A paper titled “Review and ranking of crash risk factors related to the road infrastructure” authored by Eleonora Papadimitriou, Ashleigh Filtness, Akis Theofilatos, Apostolis Ziakopoulos, Claire Quigley and George Yannis is now published in Accident Analysis and Prevention. This analysis was carried out within the SafetyCube project, which aimed to identify and quantify the effects of risk factors and measures related to behaviour, infrastructure or vehicles, and integrate the results in an innovative road safety Decision Support System (DSS). Synthesis of results was made through 39 ‘Synopses’ (including 4 original meta-analyses) on individual risk factors or groups of risk factors. This analysis allowed the ranking of infrastructure risk factors into three groups: risky (11 risk factors), probably risky (18 risk factors), and unclear (7 risk factors).   For full text just ask us by replying to this email.

The International Neuropsychological Society organised the 47th Annual Meeting which took place with great success in New York from February 20-23, 2019. The topics of the Meeting included clinical neuropsychology, cognitive neuroscience, and neuropsychiatry and internationally renowned, innovative, and pioneering scientists and clinicians from multiple disciplines gave very interesting presentations. NTUA actively contributed with the following interdisciplinary presentation merging two scientific domains – neuroscience and road safety:

•  Intraindividual variability within and across conditions in driving simulator measures of healthy drivers of different ages
•  Intraindividual variability within and across conditions in driving simulator measures of neurology patients and healthy drivers

The Saudi Arabia General Directorate of Traffic organized the Traffic Safety Conference (TSC 2019) which took place with great success in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on 11-13 March 2019. The theme of the conference was “Enhancement of Traffic Safety” which is one of the main objectives of Saudi National Transformation Program 2020 and in line with Saudi Vision 2030: an ambitious Nation by reaching high standards in safe driving.   NTUA actively contributed with the following presentation:  Traffic Safety in the European Union

Every year Republic of Srpska (Bosnia and Herzegovina), loses many valuable human lives and incurs enormous economic costs caused by road accidents. The Traffic Safety Agency of Republic of Srpska in cooperation with the European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) organised with great success the 8th International Conference Road Safety in Local Community, which took place in Banja Luka, Republic of Srpska on 24-25 October 2019 aiming to constantly strengthen and develop capacities at the local level and create groups of road safety experts who will have enough enthusiasm, courage and will to fight with this problem facing the country.  

HUMANIST organised with great success the “HUMANIST Summer School 2019“, which was held in Lyon, France on 9-11 July 2019. The Humanist Summer School 2019 provided good insight into research in the area of Human Factors issues linked to the autonomous car challenge. The Summer School was a meeting place for Young and Senior Researchers, PhD or Professionals and offered plenty of opportunities to interact. 

The 4th Newsletter of the African-European Dialogue Platform on Road Safety (SaferAfrica) Horizons 2020 project has been recently issued with the active contribution of NTUA. This edition highlights the African “ownership” of the African Road Safety Observatory, Role for NGOs, SaferAfrica Thematic Factsheets and new resources. 

The European Council reached a provisional agreement with the European Parliament on a proposal to strengthen road infrastructure management to reduce road fatalities and serious injuries. The reform will extend the scope of the current rules to motorways and other primary roads beyond the trans-European transport network (TEN-T). Furthermore, it introduces a network-wide road safety assessment, which is a snapshot of the entire road network covered by the Directive used to evaluate accident risk and the Authorities will use the findings to carry out more targeted road safety inspections or take direct remedial action. It will become mandatory to take systematic account of pedestrians, cyclists and other vulnerable road users in road safety management procedures.   The draft directive amending directive on road infrastructure safety management is available: 

The Faculty of Transport and Traffic Engineering Doboj, University of East Sarajevo, organised with great success the 7th international conference New Horizons of Transport and Communications, which was held on November 29-30, 2019 in Doboj, Republic of Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina, at the Faculty of Transport and Traffic Engineering, University of East Sarajevo. Conference attendees had the chance to present their work on current traffic policy, sustainability and development strategy in the field of transport and traffic engineering, examples of good practice worldwide, solutions of respective problems in transport, scientific results, new models of technology and other achievements. 

TRAVisions concerns two competitions for transport research awards to be announced in a prestigious award ceremony at the Transport Research Arena Conference on 27-30th April 2020 in Helsinki (abstract submission deadline: 1/10/2019):   

• TRAVisions 2020 Young Researcher Competition, an academic student competition with the goal of stimulating the interest among young researchers and students in the field of sustainable surface transport
• TRAVisions 2020 Senior Researcher Competition, a competition for senior researchers in the field of innovative surface transport concepts based on results only from EU-funded projects

The Global Road Safety Facility (GRSF), launched the GRSF 2018 Annual Report, highlighting its excellent record of delivery and long term funding for road safety. GRSF is a global partnership program administered by the World Bank, which was established in 2006 with a mission to help address the growing crisis of road traffic deaths and injuries in low and middle-income countries (LMICs).  

