urban safety

Items Under Tag: urban safety

18th IRF World Road Meeting, Delhi, 2017

The International Road Federation’s 18th World Road Meeting (WRM), took place with great success in Delhi, India on November 14th – 17th, 2017. The theme of the 18th WRM was “Safe Roads and Smart Mobility : The Engines of Economic Growth.” WRM 2017 brought together representatives of business, industry, governments, public sector organisations, mult-ilateral institutions, leaders and transport experts from the automotive, financial, road and transport infrastructure, and construction sectors; professionals, academics, consultants, infrastructure operators, contractors and manufacturers from across the world.

The Delhi Declaration is available:

Road Safety in Urban Areas – EU facts & figures 2015

Road Safety in Urban Areas in the EU is highlighted at the Traffic Safety Basic Facts 2015 available at the European Road Safety Observatory of the European Commission. These Traffic Safety Basic Facts contain a comprehensive series of statistical tables with the latest available data from the CARE database of the European Commission. In 2013, 9.919 which is 38% of all road accident fatalities throughout the EU were killed on urban roads. The number of fatalities in urban road accidents has fallen since 2004 by more than a third (42%), the percentage of all fatalities that occurred within urban areas, however, has increased slightly.

NTUA – IFSTTAR – Modelling Pedestrian Behaviour Workshop – Paris 2015

A Workshop on Observation and Modelling of Pedestrian Behaviour in Urban Areas organised by the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) and the French Institute of Science and Technology for Transport, Development and Networks (IFSTTAR) took place with great success in Marne-la-Valée – Paris, on 4 May 2015, within the framework of the Post Doctoral research project “PEDMOD- Models of pedestrian behaviour and safety” of NTUA Research Associate Dr. Eleonora Papadimitriou. The objective of the Workshop was the analysis of the state of the art on pedestrian behaviour observation and modelling, through the exchange of experiences in implementing meaningful pedestrian behaviour measurements, testing novel methodologies to explore pedestrian strategies, choices and behavioural patterns, and developing flexible and robust models to predict and understand pedestrian walking and crossing behaviour in urban areas.

All presentations are now available:

The PEDMOD research project – Overview (George Yannis – NTUA)

Analysis of pedestrian trajectories: behavioural patterns and individual practices (Sylvain Lassarre – IFSTTAR)

Integration of human factors in pedestrian crossing choice models (Eleonora Papadimitriou – NTUA)

Methods for observing pedestrian behaviour: ethologic observation and declared questionnaire (Marie-Axelle Granié – IFSTTAR)

Observation of children pedestrian behaviours – the ESSAIM project (Marie-Soleil Cloutier – INRS)

Pedestrian trajectories in stations (Zoi Christoforou & Pierre Argoul – LVMT/ENPC)

Pedestrian behaviour through experimental studies on street-crossing simulator (Aurelie Dommes – IFSTTAR)

Modelling for the pedestrians simulation (Jean-Michel Auberlet – IFSTTAR)

Impact of texting on young drivers’ behaviour and safety in urban and rural roads through a simulation experiment – 2014

A paper titled ‘Impact of texting on young drivers’ behaviour and safety in urban and rural roads through a simulation experiment‘ co-authored by George Yannis,Alexandra Laiou, Panagiotis Papantoniou and Charalambos Christoforou is now published in Journal of Safety Research. A driving simulator experiment was carried out in which 34 young participants drove in different driving scenarios; specifically, driving in good weather, in raining conditions, in daylight and in night were examined. Lognormal regression methods were used to investigate the influence of texting as well as various other parameters on the mean speed and mean reaction time. Binary logistic methods were used to investigate the influence of texting use as well as various other parameters in the probability of an accident. It appears that texting leads to statistically significant decrease of the mean speed and increase of the mean reaction time in urban and rural road environment. Simultaneously, it leads to an increased accident probability due to driver distraction and delayed reaction at the moment of the incident. It appeared that drivers using mobile phones with a touch screen present different driving behavior with respect to their speed, however, they had an even higher probability of being involved in an accident.

EU includes urban road safety in urban mobility package 2013

The European Commission is stepping up its support to towns and cities in the new “Urban Mobility Package”. The European Commission will reinforce the exchange of best practice, with the communication as central element of the urban mobility package: “Together towards competitive and resource-efficient urban mobility“.

