Selected papers of the Transport Research Arena Conference which took place in Paris in 2014 are now published by ISTE/Wiley. A special volume co-edited by NTUA Prof. George Yannis, and ENPC Prof. Simon Cohen is dedicated to Traffic Safety, containing theoretical chapters and practical case studies addressing topics such as road safety management and policies, accident analysis and modeling, vulnerable road users’ safety, road infrastructure safety, ITS and railway safety.  

A four page brochure titled ‘How 3-star or better roads can cut death and trauma’ is now available by EuroRAP aiming to support its members and road safety professionals across the continent in their meetings with key policy makers. The brochure provides key statistics and cost-benefit analyses to make the economic case for improving road infrastructure in order to help reduce deaths on Europe’s roads by 2020 to less than 50% of their 2010 total of 31,500. It features case studies and national 3-star policy targets and sets out recommended policy goals. 

A paper titled ‘Mobile phone use, speed and accident probability of young drivers‘ authored by George Yannis, Leonidas Roumpas and Eleonora Papadimitriou is now published in Advances in Transportation Studies. A driving simulator experiment was carried out, in which young participants drove in different driving scenarios: urban and interurban areas, good or rainy weather, with or without the occurrence of unexpected incidents. Log-normal linear regression waw used to analyze the influence of mobile phone use and other parameters on the mean speed of drivers, whereas binary logistic regression was used to analyze the influence of mobile phone, change in speed and other parameters on accident probability. The results suggest that mobile phone use leads to statistically significant overall decrease of the mean speed. However, some drivers increased their speed during the mobile phone conversation, a case which has received little attention in the literature. Mobile phone use leads to significant increase of accident probability, indicating that the speed reduction when using a mobile phone is not sufficient to counterbalance the overall increased risk, especially when an unexpected incident occurs. 

A Diploma Thesis titled ‘Investigation of declared and revealed driver behaviour using vehicle diagnostics’ was presented by Natalia Vittoratou in July 2016, with the support and data from OSeven Telematics. The aim of this diploma thesis is the correlation of stated and revealed driver’s behavior with the use of vehicle on-board diagnostics (OBD) data. On that purpose, a large data set from a driving behavior experiment was exploited, which recorded continuously (per second during a period of three months) the behaviour of 17 drivers. These data concerned harsh acceleration and braking, average traffic speed and mileage travelled. Drivers’ stated behaviour was investigated through a corresponding questionnaire. For the data analysis, a mathematical statistical model was developed using linear regression. The results demonstrated a strong correlation between harsh brakings and accelerations on one hand and the number of accidents, the annual income and the declared frequency of harsh braking on the other.   

A Diploma Thesis titled ‘Attitudes of European drivers towards distraction’ was presented by George Vasilakis in July 2016. Responses of a representative sample of 17.000 European drivers are analyzed from the European survey ESRA, conducted in 2015. The analysis of driver behavior is carried out with the use of statistical methods of cluster analysis and negative binomial distribution. Through the method of cluster analysis, four different groups of European countries were ultimately formed with larger and smaller population, high and low income and the characteristics of each group were identified. Τhe results of cluster analysis were used at the negative binomial distribution in which the answers of Europeans to selected questions were summarized in the basic factors describing their driving behavior, the use of mobile phone during driving and their views on issues related to road behaviour of other drivers, the existing measures for road safety, and driver’s distraction.  

A Diploma Thesis titled “Correlation of driver characteristics and its safety performance” was presented by Vasiliki Agathangelou in July 2016, with the support and data from OSeven Telematics. Data from an experiment on driver behaviour assessment from an expert was exploited, using on-road driving in conjunction with a self-evaluation questionnaire. The analysis of the drivers’ behaviour was carried out through factor and linear regression analyses. Three groups that characterise drivers’ perception of careless, aggressive and cautious driving behaviour were derived from factor analysis. Moreover, linear regression analysis revealed that driving experience, headways, self-reported driving skills and defensive driving affect positively the overall on-road driving performance score. It was ascertained that driving experience leads to statistically significant increase in overall on-road driving performance score.   

A Diploma Thesis titled ‘Analysis of aggressive driving characteristics in Greece‘ was presented by Eva Kalpaxidi in July 2016. The aim of the present Diploma Thesis is the analysis of the characteristics of aggressive driving in Greece exploiting the Pan-European survey of road user’s attitudes: ESRA. Factor Analysis as well as Binary Logistic Regression and Negative Binomial Regression Models were developed in order to demonstrate the correlation between aggressive driving, police checks and the number of accidents caused by aggressive driving. The statistical models developed demonstrated that gender and age play a major role in aggressive driving, the majority of the drivers take positions against speeding and aggressive driving is described by three different characteristics: actions against other drivers, negative feelings and risk-taking actions while driving.   

The European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) has just published the PIN Flash Report ‘How traffic law enforcement can contribute to safer roads‘, with the contribution of NTUA. Exceeding speed limits, drink or distracted driving and failure to wear a seat belt are still the leading causes of death and serious injury on European roads. Excessive or inappropriate speed is a primary factor in about one third of road deaths and an aggravating factor in many more. Drink driving causes as much as 25% of all road deaths in the EU. ETSC estimates that 900 car occupant deaths would have been prevented in 2012 if 99% of those in cars in collisions had been wearing safety belts. Driver distraction, including mobile phone use, is increasingly a factor in fatal collisions. Enforcement of road traffic laws is an essential component in preventing death and injury. 