The Monash University Accident Research Centre (MUARC) organised with great success the 8th International Symposium on Naturalistic Driving Research (NDRS 2019) which was held in Melbourne, Australia on August 13-14, 2019. The 8th International Naturalistic Driving Research Symposium provided with an overview of international naturalistic driving and riding studies and insight into the next generation of this type of studies, in addition to the opportunity to interact with panelists to discuss naturalistic driving in their respective countries. 

The European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) has published the 36th PIN Flash Report “Reducing Speeding in Europe“, with the active contribution of NTUA. The EU has the exclusive authority to set minimum safety standards for all new vehicles sold on the EU market. One of the main goals of this PIN Flash Report is to highlight the proposed standards which include mandatory fitment of overridable Intelligent Speed Assistance (ISA) on all cars, vans, buses and heavy goods vehicles. Research shows that this single technology could help to achieve a high level of compliance with speed limits and eventually cut road deaths by 20%.  

The United States Department of Transportation, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) in cooperation with participating ESV member countries organised with great successthe 26th International Technical Conference on The Enhanced Safety of Vehicles (ESV) which took place in Eindhoven, Netherlands, on June 10-13, 2019. ESV provided opportunities to share innovative advances in motor vehicle safety and encouraged international cooperation. 

The 10^th International Conference on the Prevention of Accidents at Work (WOS 2019) tool place in Vienna on 23-26 September 2019. The Congress, focusing on the prevention of workplace accidents – WOS: Working on Safety – aimed at bringing together experts from all over the world in order to facilitate a high-level exchange of experience, new findings and good practice solutions. The Congress was an excellent occasion for representatives of H&S organizations, labour inspectors, safety professionals, researchers, policy makers, labour administrators and other experts to broaden the personal prevention horizon and to get in touch with experts from other countries and other safety-cultures. 

The infographic of the 2018 NTUA Road Safety Observatory (www.nrso.ntua.gr) activities, highlights one more very intensive year, striving with highly scientific expertise to improve road safety in Greece, in Europe and worldwide. The nrso people with excellent dedication, efficiency and expertise were active in 22 innovative research projects, succeeded to publish 67 scientific papers (21 in peer reviewed journals), reached almost 100.000 nrso website page-views, handled more than 115.000 emails and run more than 4.800 km! 

Basic characteristics of road fatalities in Greece for the period 1991-2017 are summarised in a comprehensive Table prepared by the NTUA Road Safety Observatory (data source: ELSTAT). Since 2007, there are approximately 900 less road fatalities per year in Greece. According to these time series data a spectacular decrease in road fatalities for children 0-14 years old (-71%), young drivers (-61%) and on motorways (-61%) is observed during the last decade. On the contrary, fatalities decrease during the last decade is quite limited for moped riders (-26%), older drivers (-28%) and at rural (36%) and urban (37%) junctions. 

Emmanouil Barmpounakis, Panagiotis Papantoniou, Dimosthenis Pavlou, Dimitris Tselentis and Panos Georgiou PostDoc Researchers of the Department of Transportation Planning and Engineering of NTUA were awarded with the NTUA Thomaidion Award for outstanding publications in scientific journals for the year 2016. The awards for publications in Scientific Journals concerned:

• Barmpounakis E., Vlahogianni E., Golias J.,  Vision-based multivariate statistical modeling for powered two-wheelers maneuverability during overtaking in urban arterials, Transportation Letters, 8:3, 167-176, 2016 
•  Yannis G., Laiou A., Papantoniou P., Gkartzonikas C., Simulation of texting impact on young drivers’ behavior and safety on motorways, Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour, 41-A, 10-18, 2016 
• Pavlou D., Papantoniou P., Papadimitriou E., Vardaki S., Yannis G., Golias I., Papageorgiou S.G., Which are the effects of driver distraction and brain pathologies on reaction time and accident risk?, Advances in Transportation Studies, Vol.1, 83-98,2016 
• Papadimitriou E.,  Lassarre S., Yannis G., Tselentis D.,  Road, traffic and human factors of pedestrian crossing behaviour: Integrated choice and latent variables models, Transportation Research Record 2586, 2016 
• Christina Plati, Panos Georgiou and Andreas Loizos, Influence of different roller compaction modes on asphalt mix performance, International Journal of Pavement Engineering, 17:1, 64–70, 2016 

A paper titled “Investigation of the effect of tourism on road crashes” authored by Vasileios Bellos, Apostolos Ziakopoulos, and George Yannis is now published in Journal of Transportation Safety & Security. Based on police data on road crashes in Greece for the 5-year period of 2011 to 2015, negative binomial regression models were developed, which led to the conclusion that tourists are more often involved in road crashes in Greece. Furthermore, the increase of the relative rate ratio of road crash involvement for foreign tourists in touristic regions indicates a clear increased accident risk of foreign tourists compared to Greek drivers. 

The European Association of Operators of Toll Road Infrastructures (ASECAP), supported by the Hellenic Association of Toll Road Network (HELLASTRON), organised a Press Conference on Road Safety on the occasion of the EDWARD – European Day without a Road Death 2018, which took place with great success on September 19, 2018. The theme was “Modern motorways: Prevention and Road Safety in Europe and Greece” and Commissioner for Transport Violeta Bulc said: “I am glad to see such an engaging and dedicated contribution of Greece to the third European Day Without A Road Death (EDWARD) taking place this year on 19 September during the European Mobility Week. Thank you GREECE and all involved!”. 