One of the four basic priorities of the Urban Mobility Package is to enhance urban road safety and protect in particular the vulnerable users from death and serious injury. The European Commission will continue to gather and disseminate good practice examples for road safety planning and consider further measures for reducing the number of serious road traffic injuries in urban areas. Member States should ensure that sustainable urban mobility plans give due consideration to urban road safety as a horizontal issue.

University of Brescia – Living and Walking in Cities Conference, Brescia 2013

The International Conference ‘Living and Walking in Cities’, organised by the Università degli Studi di Brescia and the Friendly City Study Center (CeSCAm) took place on 13-14 June in Brescia, with the participation of more than 100 experts in the fields. Twenty years after the first Road Safety Forum, held in Brescia in June 1993, the Conference came back to the issues relating to the vulnerable users’ road safety. CeSCAm Director, Professor Roberto Busi stated that there is an urgent need to incorporate mobility and safety needs of walking and cycling in the continuous urban planning process.

NTUA Professor George Yannis presented the “State of the Art on Road Safety“, highlighting basic facts on urban road safety, the needs for road safety knowledge, the key road safety research priorities and the fundamental urban road safety choices to be made by citizens and Authorities in the European cities.

ETSC – Integrating Safety into the EU’s Urban Transport Policy 2013

ETSC’s expectations of the European Commission’s upcoming urban mobility package (that will be presented in late 2013), is that it will lay out measures that will contribute to reducing road deaths by 50% by 2020 in urban areas. Transport safety should be considered as an essential component of sustainable mobility and mobility planning. In attempting to secure change in urban mobility patterns, road safety can be regarded as a critical challenge, largely because of the social and economic cost of road collisions. Real and perceived safety can have a profound effect on modal choice especially in terms of the most sustainable modes of travel – walking and cycling and ability to access public transport. ETSC strongly recommends that safety should be integrated not only into the development of Urban Mobility Plans, but also into proposed Urban Mobility Audits and Guidelines and be reflected in common targets.

Investigation of the Impact of Low Cost Engineering Measures on Road Safety in Urban Areas 2013

A paper titled ‘Investigation of the Impact of Low Cost Engineering Measures on Road Safety in Urban Areas‘ co-authored by G.Yannis, A.Kondyli and X.Georgopoulou is now published in International Journal of Injury Control and Safety Promotion. This paper investigates the impact of low cost traffic engineering measures (LCTEMs) on the improvement of road safety in urban areas. A number of such measures were considered, such as speed humps, woonerfs, raised intersections and other traffic calming measures, which have been implemented on one-way, one-lane roads in the Municipality of Neo Psychiko in the Greater Athens Area. The application of the methodology showed that the total number of crashes presented a statistically significant reduction, which can be possibly attributed to the introduction of LCTEMs.

Multilevel analysis of road accident characteristics in urban areas in Europe 2013

A Diploma Thesis titled ‘Multilevel analysis of road accident characteristics in urban areas in Europe‘ was presented by Eleftheria Choustoulaki in March 2013. For this analysis a database was developed containing, road fatalities, characteristics of the driver, the road environment and the vehicle, GDP per capita, population in urban areas and vehicle fleet for 24 European countries for the year 2009. The results led to the conclusion that the use of hierarchical data structures and nested data structures, for data concerning accident in urban areas of Europe is necessary for the correct estimation of the parameters impact. From the second level analysis a differentiation in the number of fatalities in the various European urban areas was found, depending on the specific characteristics of these areas. Moreover the application of these models led to the identification of the impact of various parameters such as weather conditions, vehicle type, fatality age on the number of fatalities in the various urban areas of the European countries.

Road Safety in Urban Areas – EU facts & figures 2012

Road Safety in Urban Areas in the EU is highlighted at the Traffic Safety Basic Facts 2012 available at the Road Safety Knowledge System of the DACOTA project within the framework of the European Road Safety Observatory of the European Commission. 10.837 people were killed in traffic accidents on urban roads in the EU countries in 2010, repersenting38% of the total road traffic fatalities. Fatalities on urban roads were reduced by 39% between 2001 and 2010.

