An NTUA Diploma Thesis titled “Cost benefit and acceptance analysis of reducing speed limits in Athens to 30km/h” was recently presented by Stella Roussou. This Diploma modeled Athenians preferences on speed limit reduction and performed the respective socio-economic cost benefit analysis (CBA) of the reduction of crashes and respective casualties, the costs incurred due to the increase in travel time and the benefit from reducing fuel consumption and environmental impact (CO2, NOx, PM emissions). The CBA revealed that the 30km/h speed limit is deemed economically highly viable and worth of implementing.  

An NTUA Diploma Thesis called “Critical factors of pedestrians self-declared behaviour and safety in Greece” was recently presented by Alexandros Ntontis. For the purpose of this Diploma Thesis, two binary logistic regression models and a Structural Equation Model (SEM) were developed, using data from the second edition of the ESRA survey. The results showed that a pedestrian who will engage more frequently in crossing the road with red pedestrian light is more likely to also engage in crossing the road at places other than at a nearby pedestrian crossing.  

The World Bank Global Road Safety Facility (GRSF) has published a Knowledge Report titled Motorization Management for Development: An Integrated Approach to Improving Vehicles for Sustainable Mobility. This Report presents the World Bank’s Motorization Management (MM) framework, which is intended to support client countries in the development of policies and measures aimed at managing vehicle stocks in a proactive, phased, and systematic manner to make them safer, cleaner, and more fuel efficient. The MM framework reflects a series of policy considerations and programs that can be implemented to improve the quality of fuels and vehicles in a country’s stock.  

CAREC and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) have recently co-published a Road Safety Engineering Manual titled “Star Ratings for Road Safety Audit“. This system, Star Ratings for Road Safety Audits, will help policy makers and practitioners involved in designing, upgrading, and rehabilitating roads to meet safety targets and reduce injuries from traffic accidents.  

The European Road Transport Research Advisory Council (ERTRAC) published the Connected, Cooperative and Automated Mobility Roadmap, as part of the ERTRAC Roadmaps. According to the Report, in 2050, vehicles will have 100% real-time connectivity on the relevant road network and the transport management system will have the appropriate quality of service level, also for remote operation. All newly registered vehicles will have automation but in different levels.     

A paper titled “Public Acceptability of Environmentally Linked Congestion and Parking Charging Policies in Greek Urban Centers” authored by Virginia Petraki, Panagiotis Papantoniou,  Asimina Korentzelou and George Yannis, is published in Sustainability. A structural equation model (SEM) was developed using data from a questionnaire survey which provided a sample encompassing 733 respondent drivers from three main urban centers of Greece: Athens, Thessaloniki and Volos. Several statistical relationships were detected and quantified correlating the two examined urban environmental charging policies with five latent unobserved variables. Based on the results, public acceptability of environmental congestion charging policies and the public acceptability of environmental parking charging policies were found to be positively correlated with each other, meaning that a driver who supports one environmentally linked transport charging policy is more likely to support the other one as well.  

A paper titled “Data-driven estimation of a driving safety tolerance zone using imbalanced machine learning” authored by Thodoris Garefalakis, Christos Katrakazas and George Yannis, has been published in Sensors. This paper proposes a framework to identify the level of risky driving behavior as well as the duration of the time spent in each risk level by private car drivers. The results showed that Random Forests and Multilayer Perceptron (MLP) outperformed the rest of the classifiers with 84% and 82% overall accuracy, respectively, and that the maximum speed of the vehicle during a 30-second interval, is the most crucial predictor for identifying the driving time at each safety level. 

An NTUA Diploma Thesis titled “Analysis of speeding characteristics in Greece” was recently presented by Spyridon Krouskos. The data used for the statistical analysis were collected in the period of November-December of 2021 in Greece, and were related to vehicle speed measurements, but also to the simultaneous recording of the type of vehicle, the type of road, the weather conditions and the time period. The results showed that motorcycle drivers are more likely to exceed the speed limit than passenger car drivers, while it was estimated that the opposite is true for the other types of vehicles. It was also found that drivers on urban roads are more likely to exceed speed limits than drivers on motorways.  

A NTUA Diploma Thesis titled “Detection of dangerous driver behavior with widescale data from smart recording systems and machine learning techniques” was recently presented by Hector Kamvoussioras. For the purpose of this Diploma Thesis, data were collected through a simulator experiment in order to classify and predict driving behaviour. Ridge classifier, Support Vector Machine, Random Forest and XGBoost models were developed. It was revealed that Random Forests and XGBoost models showed the most reliable results in the prediction ability, with 95% accuracy of the three driver categories (i.e. normal, dangerous, avoidable accident). Speed, headway and hands on the wheel found to be the most important variables to predict crash risk.  

An NTUA Diploma Thesis titled “Comparative analysis of socioeconomic indicators on road safety in the Greek Regions” was recently presented by Nikolaos Papadopoulos. A cluster analysis was performed leading to four clusters: Islands, Western & Southern mainland Greece, Northern mainland Greece and Attica. The results depicted the different geographical characteristics, economic level, mobility patterns and road behaviors of the regions, which are also reflected in road safety outcomes.   

An NTUA Diploma Thesis called “Identification of driver’s risky behavior level and duration with machine learning techniques” was recently presented by Theodoros Garefalakis. For the purpose of this Diploma Thesis, high resolution data related to driving behavior were collected through a driving simulator experiment. In the first part of the analysis, four machine learning algorithms were developed to classify driver behavior into one of three risk levels, with the ‘Random Forests’ algorithm scoring the highest performance. In the context of investigating the influence of driving factors to identify driving behavior, the distance traveled, speed and speed limit emerged as the most important. In the second part of the analysis, the effect of driving characteristics on driving duration at different stages was examined through three regression algorithms. The results showed that the maximum speed was the most important variable, which negatively affects the driving duration at each safety level.  