NTUA Professor George Yannis presented recently the Global Road Safety Landscape at the Governing Board Meeting of the Private Sector Global Coalition Together for Safer Roads (TSR) composed by 16 leading global companies, highlighting the key challenges, perspectives and opportunities of global road safety.  

The European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) has published a report titled “7 SMART Ways of tackling Drink-Driving in Europe”. The report aims to present the wide-ranging approaches used to tackle drink driving in Europe, including legislation (BAC limits, rehabilitation programmes for drink driving offenders), enforcement, technology (alcohol interlocks) campaigns and education.  

The Road Safety Institute ‘Panos Mylonas’ with the support of the European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) produced and implemented two video campaigns focusing on driver distraction due to mobile phone use:   and one video campaign focusing on the importance of seat-belt especially at the back-seat, titled: “Seat-belt – The belt which “ties” us with life“: . The objective is to highlight these very crucial road safety risk factors and promote these campaigns through social media. 

Since 54 years, the  International Road Federation (IRF) World Road Statistics (WRS) continue to be the major comprehensive, universal source of statistical data on road networks, traffic and inland transport. This year the WRS 2018 (data 2011-2016) features more than 205 countries, with data on over 45 road related topics, with the active contribution of NTUA for the Greek data. What is highlighted this year is that freight transport is almost evenly split between road and rail in both Europe/ Central Asia region and North America. Passenger transport in these regions is essentially by road with 88% of passengers travelling by roads in Europe/Central Asia and 99% in North America. These statistics allow governments and urban planners to pinpoint where in the transport sector to focus their time and resources to ensure passenger safety and maximum economic benefits.  

The Association for European Transport organised the 47th European Transport Conference, which took place in Dublin, Ireland, on 9-11 October 2019. The European Transport Conference (ETC) is the annual conference of the Association for European Transport. Each year the conference presents the opportunity to interact with a range of speakers across the Transport Industry, including several Road Safety Topics. The range of topics, the multi-seminar approach and the networking environment makes ETC unique among transport conferences, making it the established premier event of its type.  

The European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) has published a Report titled “The Status of Traffic Safety and Mobility Education in Europe” with the active contribution of NTUA. Even though the overwhelming majority of European countries consider education as an essential part of the integrated approach to traffic safety, this first overview of traffic safety and mobility education in Europe demonstrates that in practice road safety education in schools at all levels is not sufficient. Only in the Czech Republic, Ireland and Germany is road safety education provided at all levels.  

The Living and Walking in Cities Conference, organised by the Department of Civil, Environmental, Architectural Engineering and Mathematics of Universita Degli Studi di Brescia, was held in Brescia, on 12-13 September 2019. This Conference traditionally looks at different themes concerning the quality of life in urban areas and the goal of this event is to gather researchers, road users, administrators, technicians, city representatives and experts aiming to discuss problems that affect the safety of pedestrians in the city, especially of children and persons with reduced mobility. The conference covers international issues, national and local policies and the implementation of projects at the local level. 

The Road Safety Awards in Greece were established in 2018 by the Hellenic Institute of Transportation Engineers (HITE), HELLASTRON and the Hellenic Institute of Transport (HIT): the first award concerns the “Best Road Safety Young Researcher Publication” addressed to students, graduates, postgraduate, doctoral or postdoctoral researchers and the second award concerns the “Best Road Safety Action” addressed to Organisations and Institutes. Submissions deadline is set for March 31st, 2019. 

The Transportation Research Board (TRB) 98th Annual Meeting was held with great success in Washington, D.C., on 13-17 January 2019. The meeting program covered all transportation modes, with more than 5,000 presentations in nearly 800 sessions and workshops, addressing topics of interest to policy makers, administrators, practitioners, researchers, and representatives of government, industry, and academic institutions. A number of sessions and workshops focused on the spotlight theme for the 2019 meeting: Transportation for a Smart, Sustainable, and Equitable Future.   NTUA road safety presentations concerned:

•   How much driving data do we need to assess driver behavior?
•   Investigating the Temporal Evolution of Driving Safety Efficiency Using Data Collected from Smartphone Sensors
•   Time series classification using imbalanced learning for real-time safety assessment
•  Road Safety Data, Knowledge and Decision Support Systems Global Challenges in the Digital Era
•  The African Road Safety Observatory
•  Impaired Cycling and Crash Involvement: A Survey Across OECD Countries on Data Availability and Legislation

NTUA Road Safety Research is ranked 2nd in Europe and 6th worldwide according to a recent study titled: “Visualization and analysis of mapping knowledge domain of road safety studies“, published at the leading safety Scientific Journal Accident Analysis and Prevention. Moreover, NTUA Prof. George Yannis appears to be among the most productive scientific authors worldwide in the field of road safety. This ranking is based on a systematic analysis of all road safety studies published on Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE) and Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) between 2000 and 2018, containing several interesting performance indicators on road safety research worldwide (topics, trends, papers, journals, universities).