The PRACT Repository is a new online road safety toolcontaining the most recent Accident Prediction Models and Crash Modification Factors, highlighting effectiveness of road safety infrastructure measures worldwide, for use by road safety decision makers and practitioners worldwide. 

This Repository has been developed within the framework of the project PRACT, (Predicting Road ACcidents-a Transferable methodology across Europe) carried out by the University of Florence, the National Technical University of Athens, the Technical University of Berlin and the Imperial College London, commissioned by theConference of European Directors of Roads.

The basic assumption on which the PRACT Repository is built is that Accident Prediction Models (APM) and Crash Modification Factors (CMF) can be transferred to conditions different from the ones for which they have been developed, if selected based on scientifically valid criteria and adapted to local conditions based on historical crash data.

In conjunction with World Day for Safety and Health at Work on April 28, Together for Safer Roads (TSR), the Coalition of global private sector companies, released the Advancing Road Safety Best Practices for Companies and Their Fleets report.

The Report outlines practices that companies can use to keep employees, partners, and contractors safe on the world’s roads, as well as minimize costs. Globally, between 25 and 33 percent of road crashes are work-related and 36 percent of occupational deaths are due to crashes. While these are sobering and devastating human costs, there are also great financial costs. Worldwide, employers incur costs of USD $518 billion per year due to road traffic collisions. 

ETSC has just released a position paper titled: ‘A Proposal for a strategy to reduce the number of people seriously injured on EU roads‘. ETSC recommends to the EU to adopt a target of a 35% reduction between 2014 and 2020 in the number of people seriously injured. A 35% reduction over the period 2014-2020 would be similarly challenging for Member States to the target to halve road deaths between 2010 and 2020. In addition, the EU should adopt a joint strategy including measures against which delivery can be made accountable. 

A report on Prioritising the Safety Potential of Automated Driving in Europe is now released by the European Transport Safety Council (ETSC). Automated driving technologies are already preventing collisions and deaths on our roads. The purpose of the report is to give an overview of automated driving, identify the main safety benefits and offer some key recommendations for the near future for the EU and its Member States to create a regulatory environment that prioritises safety. 

A paper titled ‘Relating traffic fatalities to GDP in Europe on the long term‘ with emphassis to turbulent financial situations, co-authored by Costas Antoniou, George Yannis, Eleonora Papadimitriou and Sylvain Lassarre is now published in Accident Analysis & Prevention. For this analysis, time series of the number of fatalities and GDP in 30 European countries for a period of 38 years (1975–2012) were exploited. This process relies on estimating long-term models (as captured by long term time-series models, which model each country separately). Based on these developments, utilizing state-of-the-art modelling and analysis techniques such as the Common Correlated Effects Mean Group estimator (Pesaran), the long-term elasticity mean value equals 0.63, and is significantly different from zero for 10 countries only. When we take away the countries, where the number of fatalities is stationary, the average elasticity takes a higher value of nearly 1. This shows the strong sensitivity of the estimate of the average elasticity over a panel of European countries and underlines the necessity to be aware of the underlying nature of the time series, to get a suitable regression model.  

The European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) has just published the 30th PIN Flash Report ‘How safe are new cars sold in the EU?‘. In the last decade the long term road safety trend has been positive across the EU countries, and although the reduction in deaths may be a result of many factors, including better enforcement, changing behaviour and safer infrastructure, there is little doubt thatimproved vehicle safety standards since the late 1990’s have played an important role. One important indicator of the level of vehicle safety in Europe overall is what proportion of the number of tested vehicles actually sold meet Euro NCAP’s highest safety ratings. The last assessment of the progress of the Euro NCAP programme carried out by ETSC in 2009 found that there were very significant differences between the average Euro NCAP rating of new cars sold in Eastern and Central European countries, compared to their Western European counterparts. 

The World Road Association (PIARC) has recently released a Report titled ‘Improving safety in road tunnels through real-time communication with users‘. This report is a continuation of the one published by PIARC in 2008 on ‘Human Factors and road tunnel safety regarding users‘. It describes human behavioural aspects when driving, andhow to communicate information to tunnel users in normal, congested and critical situations. It details the various systems that can be activated for real-time communication with users and reviews how these devices can be used in cases of congestion, a serious incident and fire and how the activation of these systems and devices must be adapted to the changing circumstances of the event. 

The Road Safety Unit of DG Move of the European Commission published recently the 2015 Edition of the EU Road Safety Country Overviews with the active contribution of NTUA, KFV and ERF. The EU Road Safety Country Overviews are based on most recent disaggregate data for all EU countries from theCARE Database of the European Commission as well as on structured information gathered from the EU Member States.

These Road Safety Country Overviews consist of five analysis sections (Social costs, Number killed and injured, Safety performance indicators, Safety measures and programmes, Structure and culture) and one synthesis section providing a comprehensive picture of current road safety facts and challenges in each EU country.  

