George Yannis

George Yannis is a Professor in Traffic and Safety Engineering and Director of the Department of Transportation Planning Engineering at the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA). He leads the NTUA Road Safety Observatory, a Center of Research and Innovation Excellence with global recognition for its highly valuable contribution to safer mobility for all, in Greece, in Europe and worldwide.

He has a thorough and broad understanding of the transportation sector, through his active involvement for more than 30 years as engineer, academic, advisor and decision maker in all areas of transportation planning and engineering at national and international level, with emphasis on data science. He has contributed extensively in more than 335 research and engineering projects and studies and in several scientific committees of the European Commission and other International Organisations (UNECE, OECD, WHO, World Bank, EIB, CEDR, ERF, IRF, PIARC, UITP, ETSC, ECTRI, WCTR, TRB). He has published 907 scientific papers (261 in scientific journals) widely cited worldwide.

In November 2024, he successfully completed his challenge of running 30 Marathons in 30 months in order to actively promote the adoption of city-wide 30km/h speed limit in as many cities as possible worldwide, as a key policy for safer, healthier and greener cities.

Specialisation

Road Safety: Accident analysis, databases, road infrastructure, driver behaviour, driver distraction, pedestrians, telematics, automation, driving simulator, enforcement, young drivers, older drivers, motorcyclists, alcohol, intelligent systems, weather conditions, road safety measures, road safety strategy, international comparisons

Transportation Planning and Management: urban mobility, road infrastructure, traffic management, traffic simulation, parking, smart cities, intelligent systems, metro systems, large events, multi-modal transport, transport networks, transport terminals, logistics

Urban Mobility Intelligent Transportation Systems and Automation with particular focus on Data Management and Analysis

Education

Teaching at NTUA School of Civil Engineering: Traffic Engineering, Road Safety, Traffic Management, Public Transport, Transportation and the Environment.

Supervision of 185 Diploma Theses, 28 PhDs and 10 PostDoctoral Researches. Participation at the advisory (65) and the examination (54) committee of PhDs.

Member of 153 Faculty Member Selection Committees at NTUA, in Greece and worldwide and of 40 Academic Committees.

Visiting Professor at the Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées in Paris, at the University of Loughborough and at University of Hasselt, Belgium.

Research

Participation in 179 research projects in the field of transport planning and engineering, 147 of which were or are carried out in the Department of Transportation Planning and Engineering of the School of Civil Engineering of the NTUA. 77 of these projects were assigned by the European Commission, 17 projects were assigned by other International Organisations (UN-ECE, WHO, EIB, World Bank, ITF, CEDR) and 85 projects were assigned by Greek Authorities. Scientific Coordinator in 92 research projects (47 from International Organisations) and Principal Researcher in another 39 research projects.

Publications

A total of 907 scientific publications in the field of transport planning and engineering: 261 papers in scientific journals with referees, 57 papers in scientific journals of conference proceedings, 563 papers in conference proceedings (486 with paper review, 489 in international conferences and 23 after invitation) and 26 monographs and chapters in books, as well as 7 teaching material, in 550 of which more than 12.000 citations are made (i10-index: googlescholar: 213, h-index: googlescholar: 56, scopus: 42).

Scientific

Member of 164 scientific organisations and committees worldwide (110) and in Greece (54). Evaluator of projects for the European Commission, the United Nations Road Safety Fund, the World Bank Global Road Safety Facility and several Research Authorities in 28 countries (81 Organisations and Programmes). Associate Editor (4), Guest-Editor (10) and Member of the Editorial Board (10) of scientific journals, Reviewer of papers to be published in scientific journals (245) and conferences (158), Member of the scientific committee (92) and of the organising committee (26) of conferences. Chairman of the Hellenic Institute of Transportation Engineers (2000 – 2003). Received 22 international scientific Awards, including the EU TRAVisions Senior Researcher Award, the “Knight of the Order of Academic Palms” by the French Government and the Belgian Universities Francqui Chair Award.

Conferences

Participation in 658 scientific conferences and seminars, 479 international and 179 national, in Athens (239), in other Greek cities (44), abroad (248) and virtual (127). Session chair in 75 of these conferences and delivery of speech in another 28 conferences. Presentation at these conferences of 572 scientific papers published in the Proceedings and another 689 scientific presentations. 330 papers or presentations were after invitation.

Engineering

Participation in 156 projects and studies in the field of transport planning and engineering for the European Commission and other International Organisations (40) and Public Authorities and other organisations in Greece (96) and worldwide (60). Advisor on road safety at the General Directorate for Transport of the European Commission (1991 – 2002) and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Attiko Metro SA, the Public Authority in charge for the development of metro systems in Athens and Thessaloniki (2004 – 2010).