DG Move – Civitas Conference on Urban Mobility 2012

DG Mobility and Transport of the European Commission together with the Civitas Initiative organised the Conference on Urban Mobility on the 17th of September 2012 in Brussels in the framework of the European week of mobility. This conference marked the launch of the public consultation on the EU’s urban mobility activities in the context of the White Paper ‘Roadmap to a Single European Transport Area – Towards a competitive and resource efficient transport system’.

NTUA Associate Professor George Yannis presented “Road safety in urban mobility policies”.

Simulation of texting impact on young drivers’ behaviour and safety in urban and rural road 2012

A Diploma Thesis titled ‘Simulation of texting impact on young drivers’ behaviour and safety in urban and rural road‘ was presented by Charalambos Christoforou in July 2012. An experimental process on a driving simulator was carried out, in which all the participants drove in different driving scenarios. Lognormal regression methods were used to investigate the influence of texting as well as various other parameters on the mean speed and mean reaction time. Binary logistic methods were used to investigate the influence of text messaging use as well as various other parameters in the probability of an accident. It appears that text messaging leads to statistically significant decrease of the mean speed and increase the mean reaction time in urban and interurban road environment and simultaneously leads to an increase of accident’s probability, perhaps due to distraction of driver attention and as a result of the delayed reaction time at the moment of the incident.

Road Safety in Urban Areas – EU facts & figures 2011

Road Safety in Urban Areas in the EU is highlighted at the Traffic Safety Basic Facts 2011 recently released at the European Road Safety Observatory of the European Commission as prepared by the DACOTA project. 12.301 people were killed in traffic accidents on urban roads in the EU countries in 2009, repersenting 38% of the total road traffic fatalities. Fatalities on urban roads were reduced by 32% between 2000 and 2009.

Factors Affecting Accident Severity Inside and Outside Urban Areas in Greece 2012

A paper titled “Factors Affecting Accident Severity Inside and Outside Urban Areas in Greece” co-authored by A.Theofilatos, D.Graham and G.Yannis is just published in the Journal of Traffic Injury Prevention. From the application of the models, it appears that the factors affecting road accident severity only inside urban areas are young drivers, bicycles, intersections and collision with fixed objects, whereas the factors affecting severity only outside urban areas are weather conditions, head-on and side collisions, demonstrating the particular road users and traffic situations which should be focused for road safety interventions for the two different types of network (inside and outside urban areas).

Road Safety in Urban Areas – EU facts & figures 2010

Road Safety in Urban Areas in the EU is highlighted at the Traffic Safety Basic Facts 2010 recently released at the European Road Safety Observatory of the European Commission as prepared by the DACOTA project. 13.502 people were killed in traffic accidents on urban roads in the EU countries in 2008, repersenting 38% of the total road traffic fatalities. Fatalities on urban roads were reduced by 26% between 1999 and 2008.

Traffic issues of the Attica Municipalities 2011

The Hellenic Institute of Transportation Engineers organised in the 9th of February a seminar for the traffic issues of the Attica Municipalities. NTUA presented “Measures and policies for the reduction of accidents at the urban road network – successful interventions”.

HITE and urban safety 2011

In January 2011, the Hellenic Institute of Transportation Engineers made suggestions for the improvement of road safety inside urban areas. 73% of road accidents in Greece occur inside urban areas, as well as 48% of the total number of people killed in road accidents.

Measuring Walking Safety 2010

The 11th International Walk21 Conference was held in The Hague, The Netherlands, November 16-19 2010. NTUA presented ‘Evolution of pedestrian safety in urban areas in the OECD countries‘.

5th International Congress on Transport Research in Greece, Volos 2010

The 5th International Congress on Transport Research was organised by the Hellenic Institute of Transportation Engineers and the Hellenic Institute of Transport and the University of Thessaly and took place in Volos, Greeece in September 2010. At the road safety sessions quite a few interesting papers were presented, some of them concerning research carried out by NTUA.