The World Road Association (PIARC) has recently launched the updated electronic encyclopedia called ‘Road Tunnels Manual‘ focusing exclusively on all the aspects linked to the use of road tunnels (geometry, tunnel equipment and maintenance, operations, safety, environment).

The PIARC Road Tunnels Manual comprises two principal parts: the part ‘Transverse aspects‘ containing 5 chapters and considering general aspects of road tunnels and the part ‘Operational and Safety Requirements‘ containing 4 chapters and addressing particular elements of tunnels taking these requirements into consideration. The Manual ends with a Glossary which describes 200 terms and definitions translated into twenty languages. PIARC Road Tunnel Manual is available in 10 languages. 

The World Road Association (PIARC) has recently launched the electronic manual on Road Network Operations & Intelligent Transport Systems. The manual is a comprehensive, regularly updated handbook helping practitioners to alleviate road congestion, a major worldwide issue that directly affects the economies of many nations.

Road Network Operations (RNO) concern the methods at the disposal of road authorities and highway infrastructure operators that contribute to safer and more efficient travel for road users and for society as a whole. Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) concern a wide range of services that use information and communications technology that can improve transportation and mobility. 

A report on the European facts and the Global status report on road safety 2015 has now been published by World Health Organisation (WHO). In 2013, almost85.000 people died from road-traffic injuries in the WHO European Region. Although the regional mortality rate is the lowest among WHO regions (9.3 deaths per 100 000 population), the rates of road traffic deaths vary widely in between European countries. More systematic efforts are needed if the global target of a 50% reduction in road crash deaths is to be achieved by 2020. NTUA contributed to the peer review of this Report. 

UNECE has published a Report covering in detail the 11 goals that have been derived from the five pillars of the Global Plan to form its strategic approach to road safety during the Decade. It provides a comprehensive overview, including the status and key results of its goals, as well as descriptions of specific UNECE ITC initiatives and information on the challenges the overall road safety community faces. One of the main conclusions of this report is that political will and the introduction and use of national strategies are likely to be the difference makers in helping to reach the main goal: halving the number of road traffic deaths and injuries by 2020. 

A paper titled ‘Introducing human factors in pedestrian crossing behaviour models‘ co-authored by Eleonora Papadimitriou, Sylvain Lassarre and George Yannis is now published in the Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour. A field survey was carried out, in which a panel of 75 pedestrians were asked to take 8 short walking trips (each one corresponding to a different walking and crossing scenario) in the Athens city centre in Greece, allowing to record their crossing behaviour in different road and traffic conditions. The same individuals were asked to fill in a questionnaire on their travel motivations, their mobility characteristics, their risk perceptions and preferences with respect to walking and road crossing, their opinion on drivers, etc. The walking and crossing scenarios’ data were used to develop mixed sequential logit models of pedestrian behaviour on the basis of road and traffic characteristics. The modelling results showed that pedestrian crossing choices are significantly affected by road type, traffic flow and traffic control. The questionnaire data were used to estimate human factors (components) of pedestrian crossing behaviour by means of principal component analysis. The results showed that three components of pedestrian crossing behaviour emerge, namely a “risk-taking and optimisation” component reflecting the tendency to cross at mid-block in order to save time, etc., a “conservative” component, concerning individuals with increased perceived risk of mid-block crossing, who also appear to be frequent public transport users, and a “pedestrian for pleasure” component, bringing together frequent pedestrians, walking for health or pleasure, etc. The introduction of these components as explanatory variables into the choice models resulted in improvement of the modelling results, indicating that human factors have additional explanatory power over road and traffic factors of pedestrian behaviour.  

The European Parliament’s Committee on Transport and Tourism has recently published a study prepared by the UK Transport Research Laboratory on the Impact of Higher or Lower Weight and Volume of Cars on Road Safety, particularly for Vulnerable Users. The study provides ananalysis of necessary technological changes, in order to improve the impact of higher or lower weight and volume of cars on road safety, particularly for, but not limited to vulnerable users. 

A Diploma Thesis titled ‘Investigation of driver’s behaviour using vehicle diagnostics‘ was presented by Eustratios Saplaouras in November 2015, with the support and data from OSeven Telematics. The aim of this Diploma Thesis is to investigate the driver’s behavior through the on-board diagnostics of the vehicle. A large data set was exploited, which were recorded per second and concerned the exact position of the vehicle, its speed, the spots where the driver was performing a sudden change of speed or a sudden maneuver, the fuel consumption, etc. Mathematical statistical models were developed using linear and binary logistic regression. The results demonstrated a strong correlation between over-speeding and driver harsh behavior, although the two dimensions are disproportionate, as well as the occurrence of higher driving speeds during risky hours (00:00-04:00). 

The Private Sector Global Coalition Together for Safer Roads (TSR) composed by 11 leading global companies has recently published a White Paper titled “Investing in Road Safety – A global imperative for the private sector“, setting the orientations and priorities of the TSR Coalition for advancing road safety in the world. This White Paper was prepared by the TSR’s Expert Panel composed by international road safety experts, with the active participation of NTUA Prof. George Yannis.