An NTUA Diploma Thesis called “Impact of Pandemic on National and International Air Transport Demand at Athens International Airport” was recently presented by Stamatios Tsakoulis. This Diploma Thesis investigated the factors of the pandemic that influenced the air transport demand at Athens Airport and revealed that the rate of vaccination coverage of the population is the most critical variable of recovery of air traffic while the severity of the lockdown is an important inhibitory factor. In addition to that, low-cost airlines showed the highest correlation with air traffic, while airlines with chartered flights in countries with temporary traffic had a significant influence.  

An NTUA Diploma Thesis called “Free Public Transport in Attica Region” was recently presented by Vaggelis Goulas. This Diploma Thesis revealed that the possibility of changing means of free public transport depends largely on the cost, time, comfort, beliefs, transportation characteristics and demographic characteristics of the respondents. The faster and more comfortable the journey, regardless of cost reduction, the more likely it is to opt for free public transport instead of staying in the existing means of transport.  

A paper titled “Impact of texting and web surfing on driving behavior and safety in rural roads” authored by Marios Sekadakis, Foteini Orfanou, Dimosthenis Pavlou, Maria Oikonomou, Christos Katrakazas and George Yannis, is published in International Journal of Transportation Science and Technology. For the purpose of the study, driving data were gathered through a driving simulator experiment with 37 young drivers. Additionally, a survey was conducted to collect their demographic characteristics and driving behavior preferences. During the experiment, the drivers were distracted using contemporary smartphone internet applications i.e., Facebook Messenger, Facebook and Google Maps. In the end, the results showed that driving behavior and safety among young drivers were both significantly affected by the investigated internet applications. 

The European Commission has launched a public consultation on a revision of the rules governing the roadworthiness of vehicles in the EU, planned for mid-2023. The results of the public consultation will feed into the revision of the EU’s roadworthiness rules, including those on periodic roadworthiness testing, roadside inspections for commercial vehicles, and vehicle document registration. The Commission invites all those interested to express their opinions on the impact of the current legal framework, as well on the possible policy measures that could be taken and the impact they may have 

A paper titled “Innovative road safety measures” authored by Stergios Mavromatis and  George Yannis, has been published in Advances in Transportation Studies an international Journal. Τhis editorial collection represents a snapshot of current advancements in innovative road safety measures focusing on roadway infrastructure, safety modelling, human
factors, vulnerable road users and automated driving. Some key conclusions arisen from the present Special Issue comprise of the need of co-consideration of all crash factors for accurate results, the importance of digitalisation and technological advancements on boosting road safety, and the significance of implementing innovative and evidence based road safety measures for multiplying the safety benefits. 

The European Commision put the new Vehicle General Safety Regulation into effect.  The rules for the advanced driver assistant systems will first apply to new vehicle types from 6 July 2022 and to all new vehicles from 7 July 2024. The new safety measures will enhance the protection of passengers, pedestrians and cyclists across the EU, expectedly saving over 25,000 lives and avoid at least 140,000 serious injuries by 2038.   

The International Transport Forum (ITF) published recently a new Report titled The Safe System Approach in Action with the active participation of NTUA. Road crashes kill over 1.3 million people every year worldwide and seriously injure millions more. A Safe System approach to road safety can drastically reduce road deaths – but how can it actually be put in place? This Report provides experience-based guidance on implementing the Safe System approach worldwide.    

The European Commission has added to its library of European Road Safety Observatory road safety data and analytical resources with the publication of Thematic Reports on the use of seatbelts and child restraint systems, serious injuries through road crashes and on driver impairment due to alcohol, drugs and medicines. The aim of these Reports is to aid understanding of the causes and impacts of road crashes, with the ultimate aim of achieving “vision zero” of zero road deaths or serious injuries in Europe’s roads by 2050. 

The European Commission has launched EU pilot projects to assess safety of infrastructure. These pilot projects are carried out to test methodologies for the network-wide road assessments developed with the active contribution of NTUA, required under the Road Infrastructure Safety Management Directive (RISM). The Network-wide road assessments allow national authorities to identify those sections of road where the opportunities to improve safety are the greatest and where targeted investment should deliver the biggest improvements. 

The European Commission marked the International Level Crossing Awareness Day. Almost 300 people per year die in crashes at level crossings, representing around 30% of all railway deaths. The Commission has published a thematic report on this issue, setting out the situation regarding collisions at level crossings and measures the that could be taken to prevent them. In the Western Balkans region, the Transport Community has launched an awareness campaign to try to reduce the number and severity of collisions at railway crossings. 

The World Bank Global Road Safety Facility (GRSF) has published a Report titled Detecting Urban Clues for Road Safety: Leveraging Big Data and Machine Learning Report. The Report presents opportunities to use new technologies to improve current methods for data collection and analysis for various road safety assessments. This guidance note provides a practical guide for using new data sources and analytical methods for road safety analysis in different types of projects that may impact road infrastructure or risk-related factors.  

The World Health Oganisation (WHO) recently published the revised edition of the Manual on Drink-Driving: A Road Safety Manual for Decision-Makers and Practitioners. The Manual provides guidance for decision-makers and practitioners to reduce the prevalence of drink driving and associated road trauma. It draws on experience from countries that have succeeded in achieving and sustaining reductions in alcohol-related road trauma, and includes recommendations for developing and implementing drink driving legislation, and advice on how to monitor and evaluate progress.  

A paper titled “Modelling the relationship between covid-19 restrictive measures and mobility patterns across Europe using time-series analysis” authored by Marianthi Kallidoni, Christos Katrakazas and George Yannis is published in European Journal of Transport and Infrastructure Research. Data on walking and traffic were exploited and several time series analysis models were developed, in order to estimate mobility during pandemic in 25 EU countries. School closing was found to be the most important exogenous factor for describing driving or walking, while “Stay at home” orders had not a significant effect on the evolution of people movements.

