The DEKRA Vision Zero is an interactive map showing European cities and towns that achieve a total zero in road fatalities. An assessment of the accident statistics for 17 European countries from 2009 to 2012 by DEKRA Accident Research shows that a total of 462 towns and cities with over 50,000 inhabitants achieved a total of zero at least once in this period. The interactive map shows not only the 17 countries originally examined but is constantly being expanded and updated using further data as it becomes available.  Three towns in Greece are among these 462 European cities with zero fatalities: Kalamaria and Neapoli-Sykies (Thessaloniki suburbs) and Zografou (Athens suburbs).

The International Road Traffic and Accident Database (IRTAD) of the International Transport Forum (ITF/OECD) published the Annual Report 2014, which comprises asynthesis of the main trends and road safety indicators for the year 2012 and preliminary data for the year 2013. It presents longer-term trends in order to better understand the developments taking place in the different countries. The road fatality count in IRTAD countries was 1.7% lower in 2012 than 2011 whilst mobility, in terms of motorised vehicle-kilometres, remained more or less constant. Although the fatality reduction fits into the long-term downward trend, 2012 saw the smallest reduction in ten years. Moreover, a report activity of the IRTAD Group summarising the activities of the Group and detailed reports from 37 countries are presented. NTUA has contributed to the detailed report for Greece. 

A new link is now available in the European Commission Road safety webpage, containing road safety actions’ videos from all over Europe. The purpose of this link is to inform the users and the stakeholders on actions that take place in Europe concerning road safety and to encourage them for further actions promoting road safety in Europe. 

The Sixth European Road Safety Day took place with great success in Athens on May 9th, 2014 organised by the European Commission, in cooperation with the Greek EU Presidency. This one-day conference, centred around the headline theme ‘Safe and smart infrastructure’, brought together more than 250 road safety experts, stakeholders and decision-makers from Greece and from Europe who participated actively at the two round table discussions on infrastructure challenges and on technological solutions. In parallel, several interesting road safety products, services and concepts were presented at the information stands offered by leading European and Greek road safety organisations. 

NTUA Professor Emeritus George Kanellaidis presentation concerned Road safety strategy and measures. 

 

The European Commission has published for the first time a scoreboard on transport in the EU. It compares Member State performance in 22 transport-related categories and highlights for most of these categories the five top and bottom performers. The Netherlands and Germany top the scoreboard with high scores in 11 categories, followed by Sweden, the UK and Denmark. The aim of this first EU Transport Scoreboard is to give a snapshot of the diversity of Member State performance in transport matters across Europe and to help Member States identify shortcomings and define priorities for investment and policies. Road fatalities indicators can be compared with all other transport indicators of all EU countries. 

Transport infographics on how EU policy has evolved in the last 5 years is now available by the European Commission. The key points are:  

The 42nd Annual ASECAP Study and Information Days organised by the European Association with tolled motorways (ASECAP) took place with great success on 26-28 May in Athens. The conference reflected the interconnection, under the umbrella of sustainability, between questions regardingtolling and concessions, road safety and security and Intelligent Transport Systems, and exploited the added value of combining the unmatched technical expertise and field experience of ASECAP Members with top-notch political considerations. On the first day of the discussion a special session focused on Road safety, security and sustainability.  All conference presentations are now available. 

The new report ‘Safe Roads for All: A Post-2015 Agenda for Health and Development’ from the Commission for Global Road Safety is now available, urging a road safety target to be included in the new UN Sustainable Development Goals. The Mandela family is leading The Long Short Walk campaign calling for road safety to be included in the post-2015 development agenda. 2015 is a crunch year as it will be the launch date for new Sustainable Development Goals to replace the Millennium Development Goals. 

In April 2014, the European transport Safety Council (ETSC) published in its re-designed website a PIN Flash concerning Car Occupant Safety. Around 240,000 car occupants were killed in road collisions in the EU in the years 2001-2012 . There were 12,345 deaths in 2012 compared with 27,700 in 2001, a cut of 55%. Deaths of car occupants were cut by more than the overall death rate (49%) and substantially more than the rate for other road users (41%). Car occupants have therefore benefitted more than other road users from road safety measures adopted over the past decade. This is not surprising, as many of those measures were targeted at car occupants including increased enforcement of the main traffic offences, improved vehicle occupant protection, and, to a lesser extent, improved infrastructure. 

