The Eurostat issued the yearly update of the road safety regional differences demonstrating that not only the three EU regions with the lowest road safety performance are Greek but also that 7 Greek regions are among the 10 EU regions with the lowest road safety performance.
The 3rd IRTAD Seminar took place in Brno – Czech Republic in November 2006.
NTUA presented:
Building the European Road Safety Observatory – SafetyNet
A comprehensive set of road safety basic statistics
Enhancement and exploitation of the existing European road accident data
The Road Safety PIN Talk was organized by the European Transport Safety Council and the Road Safety Institute Panos Mylonas in Athens on November 15th, 2006. This Road Safety PIN Talk enters within the framework of the Road Safety Performance Index of the European Transport Safety Council, having as objective to monitor and boost progress of road safety policies at national and EU level.
NTUA presented ‘The role of Performance Indicators in the implementation of Road Safety Programmes’ .
A Diploma Thesis titled ‘Correlating macroscopic road safety parameters in the European Union’ was presented by Anna Tsoumani in November 2006. Linear and non-linear regression models were developed and resulted in quantification of the impact of each variable to the number of fatalities in road accidents. The ratio of the number of road fatalities to the number of vehicles reduces by the increase of the ratio of the number of vehicles to population and secondly, the shape of the fatalities curve (ascending, stable and descending) depends on the ratio of the number of vehicles to population.
In June 2011, ETSC published a PIN Flash concernig seat belt use. In Sweden, nearly 70% of new passenger cars were equipped with seat belt reminders for the driver seat. In Luxembourg, this percentage is estimated to be 64% and in Germany 63%. In the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Poland, Lithuania, Italy and Greece, this is however less than half of the new passenger cars.
The 13th World Congress and Exhibition on Intelligent Transport Systems and Services took place in London, in October 2006. The programme included showcases and demonstration projects, as well as ‘technical visits’ and tours to projects of interest to the ITS community.
NTUA presented ‘Modelling road traffic safety – The In-Safety approach’.
In October 2006, SWOV Institute for Road Safety Research reliesed the National Road Safety Outlook for 2005-2020, Advancing Sustainable Safety. Sustainable Safety is an answer to the lack of rad safety. It is a type of aproach that, incidentally, has been commonplace in other types of transport modes for much longer time under the name of ‘inherently safe’.
The Second conference on driver needs in relation to ITS, was organised by VTT took place in Finland in September 2006. There are a lot of choices and decisions for the end-users to make when for instance buying a new car. Their willingness to pay for new technology depends on the benefits expected by the new systems and services.
NTUA presented ‘Greek driver needs on ITS in relation to driver accident history’.
In September 2006, ETSC published a PIN Flash concerning EU countries road safety performance. The first ranking under the Road Safety Performance Index showed that some countries are contributing fully to the European target, even though the majority do not. During the period 2001-2005 France has achieved an outstanding 35% drop, closely followed by Luxembourg with 34%. In Belgium, the reduction has been of the order of 27%. The reduction for Greece was 16%.
In July 2006, ETSC published the first Road Safety PIN Flash. The Road Safety Performance Index (so-called “Road Safety PIN”) will compare Member States’ performance in promoting safe road user behaviour, infrastructure and vehicles, as well as sound and evidence-based policymaking.
A Diploma Thesis titled ‘Correlation of pedestrian safety impact parameters’ was presented by Marianna Aggelidaki and Manos Vernandos in July 2006. The use of log-linear analysis was chosen and applied for the statistical analysis of data from roadaccidents involving pedestrians for the period 1996 – 2003 in Greece. The results of the analysis suggested that children under 15 years old and elderly over66 years old appear to have higher probabilities of fatal injury, while no relationship wasproved between the probability of fatal injury, gender and nationality of the pedestrian.
The manual ‘Helmets: a road safety manual for decision-makers and practitioners‘ is one of a series of documents produce by an informal consortium (GRSP, WHO, the FIA Foundation and the World Bank) that aims to provide guidance to countries on how to implement some of the recommendations identified within the World Report, and thus improve their overall road safety record. This manual provides practical advice to road safety practitioners on how to achieve a much higher proportion of users of two-wheeled vehicles wearing helmets.
The OECD/ECMT have published a joint report titled Young Drivers: the road to safety, according which road crashes are the single greatest killer of 15 – 24 year-olds in OECD countries. Young drivers account for about 27% of driver fatalities across OECD countries, although people in the same age group represent only about 10% of the population.