The European Commission published a Study titled Prevention of Driving under the Influence of Alcohol and Drugs. Among its conclusions, the Study argues in particular that taking steps to mitigate drink driving, such as lower permitted blood alcohol levels or alcohol interlocks, would be particularly relevant for young or novice drivers and for drivers of heavy goods vehicles. However, it also finds that there is a lack of data on drug-driving fatalities and a need to develop more accurate and usable drugs screening devices. 

The World Bank Global Road Safety Facility (GRSF) has published 4 Reports on Road Safety in Africa: Road Safety Data in Africa, Africa Status Report on Road Safety in Africa, Road Safety Strategies for African Cities and Road Safety Culture in Africa (with the active contribution of NTUA), analysing findings for road safety on the African continent. The main goal of these Reports is to support the quest for reaching the target of a 50% reduction of road fatalities in the Africa by 2030.    

World Bank published a Knowledge Report titled Saving Lives Through Private Investment in Road Safety. This Report examines the enabling environment for structuring investable road safety projects in a sample of countries, looking at the barriers and opportunities, and proposing risks and mitigation strategies, like blended finance mechanisms and stable revenue sources, for long-term sustainability of road safety investments.  

The Horizon 2020 project HADRIAN  (Holistic Approach for Driver Role Integration and Automation Allocation for European Mobility Needs) issued recently the 2nd Newsletter, with updates on the main project activities, focusing on studying the effects of haptic feedback, optimized head-up displays, adding predictability of the automated drive, and improved visual and auditory display elements and many more – all in the context of a holistic view on automated driving. 

The International Road Traffic and Accident Database (IRTAD) of the International Transport Forum (ITF/OECD) organised with great success the Road Safety Strategies and targets for the Decade 2021-2030 Webinar, which was held online, on 10 March 2022. The Webinar focused on new road safety strategies and targets. NTUA contributed actively with the following presentation:

•  The Greek National Road Safety Plan 2021-2030: Linking and Monitoring Road Safety Targets, KPIs and Measures

Τhe European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) has published the 42nd PIN Flash Report titled How Traffic Law Enforcement Can Contribute to Safer Roads with the active contribution of NTUA. Exceeding speed limits, drink- or distracted- driving, and failure to wear a seatbelt are among the important factors leading to death and serious injury on European roads. Road safety laws have been adopted to guide drivers in their behaviour. Many comply with them willingly. Others, however, would be less likely to comply if it were not for fear of being detected and sanctioned. This is where traffic law enforcement comes in. This Report gives an overview of the current state of road traffic enforcement across the EU, with recommendations for action.   

Together for Safer Roads Global Coalition published a Report titled Driver Attitudes Towards Vehicle Safety Technology.  Fleet Managers now have access to GPS-based telematics and in-cab driver assistance technology that is often paired with in-cab dash cameras—all of which can keep drivers and the public safe. Since many drivers and even some managers are critical of the technology, significantly impacting adoption and use, this Report helps to better understand what makes drivers reluctant to adopt in-cab camera technology and identify what can be done to positively influence perceptions.

A paper titled “Spatial predictions of harsh driving events using statistical and machine learning methods” authored by Apostolos Ziakopoulos, Eleni Vlachogianni, Constantinos Antoniou and George Yannis is published in Safety Science. Spatial models including Geographically Weighted Poisson Regression, Bayesian Conditional autoregressive models (CAR), and variations of EXtreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost) are implemented. The purpose is to: (i) explore parameters affecting frequencies of harsh driving events through causal spatial models in an urban road network and (ii) assess the predictive performance of models by testing the transferable components of these models in a new urban network test area. The models are trained and evaluated in terms of accuracy and transferability for Harsh Breaking (HB) predictions in separate areas of Athens, Greece. Findings indicate key geometrical characteristics affecting HB frequencies per road segment. 

A paper titled “Development of a Roadmap for the Implementation of a Sustainable Mobility Action Plan in University Campuses of Emerging Countries” authored by Tormo-Lancero M., Valero-Mora P., Sanmartin J., Sánchez-García M., Papantoniou P., Yannis G., Alonso F. and Campos-Díaz E. is published in Frontiers in Sustainable Cities. In this paper a customizable standardized Roadmap design is proposed, which consists of two documents: a tactical document that provides a global and sequential vision of the entire plan, and an operational document that details the actions for each strategic line. This roadmap is accompanied by a catalog of objectives, measures, and cost and impact indicators. This design might be instructive for universities because of its universal characteristics in Emerging Countries. To ensure this, it is necessary to apply this roadmap and carry out the corresponding evaluation. 

The World Bank Global Road Safety Facility (GRSF) has published a Report titled: Guidelines for Conducting Road Safety Data Reviews. Since road safety data definitions and collection methods must converge into standard international criteria, this Report is designed to support reviewers in the assessment of road safety data collection; the complete range of safety data should be considered. This task can be complicated because collection of road safety data is often not achieved by activities dedicated to this purpose, but rather through piggybacks on other sources.  

A paper titled “Driving and Alzheimer’s Dementia or Mild Cognitive Impairment: A systematic review of the existing guidelines emphasizing on the neurologist’s role“, authored by Petros Stamatelos, Alexandra Economou, Leonidas Stefanis, George Yannis and Sokratis Papageorgiou is published in Neurological Sciences. The review of this paper included eighteen G/Rs, referred to drivers with dementia and 9/18 referred to drivers with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI). A common approach among G/Rs is the initial trichotomization of patients in safe to drive, unsafe to drive, and undetermined cases, which are referred to a second-line evaluator. Although extensive multi-disciplinary research has provided useful information for driving behavior of cognitively impaired individuals, we are still far from a widely accepted approach of driving ability evaluation in this increasing population. A comprehensive assessment from a multi-disciplinary team in which the neurologist plays a critical role seems to be required, although this has not yet been implemented in any G/Rs. 