A conference on Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS), eCall and road safety was organised by the Ministry of Infrastructure, Transport and Networks of the Hellenic Republic in cooperation with the European Commission and ERTICO, under the auspices of the Greek Presidency of the Council of the European Union. The conference took place with great success on 25th April, in Athens. More than 200 key stakeholders and decision makers on ITS and road safety discused and contributed with the latest developments in the field with focus on the potential deployment of these techologies in Greece. 

A conference on Road Safety in Europe, organised by TISPOL, will take place on 30 September – 1 October 2014, in Manchester. The conference will focus on the current thinking and developments in road safety and enforcement from across Europe and beyond. 

A paper based on the results of the DaCoTA research project has been awarded the best poster of scientific paper award of the Transport Research Arena Conference.  This paper was presented by NTUA Associate Professor George Yannis and concerned the “Development of the European Road Safety Knowledge System“, published at the Proceedings of the Transport Research Arena Conference, Paris, April 2014. The objective of this paper was the presentation of the integrated and comprehensive European Road Safety Knowledge System, which was developed within the DaCoTA research project of the 7th Framework Programme of the European Commission. 

On 10 April 2014 the UN General Assembly adopted the “Improving global road safety” Resolution sponsored by the Russian Government. Among key decisions, the Resolution welcomes the offer of the Government of Brazil to host the Second Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety in 2015, encourages the inclusion of road safety in the post-2015 development agenda, invites WHO to continue monitoring progress in the Decade of Action and requests organization of the Third UN Global Road Safety Week in 2015 on children and road safety. It backs calls for road safety to be considered in developing post-2015 global “Sustainable Development Goals” which are key to finance for road safety. 

A Report on Transport for Health was recently published by theWorld Bank and the Institute for health metrics and evaluation. This Report contains data and analysis to quantify the health losses from road deaths and injuries worldwide, as part of the path-finding Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study. The Report’s findings highlight the growth in road deaths and injuries globally, and their substantial impacts on maternal and child health, despite sustained reductions over the last three to four decades in high-income countries. This Transport for Health Report further reinforces the call for global action.   

The Transport Research Arena 2014 (TRA 2014) took place with great success in Paris on 14-17 April 2014. TRA 2014 isthe major conference on transport research in Europe, organised by IFSTTAR, the French Institute of Science and Technology for Transport, Development and Networks, supported by the European Commission, the Conference of European Road Directors, and the three European Technology Platforms: the European Road Transport Research Advisory Council (ERTRAC), the European Rail Research Advisory Council (ERRAC), and the Waterborne TP. 

Almost 3,000 participants from 56 countries attended over 130 sessions, 650 presentations and 15 associated events. Bernard Jacob, IFSTTAR Deputy Scientific Director, stated that researchers and industrial and public policy players had vivid discussions on our society’s changing transport usage and requirements in the face of increasingly serious energy and environmental challenges. Current and future road safety challenges were discussed in several sessions, including the Transport Safety strategic session chaired by NTUA Associate Professor George Yannis.  NTUA presentations concerned:

 Transport Safety in Europe – a cross modal approach

 European perspectives for reliable crash modification factors

  Development of the European Road Safety Knowledge System

  Analysis of road safety management systems in Europe

  European Road Safety and e-Safety

  Assessment of road safety legislation, policy and institutional capacity in South-East European regions

  First exploration of the effect of road environment on distracted driving through a driving simulator study

  First findings from a simulator study on driving behaviour of drivers with cerebral diseases

  Attitudes of Greek drivers towards mobile phone use while driving

  Mobility and safety of powered two-wheelers in the OECD countries

A Seminar on the Impact of Distracted Driving and Sleepiness on Road Safety, organised by the International Transport Forum, took place in Paris on 15 April 2014, during the Transport Research Arena Conference. The objectives of the Seminar were to discuss latest research work in ITF countries to better understand the impact of distraction and fatigue on driving performance and road safety and identify measures that can help in the short and longer term in mitigating the effects on crash occurrence. The Seminar involved key stakeholders, including researchers, policy advisors, industry, police, user associations to highlight latest knowledge on these emerging road safety issues, and discuss forthcoming developments in regulation, vehicle and IT technology that have an impact on distraction and fatigue. All presentations are now available.  

The Transnational Road Safety Workshop took place in Budapest, on April 9th, 2014 and was organised by the ROSEE project in the framework of the South East Europe transnational cooperation programme. Representatives from the ROSEE project countries (Italy, Romania, Hungary, Greece, Slovenia, Bulgaria) discussed on the current road safety situation in the South-East European regions, explored the potential for the improvement of the road users’ and the road infrastructure safety and contributed in forming proposals and recommendations for road safety investments. All presentations are available at the ROSEE project website. 

