500 people have died on motorways in the EU in the last ten years 2004 to 2013. Nevertheless progress has been made. Across the EU the number of people killed on motorways was cut by 49% between 2004 and 2013 (compared to 44% on the rest of the road network). Over the same period, the length of the motorway network increased by about a quarter.

IJT – Special Issue on Road Safety in Europe 2015

The International Journal of Transportation, published online by the Science and Engineering Researh Support Society (SERSC) has just announced a call for papers for the Special Issue on Road Safety in Europe, with Guest Editors NTUA Professors George Yannis and Constantinos Antoniou. This Journal provides a chance for academic and industry professionals to discuss recent progress in the area of Transportation. The merit of this journal is to expedite the review process in order to deliver emerging issues timely. The deadline for paper subbmission is end of April 2015.

Greece presents an impressive 5-year drop of 46% in road fatalities in 2014

According to provisional data from the Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT), the number of road fatalities in 2014 continued to decrease significantly (-10%), whereas serious injuries decreased by 17%. Road fatalities in Greece have decreased by an impressive 46% since 2009, whereas injury road accidents decreased by 21%. The rate fatalities per number of vehicles (72 fatalities per million inhabitants) has also decreased in the same period by 46% making Greece to advance several steps among the EU countries, getting for the first time closer to the EU average (52) than to the least performing EU countries (90-105). This impressive decrease can be attributed to the joint effect of: a) more systematic initiatives from the Authorities (intensification of enforcement, construction and upgrade of 2.500 km of motorways, urban mobility plans) and several stakeholders (new vehicles, campaigns, training and monitoring) and b) the deep economic crisis, which brought new traffic patterns (less veh-kms, less risky drivers) and less speedy and aggressive driver behaviour.

ERF / NTUA / HITE – Road Infrastructure Safety Equipment Technical Conference – Athens 2015

More than 200 road infrastructure safety experts and stakeholders have attended the 2-day Technical Conference on ‘Current Advances in Road Infrastructure Safety Equipment’ organised by the European Union Road Federation (ERF), in cooperation with the Hellenic Institute of Transportation Engineers (HITE) and the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), that took place on 12-13 February 2015, in the Acropolis Museum, Athens.

The first day of the Technical Conference was dedicated to European and Greek policies and legislation with respect to road infrastructure safety, with the second focusing more on European standards and their implementation in Greece, together with good practices for road infrastructure safety equipment. Technical sessions focused on road restraint systems, horizontal and vertical signage, work-zones, passive support and maintenance. All presentations are now available.

NTUA presentation concerned ‘Management of Road Infrastructure Safety‘

EP – Cross-border enforcement of traffic rules possible in EU 2015

On Wednesday, February 11th, 2015 the European Parliament plenary overwhelmingly adopted Spanish MEP’s Ayala Sender’s report on cross-border exchange of information on road safety related traffic offences, based on the European Commissions’ updated rules to tackle traffic offences committed abroad. These rules will allow Member States to exchange information in order to identify EU drivers who commit traffic offences abroad, including the four “big killers” that cause 75% of road fatalities: speeding, running traffic lights, failure to use seatbelts and drunk driving. These rules will apply to all EU Member States.

ERF Towards safer work zones 2015

Report titled ‘Towards Safer Work Zones‘ has been released by the European Union Road Federation (ERF). The ERF’s dedicated Working Group, carried out a focused research on national guidelines, legislations and cases regarding equipment deployed in road work zones, in order to detect best practices, identify improvements and produce performance guidelines adapted to the state of the art. This Report focuses on the TEN-T road network and examined the approach, activity and termination areas in mobile, short and long term work zones, current practices and the equipment used throughout the European countries.

Attiki Odos awarded European Excellence in Road Safety 2015

Attikes Diadromes, the Operator of “Attiki Odos” Athens Ring Road Motorway, was among the five organisations to receive the 2015 Excellence in Road Safety Award from Violeta Bulc, the EU’s Commissioner for Transport, at a ceremony in Brussels. This Award, also known as the Charter Award recognises the most innovative practices carried out in the framework of the European Road Safety Charter. The objective of such an award is to recognise the hard work of organisations that engage in road safety, and to inspire others to do so as well. The winners were selected from some 2.200 signatories of the Road Safety Charter following an evaluation made by the European Commission.

SAFER – FAST-zero Symposium, Gothenburg 2015

The FAST-zero Symposium organised by SAFER – Vehicle and Traffic Safety Centre and Chalmers University of Technology in co-operation with Swedish Vehicular Engineering Association will take place in Gothenburg, Sweden, on 9-11 September 2015. The symposium will be held outside Japan for the first time. Sweden is a natural choice for a FAST-zero symposium since the Swedish parliament was the first to announce a Vision Zero policy. The main idea is simple: No loss of life in traffic is acceptable. But the approach is innovative; since humans make mistakes, instead of making the driver responsible, vehicles and traffic system solutions must be designed so that accidents are avoided.

SAFER/STA/NHTSA – International Conference on Enhanced Safety of Vehicles, Gothenburg 2015