A paper titled “The role of values in road safety culture: Examining the valuation of freedom to take risk, risk taking and accident involvement in three countries” authored by Tor-Olav Nævestad, Alexandra Laiou, Tova Rosenbloom, Rune Elvik, and George Yannis is published in Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour. National focus on individual freedom versus paternalistic values is a fundamental theme, which defines the status of traffic safety in different countries. Linear and logistic regression model results indicate that Greek drivers value freedom to take risk in traffic higher than drivers from Norway and Israel. Greek drivers also expect higher levels of risk taking from other drivers in their country, they report higher levels of risky driving themselves, and are more often involved in accidents. Thus, it seems that values have an important role in Road Safety Culture (RSC), legitimizing and motivating risky driving, which are related to accidents. 

The New Information System of the  Hellenic Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport was presented by the Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport, responsible for Transport Mr. Michalis Papadopoulos, the General Secretary of Transport Mr. Giannis Xifaras and the General Manager of ONEX IoT, Mr. Konstantinos Nikolouzos. The new Information System ensures the digitization and the faster processes of Transport Services. The new digital network will integrate applications and tools, which might be highly useful for the improvement of the road safety, such as the vehicle registrations, the driving licenses and the controls of the Vehicle Technical Inspection Centers. 

The International Transport Forum (ITF) published a Report titled Streets That Fit: Re-allocating Space for Better Cities. This Report looks at how street space has typically been allocated in the past, examines the rationale for street space allocation and describes how to measure space consumption for mobility purposes. The study also explores by way of a simulation how new mobility services and travel modes interact when a limited, dynamic and demand-responsive re-allocation of street space is introduced in a mid-sized city.  

The International Transport Forum (ITF) published a Booklet titled Road Safety in Cities: Street Design and Traffic Management Solutions presenting measures that effectively reduce road traffic deaths and serious injuries in cities. The Booklet covers urban street design, traffic management and improving mobility options. Measures are illustrated with examples reported by cities collaborating in the ITF Safer City Streets network and include information on cost and effectiveness.  

The World Road Association – PIARC published a Report titled “Road Related Data and How to Use it“. 20 recommendations, referenced within the report, provide a clear framework for road administrations to systematically compare their current practices and develop tailored action plans. These also complemented by a further 4 recommendations for PIARC to consider, to supporting member organizations in their journey to deliver better services through smarter use of data. 

The World Road Association – PIARC recently published a Report titled “Smart Roads Classification“. This Special Project presents an exploratory study about the feasibility of a Smart Roads Classification system. Identifying which steps should be done first becomes crucial, especially when addressing safety issues. One of the activities of the Special Project was exploring the feedback about follow-up proposals from several stakeholders. 

The World Road Association – PIARC recently published a Report titled “Improving Road Tunnel Resilience, Considering Safety and Availability – PIARC Literature Review“. This Review focusses on key tunnel topics: a) General concepts and approaches for resilience management, b) Legislation, standards, strategies and policies, c) Criteria and requirements for resilience, availability and safety as a mandatory constraint, d) Various events and future developments to be resilient for (including weather, climate change, natural hazards, traffic incidents, etc.), e) Possible measures to improve road tunnel resilience for these events, f) Organisational and managerial aspects of resilience improvement. 

The European Platform on Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans of Eltis recently published a Topic Guide on Safe Use of Micromobility Devices, which proposes best practice and key recommendations on the integration of micromobility in urban mobility planning, with the goal to support cities in achieving a safer use of micromobility devices in urban areas. The Guide also highlights the need to urgently integrate e-scooters into cities’ Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans (SUMPs).  

The International Road Traffic and Accident Database (IRTAD) of the International Transport Forum (ITF/OECD) published the Road Safety Annual Report 2021 focusing on the Covid-19 pandemic impact on road safety performance in 2020, identifying how the pandemic affected both mobility patterns and road fatalities. The analysis draws on data on road deaths from 34 member countries of the IRTAD Group and it also contains the IRTAD Country Reports highlighting the latest road safety developments in each country.  

Elsevier has  published the International Encyclopedia of Transportation on May 2021. Containing almost 600 articles, the Encyclopedia brings a cross-cutting and integrated approach to all aspects of transportation from a variety of interdisciplinary fields including engineering, operations research, economics, geography and sociology in order to understand the changes taking place. Emphasising the interaction between these different aspects of research, it offers new solutions to modern-day problems related to transportation. NTUA Associate Professor George Yannis and Assistant Professor Eleonora Papadimitriou actively contributed with the following chapter: 

•  Road Safety 

The International Transport Forum (ITF) published a Report titled Artificial Intelligence in Proactive Road Infrastructure Safety Management, reflecting the discussions at a Round Table of Experts from 33 Organisations and 15 Countries, chaired by NTUA Prof. George Yannis. This Report examines and determines the most relevant cases for Artificial Intelligence (AI) use in a transport planning context for accident prevention on an entire road network and it explores the possibility of using computer vision to acquire relevant information and the capability of modelling and mapping high-risk locations. It also offers recommendations to stakeholders on the development and appropriate use of lifesaving AI solutions.   

In the framework of the development of the National Road Safety Strategic Plan for the period 2021-2030, the Hellenic Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport has launched a wide and organized Open Consultation with all road safety stakeholders. This Plan is being developed with the scientific support of the Department of Transportation Planning and Engineering of NTUA and aims to reduce the number of road fatalities and serious injuries by 50% by 2030.  Any citizen or stakeholder can be informed and actively participate in the Open Consultation through the dedicated website: 

A paper titled “Modelling self-reported driver perspectives and fatigued driving via deep learning” authored by Alexandros Zoupos, Apostolos Ziakopoulos and George Yannis is published in Traffic Safety Research.  A binary logistic regression model was trained to provide causal insights on which variables affect the likelihood that a driver engaged in driving while fatigued, whereas a Deep Neural Network (DNN) was subsequently trained on the data, slightly outperforming the binary logistic model. Results demonstrate that drivers reporting driving under the influence of drugs, fatigue, or alcohol, as well as speeding, safety, and texting while driving or drivers who were more acceptable of fatigued driving were more likely to have recently driven while fatigued, and from the results of this paper it was concluded that declared fatigued driving behavior can be predicted from questionnaire data, providing new insights to fatigue detection. 