In this White Paper, TSR’s Expert Panel assesses progress since the United Nations General Assembly established theUnited Nations Decade of Action for Road Safety in 2010,identifies gaps, and discusses the role of the private sector in advancing road safety. The role of the Global private sector Coalition is seen under three perspectives: as collaborators with the public sector and NGOs in demonstration projects; as managers of vehicle fleets traversing the world’s roads; and as participants in specific industries that have unique opportunities to improve road safety. With the United Nations Decade of Action for Road Safety at its midpoint, business has an opportunity to drive a groundswell of meaningful cross-sector action and help save millions of lives.

The World Road Association (PIARC) has recently published the long waited second edition of the Road Safety Manual. The PIARC Road Safety Manual is aligned with key pillars of the United Nations Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011-2020 (1: Road Safety Management, 2: Safer Roads and Mobility and 4: Safer Road Users) and isdesigned to assist countries at every stage of infrastructure development and to fulfill road safety objectives. This comprehensive resource builds on the broad range of knowledge and experience provided by PIARC in the first edition. It includes new thinking on road safety and offers a clear argument on why adopting a Safe System approach is crucial for each country. The Safe System approach aims for a more forgiving road system that takes human fallibility and vulnerability into account. Under the Safe System approach, everyone (public agencies, automobile manufacturers, road users, enforcement officials, and others) must share the responsibility for road safety outcomes.  

The European Road Federation (ERF) launched recently its Position Paper towards improving Traffic Signs in European Roads: “Improved Signage for better Roads“. This Position Paper advocates for authorities to avoid or tackle the over-proliferation of traffic signs and to ensure that those installed display a clear message, in order to achieve better road safety and traffic flow, and good use of public resources. Road authorities need to set a multiannual maintenance action plan. The need to adapt to the needs of an ageing driver population, by introducing a minimum maintenance standards for safety critical signs under the Vienna Convention is highlighted. This position paper calls for all stakeholders involved to examine the benefits of greater harmonisation of signs within the Vienna Convention to maximise the safety benefits of new vehicle technologies as well as to provide for a more familiar environment for increasing cross-border traffic volumes.  

The International Road Traffic and Accident Database Group (IRTAD) of the International Transport Forum (ITF/OECD) published a Report on Why Does Road Safety Improve When Economic Times Are Hard?. In this Report previous studies were reviewed and new ones are presented demonstrating that there is clear evidence that when economic growth declines, and particularly when unemployment increases, road safety improves, particularly among young people.

Furthermore it was found that the economic downturn in 2009-10 may well have contributed to about two-thirds of the decrease in road fatalities since 2008. It is suggested that policy makers need to take careful account of these results when setting up road safety targets and when designing road safety strategies for the future. NTUA has contributed actively to the preparation of this Report. 

The International Road Traffic and Accident Database (IRTAD) of the International Transport Forum (ITF/OECD) published a Report on Road Infrastructure Safety Management (RISM), that describes in a comprehensive way the most consolidated RISM procedures, analyses their use worldwide, identifies possible weaknesses and barriers to their implementation, provides example of good practices and aims to generally contribute to the scientific assessment of RISM procedures. The RISM procedures considered concern: Road Safety Impact Assessment, Road Safety Measures Efficiency Assessment Tools, Road Safety Audit, Network Operation, Road Safety Performance Indicators, Network Safety Ranking, Road Assessment Programme, Road Safety Inspection, High-Risk Sites and Road Accident In-Depth Investigation.

This report is considered of high interest for the decision makers, scientists and practicioners in the field of road infrastructure safety management. NTUA has contributed actively to the preparation of this Report. 

A paper titled ‘Exploring the association between working memory and driving performance in Parkinson’s disease‘ co-authored by Sofia Vardaki, Hannes Devos, Ion Beratis, George Yannis and Sokratis Papageorgiou is now published in Traffic Injury Prevention. The aim of this study was toexplore whether varying levels of operational and tactical driving task demand differentially affect drivers with Parkinson’s disease (PD) and control drivers in their sign recall. Drivers of the control group performed better than drivers with PD in a sign recall task, but this trend was not statistically significant (p = 0.43). Also, regardless of group membership, subjects’ performance differed according to varying levels of task demand. Performance in the sign recall task was more likely to drop with increasing task demand (p = 0.03).This difference was significant when the variation in task demand was associated with a cognitive task, i.e., when drivers were required to apply the instructions from working memory. Although the conclusions drawn from this study are tentative, the evidence presented here is encouraging with regard to the use of a driving simulator to examine isolated cognitive functions underlying driving performance in PD. With an understanding of its limitations, such driving simulation in combination with functional assessment batteries measuring physical, visual and cognitive abilities could comprise one component of a multi-tiered system to evaluate medical fitness to drive.  

Road safety targets were agreed at the UN negotiations for the Global Sustainable Development Goals (to be formally approved in September).  More precisely, aspecific stand-alone target (3.6) in the Health Goal (3) to reduce road traffic fatalities by 50% by 2020and a target on sustainable urban transport (11.2) in the Cities Goal (11) have been approved, in a landmark achievement for the global road safety community. 