The NTUA presentation concerned the Transnational Report on road safety in South-East Europe, focussing on specific road safety issues related to the policy framework, the road infrastructure and the behaviour of road users in this region. 

The strategic target of the European Commission is to halve road deaths between 2010 and 2020 and also to start focusing EU efforts on reducing serious road traffic injuries. Between 2001 and 2010, the number of fatalities on EU roads was reduced by a total of 43%. However, to achieve the goal, determined and joined-up action is needed from many actors at EU, national and local level.  At EU level, actions in recent years include the following 10 highlights:

The Road Safety Unit of DG MOVE of the European Commission issued the Road Safety Vademecum, in order to provide an overview of the latest road safety data and the main road safety developments in the European Union. It is based on data from the EU road accident database (CARE), presenting the first provisional figures reported for 2013, where available, complemented with the final detailed data for 2012. 

The 35th FISITA Congress, organised by the International Federation of Automotive Engineering Societies (FISITA) and the Royal Institute of Engineers in the Netherlands (KIVI), took place on 2-6 June in Maastricht. 

A special session ‘Towards a Global Strategic Research Agenda for Road Safety‘ was organised by the PROS European research project on the 5th of June.

A paper titled ‘Relationship between motorcyclists’ attitudes, behaviour and other attributes with declared accident involvement in Europe‘ co-authored by Athanasios Theofilatos and George Yannis is now published in Traffic Injury Prevention. The objective of this study is to investigate patterns of road safety attitudes and behaviors of motorcyclists in Europe on the basis of the results of the pan-European questionnaire-based survey SARTRE-4, carried out in late 2010 in 18 European countries and Israel. It was found that motorcyclists who tend to have dangerous attitudes and behaviors as well as younger motorcyclists are more likely to have been involved in an accident. The findings of the study provide some insight into the association between attitudes, behaviors, and declared past accident involvement.  

EFTHITA Rhodes and the Region of South Aegean organised a workshop celebrating 10 years of actions on road safety, which took place with great success in Rhodes on 27-28 March 2014. Road safety experts and stakeholders contributed and discussed on new challenges for road accidents prevention. Special emphassis was given to traffic education, including an interactive theatrical performance for young children. 

NTUA presentations on Road Safety concerned:

 Development of the Strategic Plan for the improvement of road safety in Greece, 2011 – 2020

 Road Safety Education at the Strategic Plan for the improvement of road safety in Greece, 2011 – 2020

The World Health Organisation has launched a new library of road safety campaign videos from around the world. The database can be searched by topic, language and region and is designed to offer inspiration to campaigners planning public awareness efforts on the key road safety topics.  

The International Road Union (IRU) has published new guidelines for safe load securing in road transport. The guidelines aim to provide a guide for safe and effective load securing for all situations that may occur in normal traffic conditions. They should also serve as a common basis for both practical application and enforcement of load securing.

The 17th Meeting of the International Traffic Safety Data and Analysis Group (IRTAD) organised by the International Transport Forum (ITF) in Paris, on 24-25 March, 2014. 

The European Parliament adopted with a clear majority the roadworthiness package, a set of measures to toughen up vehicle checks and to widen their scope. The three directives that constitute the roadworthiness package concern periodic roadworthiness tests, technical roadside inspections for commercial vehicles and vehicle registration documents. The new directives replace existing EU rules setting minimum standards for vehicle checks that date back to 1977, with only minor updates. These new rules aim to avoid more than 36,000 accidents a year linked to technical failure. 

A Road Safety debate on Greece’s Road Safety in a European context was organised by the European Transport Safety Council (ETSC), the Road Safety Institute “Panos Mylonas” and the Hellenic Institute of Transport, under the auspices of the Greek EU Presidency, on March 19th, 2014, in Athens. 

This was the 38th Road Safety Performance Index debate (PIN Talk) organised by ETSC since the first PIN talk in Athens on November 2006. The Road Safety Performance Index (PIN) Programme was launched in 2006 aiming to compare country performances in road safety, issuing every year the PIN Annual Report.  More than 100 experts and stakeholders participated in the very interesting discussions on measuring safety performance in Europe and in Greece. 

NTUA Associate Professor George Yannis made a presentation on Monitoring road safety policies and performance.