In August 2010, UNECE published the report “Consolidated Resolution on Road Traffic”. Since 1947, road safety has been one of UNECE’s major concerns and for its Working Party on Road Trafic Safety, in particular. The Resolution contributes to road safety by encouraging safer operation and use of the road traffic system across borders. In this context, this document is considered to be a contribution by UNECE to improve road safety worldwide which also complements the activities of its global partners.   

A Diploma Thesis titled ‘Investigation of the impact of road lighting on the frequency and the severity of road accidents’   was presented by Nikolaos Mitzalis in July 2010.This diploma thesis has been awarded with the Ecocity award 2012. Suitably processed data were used from the database of the Department of Transportation Planning and Engineering of the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) and lognormal regression models were developed. The application of these models led to the investigation of the influence of road lighting and other parameters such as weather conditions, accident type, vehicle type etc. on the number of casualties and injuries. It appears that road lighting contributes to the reduction of the number of accidents and their severity and that this influence increases with the increase of the severity of the accidents. 

In July 2010, EU published the policy orientation on road safety 2011-2020. Road safety is a major societal issue. In 2009, more than 35,000 people died on the roads of the European Union. The cost for society is huge, representing approximately 130 billion Euro in 2009. Therefore, a corehent holistic and integrated approach is needed, taking into account synergies with other policy goals. Road safety policies at local, national, European or international level should integrate relevant objectives of other public policies and vice versa. 

The 12th World Conference on Transport Research was held in Lisbon, Portugal. At the road safety sessions quite a few interesting papers were presented, some of them concerning research carried out by NTUA.

NTUA road safety presentations concerned:

  Modelling Intelligent Speed Adaptation

  Road infrastructure and Safety of Power Two Wheelers

  Pedestrian gap acceptance for mid-block street crossing

  Cell phone use and traffic characteristics

  Comparative analysis of junction safety in Europe

The Directorate General for Mobility and Transport (DG Move) of the European Commission released the Statistical Pocketbook 2010 ‘EU Transport in figures’. In this Statistical Pocketbook, key road safety Tables are contained, together with several other Tables on transport statistics, providing a complete picture of current trends in transport in Europe. Data on road fatalities for the EU member states and associate countries allowed for time series comparisons and country rankings.  

The report “Research Projects and Studies 2001-2008“, published by the Directorate-General for Mobility and Transport of the European Commission, is a backround document for the preparation of the strategic guidelines for road safety up to 2020. The report highlights challenges and opportunities in road safety research in Europe, describing the contribution from the European Community’s Research Framework Programmes as well as from other research activities at European level and their impact on road transport safety sector.   

In June 2010, ETSC published the results of the Annual PIN Report. As many as 34,900 people lost their lives in road collisions in 2009, this is still far more than the maximum of 27,000 which the EU set for 2010. Yet it is 19,500 fewer than in 2001 showing great progress has been made across the EU. Since 2001, road deaths have been cut by 36% in the EU27. Comparison of developments up to 2009 show that Latvia, Spain, Portugal and Estonia achieved the best reductions. Greece was ranked last before the last according to the ETSC report. 

A research titled ‘Mobile phone use by young drivers: effects on traffic speed and headways’ co-authored by G.Yannis, E.Papadimitriou, X.Karekla and F.Kontodima was published in Transportation Planning and Technology in June 2010. A field survey was carried out in real road traffic conditions, in which drivers’ speeds and headways were measured while using or not using a mobile phone. Results show that mobile phone use leads to a statistically significant reduction in traffic speeds of young drivers in all types of traffic conditions. 

A paper titled “Older Drivers’ Perception and Acceptance of In-Vehicle Devices for Traffic Safety and Traffic Efficiency” co-authored by G.Yannis, C.Antoniou, S.Vardaki and G.Kanellaidis was published in ASCE Journal of Transportation Engineering. A multitude of new technologies are emerging, many of which are either explicitly targeted to older drivers or expected to benefit them the most. However, these same older drivers are more likely to find adapting to the use of such technologies challenging. Therefore, understanding older drivers’ perception of such devices will allow experts to take the necessary steps to ensure their smoother acceptance and complete success of their deployment. Older respondents are, in general, more supportive of the considered in-vehicle technologies, while female respondents also show a higher willingness to adopt them. 