A new Guide titled ‘Cities Safer by Design‘ has recently been published by the World Resources Institute. It is a is a Global Reference Guide to assist cities save lives from traffic fatalities through improved street design and smart urban development, that taps examples from cities worldwide and includes 34 different design elements to improve safety and quality of life. 

The Road Safety Foundation has released a report titled ‘Engineering Safer Roads – Star Rating roads for in-built safety‘. Previous annual launches of Risk Mapping and Performance Tracking results have prompted the questions:

A paper titled ‘Assessing Selected Cognitive Impairments Using a Driving Simulator: A Focused Review‘ co-authored by Vardaki Sophia, George Yannis and Sokratis Papageorgiou is now published in Advances in Transportation Studies. The paper offers a focused review of studies investigating driving performance as assessed on simulators, targeting cognitive impairments which are age-related or caused by neuro-degenerative disorders, including mild cognitive impairment (MCI), Alzheimer’s disease (AD), Parkinson’s disease (PD) and stroke. The paper references selected findings highlighting what they reveal about several key methodological issues: gauging task demands in relation to actual driving; how differences in cognitive ability affect performance, and how this varies for different driving tasks; issues related to scenario design, such as simulator limitations, scenario authoring and simulated driving tasks; the need to develop operational definitions and comparability; limitations that affect the generalizability of simulator studies; the simulator adaptation syndrome; the bias in performance assessment that can result when drivers have not adequately adapted to the simulator; and driving simulator validation. The issues covered would help readers recognize the many confounding variables and sources of measurement error that can flaw research of this type, and their implications for future investigations.  

A paper titled ‘Good Practices on Cost – Effective Road Infrastructure Safety Investments‘ co-authored by Eleonora Papadimitriou, George Yannis and Petros Evgenikos is published in the International Journal of Injury Control and Safety Promotion. The paper presents the findings of research aiming to quantify and subsequently classify several infrastructure-related road safety measures, based on the international experience attained through extensive and selected literature review and additionally on a full consultation process including questionnaire surveys addressed to experts and relevant workshops. The results suggest that the overall cost effectiveness of a road safety infrastructure investment is not always in direct correlation with the safety effect and is recommended that cost-benefit ratios and safety effects are always examined in conjunction with each other in order to identify the optimum solution for a specific road safety problem in specific conditions and with specific objectives.  

The European Commission has recently released a report titled ‘Benefit and feasibility of a range of new technologies and unregulated measures in the field of vehicle occupant safety and protection of vulnerable road users‘  prepared by Transport Research Laboratory (TRL). The report names technologies including Intelligent Speed Assistance (ISA), Automated Emergency Braking (AEB) and seat belt reminder systems in passenger seats as ‘feasible in terms of the technology required’, already available on the market and offering a positive benefit-cost ratio. 

The RIDERSCAN project, a project co-funded by theEuropean Commission and coordinated by the Federation of European Motorcyclists’ Associations (FEMA), is now completed, gathering existing information on motorcycle safety in Europe, identifying needs for action and creating a crossborder knowledge-based network. All project Deliverables are now available , including comprehensive Country Facts Sheets andRecommendations for policy actions. NTUA contributed to the various activities of the RIDERSCAN project.

The European Commission has published the most recent statistics on road fatalities, based on provisional data for 2014 road deaths in Europe. The number of road fatalities has decreased by approximately only 1% compared to 2013; the decrease rate has slowed down in 2014 following on the 8% decrease in 2012 and 2013. The average EU fatality rate for 2014 is expected to be 51 road deaths per million inhabitants. Country by country statistics show that the number of road deaths still varies greatly across the EU, from less than 30 (Malta, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom) to above 90 (Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania and Romania) deaths per million inhabitants. 

In the respective accompanying European Commission road safety statistics report, the basic safety trends, statistics and challenges in the EU 2010-2014 are highlighted, with focus on pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists.

A Diploma Thesis titled ‘Feasibility analysis of installing pedestrian bridges in major road axes in Athens‘ was presented by Natalia Vraka in March 2015. Sixteen hazardous road locations for the five year period 2007 – 2011, were identified through the Quality Control method, assessing accident data concerning pedestrians and traffic volume data regarding eleven central road axes of Athens with a high pedestrian traffic. Then, a before-and-after accident analysis method with a large control group was applied , which demonstrated a strong dissimilarity between the six examined pedestrian bridges. As a result, no clear conclusions could be drawn about the impact of pedestrian bridges in accidents frequency and severity. However, based on in situ observations made at the 16 dangerous road sections, the conclusion drawn was that there is high potential for the construction of pedestrian bridges in four of them, whereas in four others specific additional interventions would be needed. 

The Working Party on Road Traffic Safety of the United Nations – Economic Commission for Europe on the occasion of its 70th meeting has organised with great success in Geneva, on 23 March 2015 a Round Table on Power Two Wheeler Safety.  Several international PTW safety experts contributed state of the art developments from around the world on traffic safety of motorcycles, scooters and mopeds, available at the UN/ECE website. 