A paper titled “Quantifying the implementation impacts of a point to point automated urban shuttle service in a large-scale network” authored by Apostolos Ziakopoulos, Maria Oikonomou, Eleni Vlachogianni and George Yannis is published in Transport Policy. The results of this paper indicate that the AUSS operation has a significant effect on cumulative travel time per segment and CO₂ emissions per segment only during the scenario of mixed operation with traffic during off-peak hours. Road traffic density was found to be positively correlated with both travel time and CO₂ emissions, while the penetration of both cautious and aggressive CAVs was found to be negatively correlated with both indicators. 

A paper titled “Effect of Apolipoprotein E4 on the Driving Behavior of Patients with Amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment or Mild Alzheimer’s Disease Dementia“, authored by E. Stanitsa, A. Economou, I. Beratis, D. Kontaxopoulou, S. Fragkiadaki, V. Papastefanopoulou, D. Pavlou, P. Papantoniou, C. Kroupis, J. Papatriantafyllou, L. Stefanis, G. Yannis and S. Papageorgiou is published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease.  The results of this paper indicate that the lower speed variability of APOE4 carriers in the absence of neuropsychological test differences, as possible result of driver compensatory strategy. Simulated driving may be a sensitive method for detecting performance differences in the absence of cognitive differences.  

A paper titled “Analysis of the impact of COVID-19 on collisions, fatalities and injuries using time series forecasting: The case of Greece“, authored by Marios Sekadakis, Eva Michelaraki, Christos Katrakazas and George Yannis is  published in Accident Analysis & Prevention. Three different Seasonal Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (SARIMA) time series models were implemented on road casualties data for the period 2010-2020 in order to compare the observed measurements to forecasted values intended to depict assumed conditions; namely, without the appearance of the COVID-19 pandemic. The results demonstrate that fatalities and slightly injured rates were significantly increased during the lockdown period and the subsequent months. Overall, it can be concluded that a worse performance was identified in terms of road safety. Since subsequent waves of COVID-19 cases and other pandemics may reappear in the future, the outcomes of the current study may be exploited for the improvement of road safety from local authorities and policymakers. 

Based on the new interactive map of EUROSTAT which concerns the road safety performance of European Union regions (NUTS 2), the incidence rate for road fatalities in the EU fell by 32% between 2009 and 2019. The most rapid declines were recorded in Ciudad de Melilla in Spain (-100%), while two regions in Greece (Sterea Ellada and Anatoliki Makedonia-Thraki), Wien in Austria, Västsverige in Sweden, and Luxembourg also recorded falls of more than 60%. For 2019, the highest incidence rates were recorded in Prov. Luxembourg in Belgium (171 road fatalities per million inhabitants), Região Autónoma da Madeira (165) and Alentejo (156) in Portugal. On the other hand, the lowest incidence rates were recorded in Wien in Austria (6), Stockholm in Sweden (9) and Berlin in Germany (11). 

A paper titled “Did the COVID-19 pandemic influence traffic fatalities in 2020? A presentation of first findings” authored by Fred Wegman and Christos Katrakazas was recently published online in IATSS Research. The results of this research show that the number of fatalities in 2020 was 17.3% lower in the 24 participating countries compared with the baseline period and the reduction is almost seven times higher than annually in these countries in the period 2010–2019. The reduction in the number of fatalities is associated with less mobility, but a comprehensive analyses should take into account more crash and injury risk factors. 

The European Road Transport Research Advisory Council (ERTRAC) with the active contribution of NTUA published the Safe Road Transport Research Roadmap, as part of the ERTRAC Roadmaps. According to the Report, injury figures have remained nearly constant from 2013 to 2019, and even if preliminary fatality figures show a massive reduction in 2020, this can most likely be attributed to lower traffic volumes during the COVID-19 crisis.  

The European Commission – DG Move published a handbook, which has been developed in the study ‘Sustainable Transport Infrastructure Charging and Internalisation of Transport Externalities’, commissioned by a consortium led by CE Delft.  The objective of this study is to assess the extent to which the ‘user pays’ and the ‘polluter pays’ principles are implemented in EU Member States and in other developed countries. This Report provides an overview of the methodologies and input values that can be used to provide state-of-the-art estimates for all main external costs of transport. Furthermore, the Report and corresponding excel file present the total, average and marginal external costs for all relevant countries.   

The 5th Newsletter of the EU funded Horizon 2020 project Levitate (Societal Level Impacts of Connected and Automated Vehicles) was recently released focusing on the results of the latest Levitate Webinar titled “Social Level Impact of Connected and Automated Vehicles“, on the next webinar on “Automated road transport – impact assessment methodologies” and on several events and news on Road Safety. 

The scientific journal Sustainability organised with great success the publication of a special issue under the theme: “Challenges and Strategies for Sustainable Transportation and Traffic Safety”. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to Traffic safety impact assessment of sustainability measures, Cost-Benefit effects of sustainable safety interventions and Policies for the integration of the dimension of sustainability in traffic safety interventions. Guest editors of this special issue were Athanasios Theofilatos, Apostolos Ziakopoulos and Ioanna Pagoni.  

A NTUA Diploma Thesis titled “Critical Impact Factors of pedestrian traffic in Athens Downtown” was recently presented by Loukas Stroggylis. This Diploma Thesis revealed that the factors affecting pedestrian traffic are significantly related to the motorized traffic, as well as road infrastructure, land use and Covid-19 Pandemic. After crucial conclusions to quantify the influence of each variable were drawn, comments were made on the positive effects of pilot mobility interventions, critical issues were considered and finally, proposals were made for the improvement of the pedestrian traffic in the center of Athens and for further research.  