The International Transport Forum (ITF) on the 19th of May, published a record low in road deaths. For the first time ever the number of people killed in road accidents has fallen below 150,000 in the 52 member countries of the International Transport Forum (ITF), excluding India.   

World Health Organization (WHO) and the European Commission issued the final report on the progress made in preventing injury and promoting safety. It resulted in the development of a database of 47 country profiles compiled through a questionnaire survey and an inventory of national policies on preventing injuries and violence. The report assesses the implementation of 99 evidence-based programmes, which include not only five causes of unintentional injury and six types of violence, but also measures that alleviate socioeconomic inequalities in injuries and violence and tackle alcohol as a risk factor. 

The Spanish Directorate General for Traffic, organized an international conference about an Action Pack for European Safer Urban Motorcycling in Barcelona on the 12th of May. NTUA presented ‘Motorcycle safety actions in Greece’.  

The World Health Organization (WHO) with the contribution of NTUA released the Manual on Road Traffic Injury Data Collection Systems, which emphasizes on the way to collect road safety data in each country in order to be useful for informing road safety practice. Reliable and accurate data are also needed to correctly identify problems, risk factors and priority areas, and to formulate strategy, set targets and monitor performance. Ongoing, data-led diagnosis and management of the leading road traffic injury problems enables appropriate action and resource allocation. 

In May 2010, ETSC published a PIN Flash concerning speed, alcohol and the use of seat belts, which are the three main risk factors on the road. Data from the countries that monitor mean driving speeds in free-flowing traffic show that drivers have slowed down appreciably since 2001. Deaths attributed to drink driving have decreased somewhat faster than other road deaths since 2001 in the EU – by about 5.8%. Although obligatory in all Member States, seat belt use in light vehicles in the EU is estimated to be only 88% for front seats and as low as 72% for rear seats. 

A research titled ‘Theoretical framework for modeling pedestrians crossing behavior along a trip’ co-authored by E.Papadimitriou, G.Yannis and J.Golias from NTUA was published in ASCE Journal of Transportation Engineering in April 2010. A topological approach of pedestrian trip characteristics and crossing decisions is proposed, allowing consideration of distinct patterns of crossing behavior along a trip. Specific techniques from the family of discrete choice models are proposed for determining the number and location of pedestrians’ crossings, accounting for the hierarchical and dynamic nature of pedestrians’ decisions along a trip and a field survey method is presented.  

The International Transport Forum (ITF) organised the 10th meeting of the International Traffic Data and Analysis Group (IRTAD) in Paris on 12-13 April. NTUA presented:  Collection, transfer and analysis of road safety data – the Dacota project’  Road Safety Trends in Greece

A research titled ‘Estimation of the real number of road casualties in Europe’ co-authored by J.Broughton, M.Keigan, G.Yannis, P.Evgenikos, A.Chaziris, E.Papadimitriou, N. Bos, S.Hoeglinger, K.Perez, E.Amoros, P.Hollo and J.Tecl was published in the Journal Safety Science in March 2010. Within this research, the police under-reporting of non-fatal road accident casualties in eight European countries was examined by means of a common methodology applied in each country.  For almost all countries, the actual number of serious casualties according to the new proposed definition was found lower than the number of police-recorded serious casualties.

A paper titled ‘Risk and protection factors in fatal accidents’ co-authored by E.Dupont, H.Martensen, E.Papadimitriou and G.Yannis was published in the Journal Accident Analysis and Prevention in March 2010. Two methodological issues were specifically discussed, namely the accident-size factors (the number of vehicles in the accident and their level of occupancy) and the comparability of the baseline risk. It is argued that – although these two issues are generally at play in accident severity analyses – their effects on, e.g., the estimation of survival probability, are exacerbated if the analysis is limited to fatal accident data.   

A research titled ‘Heavy vehicle age and road safety’ co-authored by Z.Christoforou, M.Karlaftis and G.Yannis from NTUA, was published in the Proceedings of ICE – Transport in February 2010. Findings suggest that older vehicles have a 4.5 times higher accident involvement probability in comparison with newer vehicles, while accidents involving older CMVs have a 4 times higher probability of resulting in a fatality. Further analysis suggests that the mean per capita cost to tax payers from CMV accidents surpasses 100A per year, more than half of which is attributed to older vehicles. Measures to mitigate the problem are suggested. 