NTUA Professor George Yannis made an invited presentation on ‘Improved Safety of Motorcycles, Scooters and Mopeds‘

The Road Map for Safer Cars 2020 has recently been published by Global NCAP with ten key recommendations for safer cars. Millions of new cars sold in middle and low income countries fail to meet the UN’s basic safety standards for front and side impacts revealed international automotive safety watchdog Global NCAP. A package of minimum safety regulations for adoption by the end of the UN Decade, measures to promote a market for safety among car buyers in the rapidly motorising countries, policies to sustain the safety of the vehicles once in use, and a proposed industry voluntary commitment to implement minimum occupant safety standards to all new passenger cars are included in the Road Map. If this Road Map is followed by 2020, all new cars in the world would pass the minimum UN standards for crashworthiness and crash avoidance. This would spread the advances in automotive safety technology across all countries, mitigate the risks of rapid motorisation, and help achieve a world free from many avoidable and unnecessary road traffic fatalities. 

A Diploma Thesis titled ‘Investigation of the effect of vehicle collision type on road accident severity in Greece‘ was presented by Olga Reitzopoulou in March 2015. Appropriately processed data for the period 2007-2011 in Greece were used from the ELSTAT datafile based on Traffic Police records and special log-rate analysis models were developed. Severity has been chosen to be expressed as the rate of number of persons killed and seriously injured divided by the number of slightly injured persons. The analysis led to the investigation of the impact on accident severity of the area type and the vehicle type involved. It appears that the severity is higher for passenger car and motorcycle occupants, while the vehicle type of the opponent car that affects more the severity is passenger car and truck. This impact is higher outside urban areas. 

The European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) has just published the PIN Flash Report ‘Ranking EU progress on improving mororways safety‘, with the contribution of NTUA. Motorways are the safest roads by design and regulation. Nevertheless in 2013, around 1,900 people were killed on the motorway network in the EU, representing 7% of all road deaths. Nearly 27.500 people have died on motorways in the EU in the last ten years 2004 to 2013. Nevertheless progress has been made. Across the EU the number of people killed on motorways was cut by 49% between 2004 and 2013 (compared to 44% on the rest of the road network). Over the same period, the length of the motorway network increased by about a quarter. 

Report titled  ‘Towards Safer Work Zones‘  has been released by the European Union Road Federation (ERF). The ERF’s dedicated Working Group, carried out a focused research on national guidelines, legislations and cases regarding equipment deployed in road work zones, in order to detect best practices, identify improvements and produce performance guidelines adapted to the state of the art. This Report focuses on the TEN-T road network and examined the approach, activity and termination areas in mobile, short and long term work zones, current practices and the equipment used throughout the European countries. 

NTUA Professor George Yannis has given an invited lecture at the National Transportation Center of the University of Maryland led by Prof. Lei Zhang, on “Traffic and safety data analysis: from correlation to causation and policy support“.  The Lecture focussed on the various facets of road safety data, starting from the need for evidence based road safety policies, followed by key road safety analysis methods, the challenges of road safety measures’ assessment and the role of road user behaviour and concluding with an integrated road safety approach from data monitoring and analysis to policy support. 

The European Commission has recently released a Study on some safety-related aspects of tyre use,  prepared by the TNO and TML. The overall aim of the study is to propose policy options concerning the use of tyres for improvement of traffic safety. Centrally to this, is the idea that end users need to make the correct assessment in relation to the tyre condition in order to achieve a level of safety as high as possible. The tyre condition is considered in relation to technical elements (tyre inflation pressure, tyre tread depth, tyre damage, tyre age, and meteorological influences) and one information element (driver awareness). The study addresses the topics of tyre usage and the impact on road safety (which are the potential safety improvements related to tyre usage from a technical perspective) and how can road users be supported to use tyres that have a better safety performance by policy options. 

The second version of the Motorcycle Vision is now available by the Swedish Motorcyclists Association (SMC). The aim of the Motorcycle Vision is to introduce the motorcyclists’ views on the targets in Vision Zero and how they should be achieved. Six years after the release of the first Motorcycle Vision, SMC releases the Motorcycle Vision version 2.0, updated on the basis of statistics, research, new knowledge and experiences. The Report focusses on the responsibility of the motorcyclists, the interaction with other users, a more motorcycle friendly transport system and the safer vehicles. 

The European Transport Safety Research Report is just published by the European Commission. In the last ten years, safety has increased across all modes, the EU set ambitious targets in its 2011 Transport White Paper, but much more needs to be done. The purpose of this Report is to demonstrate the amount of research effort being spent in each of Europe’s transport sectors to deliver a safer transport system for the 21st Century.  

The latest tool of the  ERTICO – ITS Europe is the ITS Library, a large collection of ITS related documents, videos, audio recordings and presentations. These materials relate to ITS in general, ITS projects, and ITS publications (academic and other). Thousands of document have been collected and published to provide useful access to a vast amount of knowledge and experience in the development, deployment and testing of intelligent transport systems. Access is free after a simple registration. 