NTUA road safety presentations concerned:

Drivers attitudes towards new technology applications in road safety

Analysis of pedestrian crossing behaviour in urban areas

Calculation of the underreporting level of road accident casualties in Greece

Investigation of the impact of road lighting on the frequency and the severity of road accidents 2010

A Diploma Thesis titled ‘Investigation of the impact of road lighting on the frequency and the severity of road accidents’ was presented by Nikolaos Mitzalis in July 2010.This diploma thesis has been awarded with the Ecocity award 2012. Suitably processed data were used from the database of the Department of Transportation Planning and Engineering of the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) and lognormal regression models were developed. The application of these models led to the investigation of the influence of road lighting and other parameters such as weather conditions, accident type, vehicle type etc. on the number of casualties and injuries. It appears that road lighting contributes to the reduction of the number of accidents and their severity and that this influence increases with the increase of the severity of the accidents.

Action Pack for European Safer Urban Motorcycling 2010

The Spanish Directorate General for Traffic, organized an international conference about an Action Pack for European Safer Urban Motorcycling in Barcelona on the 12th of May. NTUA presented ‘Motorcycle safety actions in Greece’.

Theoretical framework for modeling pedestrians crossing behavior along a trip 2010

A research titled ‘Theoretical framework for modeling pedestrians crossing behavior along a trip’ co-authored by E.Papadimitriou, G.Yannis and J.Golias from NTUA was published in ASCE Journal of Transportation Engineering in April 2010. A topological approach of pedestrian trip characteristics and crossing decisions is proposed, allowing consideration of distinct patterns of crossing behavior along a trip. Specific techniques from the family of discrete choice models are proposed for determining the number and location of pedestrians’ crossings, accounting for the hierarchical and dynamic nature of pedestrians’ decisions along a trip and a field survey method is presented.

Pedestrian behaviour and safety models in urban road networks 2010

A Ph.D. Thesis titled ‘Pedestrian behaviour and safety models in urban road networks‘ was presented by Eleonora Papadimitriou in February 2010. A topological consideration of the urban road network was opted for, allowing to identify basic properties of pedestrian trips and crossings, an algorithm was also developed for the estimation of the choice sets related to crossing decisions along a trip and a discrete choice modeling approach is proposed for crossing choices. The proposed methodology was demonstrated by means of models implementation on a typical urban trip for different scenarios.

A critical assessment of pedestrian behaviour models 2009

A research titled ‘A critical assessment of pedestrian behaviour models’ co-authored by E.Papadimitriou, G.Yannis and J.Golias from NTUA by was published in the Journal Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour in 2009. In this paper an exhaustive review of the existing route choice models for pedestrians is presented. The results of this review reveal a lack of an overall and detailed consideration of pedestrian behaviour along an entire trip in urban areas. Moreover, the need for an integrated approach based on flexibility, disaggregation and more determinism is identified.

Pedestrian behaviour characteristics in urban roads 2009

A Diploma Thesis titled ‘Pedestrian behaviour characteristics in urban roads’, was presented by Sofia Tourou in July 2009. This diploma thesis has been awarded with the Ecocity award 2010. An experimental process in real road conditions was carried out. A linear regression model was developed to investigate the impact of certain parameters in the walking speed. A binary logistic model was also developed to investigate the impact of the parameters in the pedestrians’ decision on which section to cross and in the route choice. From the models application it appears that the age and the gender of the pedestrian, the low pedestrians’ flow and the choice of the most pleasant route have statistically significant impact to the walking speed. The pedestrians route choice is influenced by the possibility to walk often, the choice of the fastest route and the number of the direction’s changes.

EU-27 capitals are safer today than ten years ago 2008

In October 2008, ETSC published a PIN Flash concerning roads safety in the capitals of the EU. Dublin, Lisbon and Oslo scored the best year-to-year reduction in the number of people killed per 100,000 residents, with respectively 12%, 10% and 9% average annual reduction. In Athens the annual reduction in the number of people killed per 100,000 residents is less than the EU’s average annual reduction (4.1%).

European Road Safety Day 2008 – Safety in the Cities

The second European Road Safety Day of the European Commission has been celebrated in Paris on October 13th, 2008. The second road safety day is dedicated to Road Safety in our Cities, as about two thirds of the accidents and one third of all road fatalities occur in urban areas, often affecting the most vulnerable road users.