An NTUA Diploma Thesis titled “Road Safety Benchmarking in Greek Regions” was recently presented by Kostas Michailoglou. Data of road accidents and the main characteristics of each Region were used for the period 2010-2019 and two linear regression models were developed for all Regions of Greece, with and without Attica. THe models results indicate that the number deaths per 100.000 population depends on the income per inhabitant and the number of vehicles, the number of physicians (with Attica) and the density of each district (km²/inhabitant) and the unemployment (without Attica). Subsequently, Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) was used for the benchmarking of the 12 Regions (except of Attica) based on their performance on road safety. According to this classification, Thessaly, Ionian islands and Central Macedonia appear to have the best road safety performances, while Peloponnese and South Aegean have the worst ones.   

An NTUA Diploma Thesis titled “The impact of Weather Conditions and Time Pressure on the safe driving behavior on rural roads, with the use of driving simulator” was recently presented by Gregory Christodoulou. In this Diploma Thesis the application of mathematical models showed that there are two variants that lead to a significant increase in the probability of an accident. These are the Snow and the Time pressure, which especially for the latter, is a fact of concern for the drivers.  

An NTUA Diploma Thesis titled “Car drivers’ preferences towards the development of cycling infrastructure in the city of Athens, Greece” was recently presented by Thanos Zevgaras. This Diploma Thesis revealed that as the comfort of traveling by car increases, so does the likelihood of choosing a large amplification (aid) of the bicycle network, despite the costly contribution needed for it and that the greater the experience and the daily kilometers of the drivers, the more likely they are to choose the non-amplification (aid) of the bicycle network.  

An NTUA Diploma Thesis titled “Comparative analysis of road safety between EU and USA” was recently presented by Charie Tsoukalas. The multivariate linear regression model developed, revealed that an increase in speed limit leads to an increase in lives lost in road crashes and an increase in GDP per capita leads effectively to a decrease in fatal accidents. The benchmarking of all US States and EU countries using Data Envelopment Analysis demonstrated that EU countries are more effective (higher safety performance) than those of the USA, possibly because of the higher vehicle fleet and vehicle-kilometers and lower public transport share in the US.  

The Global Alliance of NGOs for Road Safety released its Good Practice Guide on Meaningful NGO Participation in the Field of Road Safety, demonstrating the unique and essential value of including NGOs in road safety decision making and implementation. The guide is a practical resource for NGOs and other civil society advocates. It describes steps that they can take to position themselves more effectively with their governments and to get their voices included in decision making. 

A paper titled “Trip characteristics impact on the frequency of harsh events recorded via smartphone sensors” authored by Armira Kontaxi, Apostolos Ziakopoulos and George Yannis is published online in IATSS Research. Generalized Linear Mixed-Effects Models were fitted to the trips of car drivers who made frequent trips for two experiment phases in order to model the frequencies of harsh events. Results indicate that maximum speed, the percentage of speeding duration and total trip duration are positively correlated with both harsh acceleration and harsh braking frequencies. On the other hand, the exposure metric of total trip distance was found to be negatively correlated with both harsh event types. A small positive correlation of the percentage of mobile use duration with harsh accelerations was also detected. 

The World Road Association – PIARC recently published a Report titled “Automated Vehicles – Challenges and Opportunities for Road Operators and Road Authorities“.  It is likely that some support from the infrastructure will be needed to reach higher levels of automation. Among others, this Report provides initial insights on digital infrastructure and mentions 11 key challenges to tackle regarding social issues in order to make automation a success. 

A paper titled “Impact of socioeconomic and transport indicators on road safety during the crisis period in Europe“, authored by Dimitris Nikolaou, Katerina Folla and George Yannis is published online in International Journal of Injury Control and Safety Promotion. The results of this research show that the evolution of human development affects the outcomes of road crashes more than suicides and passenger-kilometers travelled. After the end of the crisis, the impact of human development is even higher. Concerning passenger-kilometers travelled, there is an increase in the relative impact on road fatalities after the end of the crisis. 

Nneka Henry, Head of the UN Road Safety Fund (UNRSF), together with Namita Shah, Chairwoman of the  TOTALEnergies Foundation, published an article titled: Saving Young Lives, Protecting the Planet, and Growing the Economy: Road Safety for 2030. The article highlights that the global road safety crisis is the leading cause of death among children and youth and that the UNRSF and partners outline ways to make travel safer in developing countries, where 93% of the world’s road traffic deaths occur. 

An NTUA Diploma Thesis titled “Investigation of the effect of pandemic restriction measures on Greek driving behaviour during COVID-19 through deep learning techniques” was recently presented by Aspasia Gonidi. This Diploma Thesis revealed that covid-19 cases’ increase lead to harsh accelerations increase, probably due to psychological pressure but also due to lower traffic volumes on the roads. Furthermore, the different effects of the two covid-19 “waves” on driver behaviour are highlighted.  

An NTUA Diploma Thesis titled “Investigation of the effect of pandemic restriction measures in European mobility using clustering and machine learning classification” was recently presented by Dimitra Pigadioti. This Diploma Thesis revealed that the population’s behavior towards the pandemic and the consequent deaths, are better reflected and predicted by the characteristics of the population movements and not by the number of COVID-19 cases. Furthermore, the population’s mobility trends during the pandemic can be predicted satisfactorily for most European countries, considering the data of new COVID-19 cases per million population, the implemented vaccination policies and the movement trends to the grocery, pharmacy and parks.  

An NTUA Diploma Thesis titled “Comparative analysis of road safety factors across generations, in Greece” was recently presented by Reggina Mermiga. From the application of Log-Linear regression models it emerges that the number of road casualties follows a rising trend in the transition from the older to the younger generations, which presumably can be attributed to increased mobility of younger generations. Additionally, most car crash victims between the ages of 26 and 64 belong to Generation X while those involved in a two-wheeled vehicle accident belong to Generation Y, most probably due to the fact that the members of the two generations are connected to different financial periods but also to the tendency of the members of Generation Y to experience delays in their transition to the following stages of their life.  