A Diploma Thesis titled ‘Investigation of the impact of mobile phone use to driver behaviour and safety with the use of driving simulator’  was presented by Leonidas Roumpas in February 2010. Lognormal regression and binary logistic methods were used to investigate the influence of mobile phone use as well as various other parameters on the mean speed and the probability of an accident. From the models application it appears that mobile phone use leads to a statistically significant decrease of the mean speed in urban and interurban environment and to an increase of accident’s probability, probably due to distraction of driver attention and as a result, delayed reaction time at the moment of the incident. It appeared that in rainy conditions drivers did not present different driving behaviour, however, they had a high probability of being involved in an accident.   

A Ph.D. Thesis titled ‘Pedestrian behaviour and safety models in urban road networks‘  was presented by Eleonora Papadimitriou in February 2010. A topological consideration of the urban road network was opted for, allowing to identify basic properties of pedestrian trips and crossings, an algorithm was also developed for the estimation of the choice sets related to crossing decisions along a trip and a discrete choice modeling approach is proposed for crossing choices. The proposed methodology was demonstrated by means of models implementation on a typical urban trip for different scenarios.  

According to the Prime Minister Decision (ΦΕΚ Β’63/27-1-2010) the Greek Inter-Ministry Committee on Road Safety is established. 

The Transportation Research Board (TRB) 89th Annual Meeting took place in Washington, D.C., in January 2010. NTUA presented ‘Weather Effects on Daily Traffic Accidents and Fatalities: A Time Series Count Data Approach‘ . The impact of weather conditions on traffic safety is a topic that has attracted considerable interest in the literature. 

The International Road Traffic and Accident Database (IRTAD) of the International Transport Forum (ITF/OECD) published the Annual Report 2009, which comprises a synthesis of the main trends and road safety indicators for the year 2008 and preliminary data for the year 2009. It also presents longer term trends in order to better understand the evolution taking place in the different countries, as well as detailed reports from 27 countries. NTUA has contributed to the detailed report for Greece. 

A research titled ‘A critical assessment of pedestrian behaviour models’ co-authored by E.Papadimitriou, G.Yannis and J.Golias from NTUA by was published in the Journal Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour in 2009. In this paper an exhaustive review of the existing route choice models for pedestrians is presented. The results of this review reveal a lack of an overall and detailed consideration of pedestrian behaviour along an entire trip in urban areas. Moreover, the need for an integrated approach based on flexibility, disaggregation and more determinism is identified. 

The conference Child Safety in the car – The Greek Reality – The Norwegian/Scandinavian model, organised by the Norvegian Embassy took place in Athens, in November 2009.

NTUA presented ‘Use of child seat in Greece’. 

In order to ensure that children are as safe as possible on the roads, everyone needs to be aware of the risks and how things can be improved.  

The 4th Pan-Hellenic Road Safety Conference was organised by the Hellenic Institute of Transportation Engineers and the National Technical University of Athens.

NTUA presented:

 Characteristics of lorry and bus accidents in Greece

 Application of the SUNflower methodology for the assessment of two-wheeler safety in Greece

 Correlations of road accident and meteorological conditions time-series

 Seat belt and helmet use in Greece

In November 2009, ETSC published a PIN Flash concerning road injuries. Road deaths represent only the “tip of the iceberg” of traffic collisions. For every road death in the EU, at least 44 road injuries are recorded, of which 8 are categorised as “serious”. In Romania, Norway, Hungary and Spain changes in road deaths and serious injuries followed almost a similar pace, in Luxembourg, France, the Netherlands, Bulgaria and Sweden reductions in road deaths exceeded by far the reductions in recorded serious injuries, whereas in Slovenia, Latvia, Ireland and Greece injuries decreased faster than deaths. 

According to an observational study carried out by NTUA under the coordination of Prof. George Kanellaidis, 9% of passenger car drivers use mobile phone during driving, whereas 2% of Power Two Wheelers use mobile phone while driving. Mobile phone use rate is increased inside built-up areas and for young drivers (16 – 24), especially for young female passenger car drivers (16%) and young female PTW riders (12%).