The first SafetyNet Conference and Workshop on European accident data and road and vehicle safety policy, organised by Loughborough University took place in Prague in May 2006. The purpose of the conference is to examine the ways in which data driven road and vehicle safety policies are formed and identify the new challenges that will come with new technologies and post-2010 casualty reduction targets.
NTUA presented:
The European Transport Safety Council presented recently a Review on the accident data in the enlarged EU. The review examined the situation in the 25 countries of the EU in relation to data on road safety and draws up to concrete set of actions for improving these data. It covers all aspects from data collection, gathering and entry into databases, to theis processing, analysis and dissemination of results.
In April 2006 ACEM Publications released a handbook that describes the specific needs of riders and contains guidelines for those responsible for road design and road maintenance. Powered Two Wheelers differ in their use of the road in a number of ways from other vehicles and riders have different needs. The handbook includes recommendations and examples from all over Europe.
The 5th PRI World Congress took place in Abu Dhabi in March 2006.
NTUA presented ‘The new European road safety observatory – SafetyNet’.
The European Commission has decided to initiate the development of the Road Safety Observatory, the project is extensive, lasting over four years, and will build the basic structure of the observatory as well as gathering new data at several levels.
The EXPOSEC homeland and corporate security conference was organised by the British Embassy took place in Athens in March 2006.
NTUA presented ‘Strategic plan for the improvement of road safety’.
The ETSC Best in Europe Conference on e-safety, organised by the European Transport Safety Council took place in Brussels in February 2006. It aimed to provide an inspirational annual showcase for best practice measures and innovation in road safety in Europe.
NTUA presented ‘Road accident data in the enlarged European Union – learning from each other’.
A research titled ‘Perception of road accident causes’ co-authored by W.Vanlaar and G.Yannis was published in the journal Accident Analysis and Prevention in 2006. The objective of this study was to validate this model empirically to answer three questions: How do European drivers perceive the importance of several causes of road accidents? Are there important differences in perceptions between member states? Do these perceptions reflect the real significance of road accident causes? 
A seminar for car insurance and prevention of road accidents, organised by the Association of Insurance Companies Greece, took place in Athens in February 2006.
NTUA presented ‘Passenger car and two-wheel drivers risk analysis in Greece’.
A high level expert meeting on road safety, organised by the Austrian Federal Ministry for Transport, Innovation and Technology took place in Vienna in January 2006.
NTUA presented ‘The use of efficiency assessment tools: Solutions to barriers’.
Efficiency Assessment Tools are the Methods used to judge the efficiency of an intended measure/policy based on the highest return in monetary terms.
A paper titled ‘Designing the European Road Safety Observatory’co-authored by P.Thomas, A.Morris, G.Yannis, P.Lejeune, P.Wesemann, G.Vallet and W.Vanlaar was published in the International Journal of Injury Control and Safety Promotion in December 2005. The European Commission has decided to meet the demand for traffic accident data and road safety information by establishing a new European Road Safety Observatory.
The European Commission published the Road Safety Country Profiles, containing key road safety statistical data and development in all EU countries. NTUA has contributed to the country profile for Greece, in which all recent road safety trends are highlighted, together with the key issues addressed at the national strategic plan prepared by NTUA.
An ad-hoc Meeting on Traffic Performance was organised by UNECE and the Danish Delegation and took place in Copenhagen in December 2005.
Accident risk of PTW decreases with vehicle age. Accident risk of passenger cars is increased for new (<2 years) and old (>10 years) vehicles. Accident risk outside buitl-up areas at nights or at weekends is much higher, especially for PTW’s.
Accident risk of young drivers is 4 times the average for car drivers and 5 times the average of PTW riders. Drivers >65 years old are at increased risk, especially when riding mopeds or motorcycles. Accident risk decreases with driving experience. Vehicle age <1 year or >10 years is associated with increased accident risk. Male drivers (especially young ones) have much higher accident risk than females.
A Diploma Thesis titled ‘Comperative investigation of risk parameters in the Greek motorways’ was presented by Antonis Chaziris in October 2005. Data concerning the number and the characteristics of participants in traffic accidents were used, as well as raw accident data, which became available from NTUA’s Traffic Accident Database. The results of this research consisted of four mathematic regression models and two polynomial relations of cross-correlation of the accident indicator and the traffic volume, concerning the motorway of Attiki Odos.
The European Transport Conference organised by the Association for European Transport took place in Stasbourg in October 2005.
NTUA presented ‘Intelligent Transport Systems Today: A European perspective’.