An NTUA Diploma Thesis titled “Stated preferences of Athenians towards electric vehicles” was recently presented by John Kyparissis.  This Diploma Thesis reveals that drivers are mostly very positive towards purchasing an electric vehicle, with hybrid vehicles as their second choice. Furthermore, the probability of choosing an electric car depends to a large extent on the vehicle purchase cost, the ease of refueling and the views, habits and demographic characteristics of the respondents.  

An NTUA Diploma Thesis titled “Correlation of organization and performance of urban transport systems in Europe“, was recently presented by Dimitrios Georgakopoulos. This Diploma Thesis reveals that more bus and tram stops, increase of GDP, higher population density and public operation of PT have a positive impact on PT demand in comparison to car ownership and the increase of PT fares with a negative impact on PT demand. Secondly, population density, bus and tram stops, modal share of active travelling modes (walking, cycling), GDP and tram speed lead to decrease of road fatalities.  

An NTUA Diploma Thesis titled “Critical impact factors of travel time in Athens” was recently presented by Angelina Makri. The results revealed that the factors affecting travel time in the center of Athens are significantly related to the traffic of passenger cars, taxis, buses and trucks, with eco friendly modes of transport such as walking and cycling as well as road infrastructure which includes the number of traffic lanes and bus lanes. On Panepistimiou street, the cross sectional road increase from three to four lanes that took place in the second phase of the pilot implementation of the Great Walk of Athens, led to travel time increase.  

A paper titled “Post-trip safety interventions: state-of-the-art, challenges and practical implications” authored by Eva Michelaraki,  Christos Katrakazas,  George Yannis, Ashleigh Filtness, Rachel Talbot, Graham Hancox, Fran Pilkington-Cheney, Kris Brijs, Veerle Ross, Hélène Dirix, An Neven, Roeland Paul, Tom Brijs, Petros Fortsakis, Eleni Konstantina Frantzola and Rodrigo Taveira, was published in Journal of Safety Research. The synthesized results revealed that the majority of smartphone applications detected mobile phone use and harsh events and provided individual performance scores, while in-vehicle systems provided delayed visual reports through a web-based platform.  

A paper titled “Investigation of the speeding behavior of motorcyclists through an innovative smartphone application“, authored by Armira Kontaxi, Apostolos Ziakopoulos and George Yannis is published in Traffic Injury Prevention.  Using risk exposure and riding behavior indicators calculated from smartphone sensor data, Generalized Linear Mixed-Effects Models are calibrated to correlate the percentage of riding time over the speed limit with other riding behavior indicators. Results indicate that the parameters of trip duration, distance driven during risky hours, morning peak hours and the number of harsh accelerations are all determined as statistically significant and positively correlated with the percentage of speeding time. Additionally, the provision of rider feedback and riding during afternoon peak hours are statistically significant and correlated with decreased percentages of speeding time. 

The Second Meeting of the Road Safety Governmental Committee was held on 27 July at the Hellenic Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport. The discussed topics were the upgrade and the promotion of the educational platform “e-drive academy”, the digitalization of the fines’ imposition and collection due to Road Traffic Code violations and the collection of good quality data for a uniform and systematic record of road crashes. Participants in the committee were: the Deputy Minister of Infrastructure and Transport Yannis Kefalogiannis, the Deputy Minister of Citizen Protection Eleftherios Oikonomou, the Alternate Minister of Interior Stelios Petsas, the Deputy Minister of Education and Religious Affairs Zeta Makri, the Deputy Minister of Digital Governance Georgios Georgantas, the coordinator of the Road Safety Executive Committee Amalia Polydoropoulou and NTUA Professor George Yannis.  

A paper titled “Examining the relationship between impaired driving and past crash involvement in Europe: Insights from the ESRA study” authored by Apostolos Ziakopoulos, Athanasios Theofilatos, Alexandra Laiou, Eva Michelaraki, George Yannis and Tova Rosenbloom, is published online in the International Journal of Injury Control and Safety Promotion.  In this research, binary logistic analysis indicated that components involving overall personal and communal acceptance of impaired driving, overall and past year personal behaviour towards impaired driving and frequency of typical journey checks by traffic police were all quantities positively correlated with past crash involvement. 

Τhe European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) together with the Flemish Foundation for Traffic Knowledge (VSV) and Fundación MAPFRE have recently published the LEARN! Manual envisaged as a starting point for those who design, test, implement and evaluate educational activities on traffic safety and mobility, and are embarking upon the creation of new, or updating existing, activities. The new resource should also be useful to Ministries, Authorities, Schools and Organisations when deciding on which activities and projects to buy or fund.  

The  Australasian College of Road Safety (ACRS) has recently published the Journal of Road Safety, May 2021 Edition. The JRS accepts papers from all countries and regions around the world and publishes a diverse range of high-quality papers on road safety from researchers, policy makers, program implementers and other road safety experts, providing anyone interested in road safety with a rich source of current knowledge, evidence, developments and best practice in road safety implementation. 

A paper titled “To cross or not to cross? Review and meta-analysis of pedestrian gap acceptance decisions at midblock street crossings” authored by Athanasios Theofilatos,  Apostolos Ziakopoulos, Oscar Oviedo-Trespaliacios and Andrew Timmis was recently published by the Journal of Transport & Health. The paper explores pedestrian gap acceptance decisions in urban midblock locations. Fixed effects and random-effects meta-analyses are used to investigate the overall effect of critical variables. Results indicate that a unit increase in vehicle speed decreases pedestrians’ odds of crossing by 10%, while a unit increase in temporal gap size increases the odds of crossing by 7.2 times. Each crossing attempt increases the odds of crossing more than 16 times. 

A paper titled “Correlations of multiple rider behaviors with self-reported attitudes, perspectives on traffic rule strictness and social desirability“, authored by Apostolos Ziakopoulos, Dimitris Nikolaou and George Yannis is  published in Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour. Numerous statistical relationships were discovered and quantified correlating the four examined unsafe rider behaviors with eight latent unobserved variables. All covariances between unsafe behaviors were found to be positive and statistically significant, indicating that a rider who will engage more frequently in every single one of the four examined unsafe riding behaviors is more likely to also engage in all the others as well. 