The European Commission has released the new Policy Brochure ‘Travelling Safely in Europe by road, rail and water‘. The publication highlights the contribution of EU research in improving safety of vehicles and infrastructure, and enhancing user behaviour, with the overall goal to improve safety of the European transport systemand meet the ambitious targets to reduce fatalities and injuries on land and sea throughout the European Union.

A new report  on the Importance of Road Maintenance is now available by the World Road Association (PIARC). The importance of maintenance needs to be recognised by decision makers, funded appropriately and well managed to ensure maximum value is achieved. Inadequate levels of investment or poor management of the road network will have serious consequences for economies and social well-being. This report makes the case for the importance of road maintenance by drawing on robust evidence from around the world.  

AIG has recently released a whitepaper that outlines the issue of road safety and highlights some cutting edge ways AIG aims to improve road safety for all road users. AIG leverages data-driven insights and years of claims experience to understand why road accidents happen with the intent of helping clients remain safe behind the wheel.

The European Commission has recently released a Report on Event Data Recorders (EDR),  prepared by the Transport Research Laboratory. The objective of this study was to assist the European Commission in deciding whether the fitting  of EDR in all vehicles or certain categories of vehicles could result in an improvement of road safety or have other possible consequences that would justify the costs associated with the adoption of EU legislative measures. The study aimed to quantify the costs and benefits for heavy goods vehicles, light goods vehicles, buses and coaches, and passenger cars (for private and commercial use). According to this study, the benefits of EDRs are consistently documented in terms of road safety, vehicle design, accidentology and accident reconstruction and legal accident proceedings. 

A document on the potential road safety improvements offered by in-vehicle safety systems and Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) technologies has been released by the European Commission. The aim of this document is to provide a view on the potential of these technologies to prevent accident or reduce their consequences and on how to best promote the deployment of those seen to be most effective.

A paper titled ‘Current road safety trends in Greece‘ co-authored by George Yannis and Alexandra Laiou is now published in Periodica Polytechnica. Greece has been for years among the worst performing countries in Europe in terms of road safety with one of the highest annual rates of fatalities per million inhabitants in the EU. However, a gradual decrease has been recorded over time. The bad performance of Greece in road safety is partially due to institutional problems such as inefficient organization of public administration, lack of organized structures of the State with responsibility for road safety, non-accountability of stakeholders in relation to the implementation of actions and inadequate funding for road safety. The most critical, road user behavior related, accident factors include speeding, low usage rates of seat belts and helmets, unorganized and unprotected traffic of vulnerable road users, drink-driving, use of mobile phones while driving and generalized aggressive driving. In Greece, a great potential for safety improvement exists, if serious effort for tackling the above major critical factors is made. 

A Diploma Thesis titled ‘The combined effect of economic crisis, traffic and weather conditions on road safety in Athens‘ was presented by Eleni Ziaka in July 2014. Data was collected on a monthly basis for the period 2006-2011 in Attica for victims in road accidents (motorcyclists & pedestrians) including rainfall and temperature, traffic volume and speed in selected arterials and police reports (use of seatbelt and helmet, driving under the influence of alcohol and speed limit violations) and six lognormal regression models were developed. Results show that congestion is statistically significant in every model and speed is statistically significant only in models with seriously injured and killed people. Also, it was found that an increase in temperature and decrease in rainfall increases the number of casualties and especially the seriously injured and killed people. Moreover, influence of speed limit violations and driving under the influence of alcohol is statistically significant. Finally, it is seen that there is a decrease trend in the number of casualties during the economic crisis. 

The fourth edition of the Glossary for Transport Statistics is now published by the ITF, Eurostat and UNECE. The Glossary for Transport Statistics was published for the first time in 1994 with the purpose of assisting member countries during the collection of data on transport using the Common Questionnaire developed by the UNECE, ITF and Eurostat. It now comprises 735 definitions and represents a point of reference for all those involved in transport statistics. 

A Global Approach to Safer Motorcycling’ has recently been published by the International Motorcycle Manufacturers Association (IMMA). This Report updates and replaces the IMMA motorcycle safety document ‘HHRT – Headlight, Helmet, Road Surface and Training’ published in 2010. The key principles in HHRT still apply, but the new Report includes a selection of global best practices for policy makers’ consideration and implies a wider perspective on sustainable road safety – the position of the Powered Two Wheeler (PTW) in society, its economic contribution, how PTWs are used and how infrastructure can be developed to support rider safety. 

A paper titled ‘Road safety forecasts in five European countries using structural time-series models‘, co-authored by Constantinos Antoniou, Eleonora Papadimitriou and George Yannis is now published in Traffic Injury Prevention. The objective of this research is toapply structural time series models for obtaining reliable medium- to long-term forecasts of road traffic fatality risk using data from 5 countries with different characteristics from all over Europe(Cyprus, Greece, Hungary, Norway, and Switzerland). Two structural time series models are considered: (1) the local linear trend model and the (2) latent risk time series model. Furthermore, a structured decision tree for the selection of the applicable model for each situation (developed within the Road Safety Data, Collection, Transfer and Analysis

[DaCoTA] research project, co-funded by the European Commission) is outlined. The modeling process included the model selection, the introduction of intervention variables and the development of mobility scenarios. The forecasts using the developed models appear to be realistic and within acceptable confidence intervals. The proposed methodology is proved to be very efficient for handling different cases of data availability and quality, providing an appropriate alternative from the family of structural time series models in each country.  

