The European Union Road Federation (ERF) has released the updated Recommendations for Sign Inspection. These guidelines provide the road community with important updated information on practices and technical recommendations to reduce roadside injuries and fatalities. The publication aligns with the EU’s Vision Zero goals, emphasizing the importance of safe infrastructure in crash prevention and injury mitigation.  

The Horizon Europe research project IMPROVA has recently released the IMPROVA 1st Newsletter, which provides information on the latest outcomes of the EU-funded IMPROVA project focusing on enhancing road safety by addressing the complexities of long-term consequences (LTC) caused by road traffic accidents. With a commitment to improving the quality of life for all road users, IMPROVA goes beyond simply saving lives by focusing on understanding, quantifying, and mitigating the impact of LTC. The project also advances injury mitigation strategies to support the achievement of Vision Zero, aligned with the European Commission’s Transport and Mobility sector goals.

The International Transport Forum (ITF) has recently published a new Summary Report titled “Advancing Sustainable Mobility in Greece: Supporting SUMPs uptake“. This initiative supports Greek cities in developing and implementing Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans (SUMPs) that focus on environmentally friendly and safe transport solutions, such as walking, cycling, and public transport. It offers Greek local authorities practical guidance and tools to optimize transport planning, ensuring safer and more sustainable urban mobility systems, in order to achieve climate neutrality by the year 2030.   

A paper titled “Cost benefit analyst of reducing speed limits in Athens to 30 Km/h” authored by Stella Roussou, Virginia Petraki, Katerina Deliali, Armira Kontaxi and George Yannis has been published in Case Studies on Transport Policy. The study highlights the benefits of lowering speed limits in Athens from 50 km/h to 30 km/h, including a 30-40% reduction in traffic crashes and a 20-25% decrease in injury severity . Additionally, the policy could lead to lower by 10-15% CO2 emissions and improve conditions for pedestrians and cyclists. The overall benefits are projected to outweigh the costs by 3 to 5 times, making it a highly effective policy for safer, more sustainable urban mobility. 

UNECE has introduced new Guidelines and Recommendations aimed at enhancing cycling networks and promoting cycling as a sustainable and safe mode of transportation. These Guidelines emphasize the need for well-connected cycling infrastructure and the integration of cycling into national transport systems. By prioritizing safer cycling routes, the Guidelines aim to achieve safer, healthier and more environmentally friendly urban and rural mobility. This initiative is expected to play a key role in shaping future transport policies across Europe.  

The International Road Assessment Programme (iRAP) announced at the IRF World Congress 2024 in Istanbul, Turkey, the enhancement of the Star Rating for Designs (SR4D), a Tool that allows the safety of road designs to be measured before the commencement of civil works. Using the Tool, road engineers and designers can define a road’s geometry and code its features to obtain a globally recognised iRAP safety Star Rating, along with fatal and serious injury estimations, and safety investment plans to optimise safety. 

Road Safety Support organized with great success the National Safer Roads Partnerships Conference which  took place in Manchester, on 25-26 September 2024. Key topics discussed in this conference were science and technology within policing, a new way to measure traffic safety and  road safety as a government priority. NTUA Professor George Yannis actively contributed with the following key-note presentation:

•  Review of 30 km/h speed limit benefits in Europe

A paper titled Estimating the Necessary Amount of Driving Data for Assessing Driving Behavior authored by Anna-Maria Stavrakaki, Dimitrios Tselentis, Emmanoul Barmpounakis, Eleni Vlachogianni and George Yannis has been published in Sensors. The study aims to  provide a methodological framework for estimating the amount of driving data that should be collected for each driver in order to acquire a clear picture regarding their driving behavior. Detailed data collected from smartphone sensors were used to test the proposed methodology. The findings suggest that here is no specific time point or number of trips after which driving behavior stabilizes for all drivers and/or all metrics examined. The driving behavior stabilization is mostly affected by the duration of the trips examined and the aggressiveness of the driver.