The  World Health Organisation – Regional Office for Europe (WHO-Europe) recently published a Report titled: “Supporting healthy urban transport and mobility in the context of COVID-19“. The recommendations in this guidance can help in achieving multiple societal objectives, including: transport safety and efficiency; improved quality of urban life; reduced emission of air pollutants and greenhouse gases, and reduced noise; and greater opportunities to adopt a physically active lifestyle, while supporting economic recovery.  

Elsevier has  published the International Encyclopedia of Transportation on May 2021.  Containing almost 600 articles, the Encyclopedia brings a cross-cutting and integrated approach to all aspects of transportation from a variety of interdisciplinary fields including engineering, operations research, economics, geography and sociology in order to understand the changes taking place. Emphasising the interaction between these different aspects of research, it offers new solutions to modern-day problems related to transportation. NTUA actively contributed with the following paper: Traffic Flow Volume and Safety  

According to the 8^th Euro-Barometer for Responsible Driving, recently published by the Fondation VINCI Autoroutes, Greece has the highest rate of drivers (16%) that have been involved or almost involved in a road accident due to mobile phone use in Europe (EU average 11%). 57% of Greek drivers admitted calling while driving using a Bluetooth system, 53% using headphones and 42% without using any hands-free equipment. Moreover, 27% of Greek drivers stated sending and reading text messages or e-mails on their mobile phones while driving, whereas the respective European average is 22%. In addition, 11% of drivers in Greece report to have watched a film or video on a smartphone or tablet while driving, whereas the European average is 7%. 

The fifth Newsletter of the Horizon 2020 project BeOpen (European forum and observatory for open science in transport) was recently released with the results of the second event held virtually at the US TRB (Transportation Research Board) 2021 Annual meeting and successive presentations of the TOPOS Observatory and Forum key features to the transport and open science community.

The European Commission has recently published the Study on market development and safety of personal mobility devices (PMDs) and L-category vehicles, prepared by the Transport Research Laboratory (TRL). The main objectives of this Study were to provide an inventory of the various types of personal mobility devices available on the market, to provide a detailed analysis of the market and the influence of the existing legislations at EU and national level and to provide a collection and evaluation of available data and information on accidents involving personal mobility devices. 

The German Federal Highway Research Institute (BASt) recently published a Report titled Safety Performance Indicators in road traffic – Overview and experiences from international practice. The findings of this Report contribute to the conceptual framework of the “Road Safety Research Programme 2019” of the German Federal Highway Research Institute, aiming to describe indicators that precede a potential accident event as a description of the state of the road traffic system and predictors of the accident. 

The Sustainable Mobility for All Initiative (SuM4All), World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), and the International Road Federation (IRF) have launched a Report titled Sustainable Mobility:  Policy Making for Data Sharing. The Report draws attention to the need for policy guidance for data sharing between public and private sector stakeholders in the transportation sector.  Increasing digitalization of mobility can accelerate the transition toward sustainable urban mobility.   

The World Bank Global Road Safety Facility (GRSF), under the new BIGRS Program 2020-2025, hosts the new Speed Management Hub.  In this platform, the GRSF team provides evidence-based road safety knowledge to help manage speed through infrastructure interventions, effective enforcement, targeted awareness measures, and vehicle technology, highly useful also for the UN Global Road Safety Week pledge for 30km/h speed limit in urban areas. Key engagements from this focus area include the provision of technical expertise to program partners, countries and cities on speed management and the preparation and publication of Global Speed Management Guidelines. 

The World Bank Global Road Safety Facility (GRSF) announced the launch of their newly redesigned website: roadsafetyfacility.org. This project provides better access to the use of GRSF research and products will improve guidance and advocacy actions to address the global road safety crisis. Some of the new features of this site are Interactive Road Safety Country Profiles, Speed Management Hub and DRIVER platform. 

The European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) has recently published the PIN Flash Report 40 titled: Are Medical Fitness to Drive Procedures Fit for Purpose? with the active contribution of NTUA. This Report examines the current state of play in PIN countries regarding the assessment of medical fitness to drive, with reference to the 2006 EU Directive on Driving Licence and recommends that a standardised screening process be considered across all Member States when assessing a driver’s fitness to drive. The process should be based on international best practice and ideally, consistent across all jurisdictions.  

An NTUA Diploma Thesis titled “Impact of pandemic to mobility behavior in the European Union using time-series analysis” was recently presented by Marianthi Kallidoni. This Diploma Thesis revealed that school closing is the most important exogenous factor for describing driving or walking, while the effect of “Stay at home” orders was not a significant factor for the evolution of people movements. In addition, countries which suffered the most due to the pandemic showed a strong correlation with the restrictive measures. Furthermore, no time-series models were found to describe the countries which implemented weak countermeasures.  

An NTUA Diploma Thesis titled “Investigation of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mobility in Greece using time series analysis” was recently presented by Eleni Blatsouka.  Data on mobility and restrictive measures were collected from online databases and ARIMA time series models were developed for Greece and Athens with dependent variables: driving or walking and with exogenous factor one of the restrictive measures. It was demonstrated that the closing of educational institutions and lockdown are the most important exogenous factors for describing mobility, while the curfew and the mandatory use of mask in all public areas are not significant factors. In addition, seasonal models appear to produce better forecasts than the non-seasonal ones.  

An NTUA Diploma Thesis titled “Time Series Analysis of Vehicle and Pedestrian Traffic in Athens” was recently presented by Nick Economou. The result of this Diploma Thesis is that from summer onwards the forecasted mobility evolution of drivers and pedestrians in Athens Great Area is lower than the observed one, which may be due to summer holidays and high temperatures during summer months in which the prediction was based. Considering the modal split on the examined roads in the center of Athens, it is observed a reduction in the use of passenger vehicles with a simultaneous increase in the use of taxis, which may be due to the adaptation of drivers to the new traffic conditions of the Panepistimiou street brought about by the Athens Great Walk pilot operation.