A paper titled ‘Needs and priorities of road safety stakeholders for evidence-based policy making‘ co-authored by Eleonora Papadimitriou and George Yannis is now published in Transport Policy Journal. The objective of this research is the analysis of needs and priorities of road safety stakeholders for evidence-based policy making. Needs and priorities concern both the data to be collected or made available and the tools to be developed or made available to support science-based policy-making. Within the EC co-funded DaCoTA research project, an on-line survey was addressed to more than 3.000 stakeholders, mostly from European countries, in which participants were asked to assess the importance of more than 50 items reflecting data and resources for all stages of road safety policy making. Cluster analysis was carried out, revealing 4 groups of stakeholders with similar needs and priorities: a “low priorities” group, a “need data and models group”, a group mainly interested on “implementation” and an “in-depth analysis” group. Further analysis suggested that the four clusters are adequately – and often similarly – represented in all groups of countries, and in all types of organizations (e.g. national administrations, universities, interest groups, road safety organizations etc.).  

A paper titled ‘Latent risk and trend models for the evolution of annual fatality numbers in 30 European countries‘ co-authored by Emmanuelle Dupont, Jacques J.F. Commandeur, Sylvain Lassarre, Frits Bijleveld, Heike Martensen, Constantinos Antoniou, Eleonora Papadimitriou, George Yannis, Elke Hermans, Catherine Pérez, Elena Santamariña-Rubio, Davide Shingo Usami,Gabriele Giustiniani is now published in Accident Analysis & Prevention. In this paper a unified methodology is presented for the modelling of the evolution of road safety in 30 European countries. For each country, annual data of the best available exposure indicator and of the number of fatalities were simultaneously analysed with the bivariate latent risk time series model. This model is based on the assumption that the amount of exposure and the number of fatalities are intrinsically related. It captures the dynamic evolution in the fatalities as the product of the dynamic evolution in two latent trends: the trend in the fatality risk and the trend in the exposure to that risk. The temporal structure of the unobserved components of the optimal model was established, and structural breaks in the trends related to external events were identified and captured by adding intervention variables to the appropriate components of the model. As a final step, for each country the optimally modelled developments were projected into the future, thus yielding forecasts for the number of fatalities up to and including 2020.  

A paper titled ‘Modeling road accident injury under-reporting in Europe‘ co-authored by George Yannis, Eleonora Papadimitriou, Antonis Chaziris and Jeremy Broughton is now published in European Transport Research Review. The purpose of this research is to present a disaggregate analysis of road accident injury under-reporting in selected European countries. The level of injury under-reporting is expressed by under-reporting coefficients, estimated as the actual estimated number of road accident injuries of a given severity to the number of related injuries recorded by the Police. Log-rate models are developed in order to estimate the combined effects of country (CZ, FR, GR, HU, NL, ES and the UK), road user type (car occupant, motorcyclist, pedal cyclist, pedestrian), Police severity score (serious or slight injury) and MAIS score (the maximum Abbreviated Injury Scale score) on under-reporting. The results suggest that the examined characteristics have important combined effect on under-reporting (i.e. third-order interaction). For example, it was found that slight injuries are more likely to be under-reported than serious injuries in the Czech Republic, France, and Greece, while the opposite is the case for the Netherlands and the UK. Moreover, although the Netherlands do not present high under-reporting rates overall, a particular issue is identified in this country for pedal cyclists’ slight injuries.  

A Diploma Thesis titled ‘Comparative multilevel road safety analysis in European capitals‘ was presented by Marianthi Mermygka in May 2014. Data on the number and the characteristics of road fatalities, the population and other indicators of the nine selected European capital cities for the period 2007 – 2011 were exploited. Multilevel Poisson statistical models were developed, allowing for a clearer hierarchical data structure and the road safety performance ranking in these cities. Factors found with a statistically significant impact concerned city characteristics (road network length, population density, public transport use) and accident characteristics (road user and vehicle type). The comparison between the European capital cities showed that the larger the city’s road network is, the higher the level of road safety is in this city. 

The new report ‘Safe Roads for All: A Post-2015 Agenda for Health and Development’ from the Commission for Global Road Safety is now available, urging a road safety target to be included in the new UN Sustainable Development Goals. The Mandela family is leading The Long Short Walk campaign calling for road safety to be included in the post-2015 development agenda. 2015 is a crunch year as it will be the launch date for new Sustainable Development Goals to replace the Millennium Development Goals. 

On 10 April 2014 the UN General Assembly adopted the “Improving global road safety” Resolution sponsored by the Russian Government. Among key decisions, the Resolution welcomes the offer of the Government of Brazil to host the Second Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety in 2015, encourages the inclusion of road safety in the post-2015 development agenda, invites WHO to continue monitoring progress in the Decade of Action and requests organization of the Third UN Global Road Safety Week in 2015 on children and road safety. It backs calls for road safety to be considered in developing post-2015 global “Sustainable Development Goals” which are key to finance for road safety.