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EU Transport Commissioner Violeta Bulc recently announced the appointment of Matthew Baldwin as European Coordinator for Road Safety to help drive forward the new road safety strategy as set out under the key actions in the Commission’s third Mobility Package to
modernise Europe’s transport system in May 2018. The role will involve
the coordination of road safety efforts with Member States, the European
Parliament, cities, regions and all stakeholders in the road safety
community.   Matthew Baldwin gave an exclusive interview to the NTUA Road Safety Observatory:
NRSO:
Matthew, tell me a bit about this new role of the European Coordinator
for the promotion of road safety in Europe and what will be your
specific areas of focus?
Read the whole interview...
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Latest Developments
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The Horizons 2020 research project InDev
(In-depth Understanding of Accident Causation for Vulnerable Road
Users) recently published a handbook with focus on vulnerable road users
entitled: How to analyse accident causation? This handbook was
developed to help road safety professionals diagnose road safety problems
by gaining more insights into the mistakes by road users that lead to
collision. It describes various road safety methods that can be applied
for studying the safety of vulnerable (and other) road users, including:
accident data analysis, conflict and behavioural observations,
self-reporting and naturalistic studies and road safety audit and
inspection.
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European Commission – DG for Research and Innovation in their Success Stories Web-page recently published the SaferAfrica H2020 project,
which has been taken place with the active contribution of NTUA. As a
continent, Africa has some of the most lethal roads in the world. A lack
of road safety protocols, wanting road conditions and poor post-crash
emergency response systems make for alarmingly high fatality rates. To
help turn this around, the EU-funded project SaferAfrica is driving policies aimed at improving road safety. “ Europe
can play an important role by supporting African countries in improving
road safety and achieving the Action Plan targets [African Road Safety
Action Plan 2011-2020],” says project coordinator Luca Persia. “ In
this view, the project aims at building favourable conditions and
opportunities for the effective implementation of road safety actions in
African countries by setting up a Dialogue Platform between Africa and
Europe.”
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The United Nations Road Safety Trust Fund
which launched in April 2018, took an important step towards becoming
operational, with the first meetings of its Advisory Board and Steering
Committee taking place in Geneva. The Trust Fund aims to catalyze
efforts to address the critical global road safety situation by bridging the gaps in the mobilization of resources and ensuring the effective coordination of action at all levels.
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Statistics Corner
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Since 54 years, the International Road Federation (IRF) World Road Statistics (WRS) continue
to be the major comprehensive, universal source of statistical data on
road networks, traffic and inland transport. Over the past years, the
WRS have proved to be an invaluable and internationally accepted
reference tool for governments, NGOs, investments banks, research
institutes and anyone analyzing and reporting trends in key subject
areas like traffic volumes and vehicle usage, road expenditure, road
safety, energy consumption and emissions. This year, the WRS 2018 (data 2011-2016) features more than 205 countries, with data on over 45 road related topics, presented in nine substantive sections, with the active contribution of NTUA for the Greek data.
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The Directorate General for Mobility and Transport ( DG Move) of the European Commission released the Statistical Pocketbook 2018 ‘ EU Transport in figures‘.
In this Statistical Pocketbook, key road safety Tables are contained,
together with several other Tables on transport statistics, providing a complete picture of current trends in transport in Europe.
Data on road fatalities for the EU member states and associate
countries allow for time series comparisons and country rankings.
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Our Publications
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A paper titled “ Which factors affect accident probability at unexpected incidents? A structural equation model approach” authored by Panagiotis Papantoniou, Constantinos Antoniou, George Yannis and Dimosthenis Pavlou
is now published in Journal of Transportation Safety & Security. A
driving simulator experiment was carried out, in which 95 participants
were asked to drive under different types of distraction (no
distraction, conversation with passenger, cell phone use) in different
road and traffic conditions. Then, in the framework of the statistical
analysis, driving performance is estimated as a new unobserved (latent)
variable based on several individual driving simulator parameters while a
structural equation model is developed investigating which factors lead
to increased accident probability at unexpected incidents. Regarding
driver distraction, results indicate that cell phone use has a negative
effect on accident risk confirming the initial hypothesis that when
talking on the cell phone drivers find it difficult to handle an
unexpected incident and as a result are more likely to commit an
accident. 
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A Diploma Thesis titled “ The effect of anger on driver behavior and safety”
was presented by Orestis Gavalas in July 2018. In order to achieve this
goal, a driving simulator experiment was conducted and a questionnaire
including the DAX scale was filled in a sample of 125 drivers. The
collected data were grouped into anger components using the factor
analysis method. Subsequently, both linear and logarithmic regression
models were developed. Valuable conclusions were reached including men
demonstrating higher levels of driving anger as well as that anger
decreases with increasing age. The presence of anger is related to the increase in average speed,
the reduction of headway (measured in time) and the increase in the
probability of being involved in an accident and a road traffic
infringement. On the other hand, forgiveness and noble mindedness lead
to fundamentally opposite effects. 
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Point of View
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Road casualties is a major burden to the society worldwide. According to WHO statistics, road casualties in Africa are by far proportionally higher than in any other region of the world.
However, do we know the real number of road fatalities and injuries in
Africa? Do we know the real specific road safety problems in the various
areas of Africa? Do we really know the necessary countermeasures and
how to implement them with the current potential of the African society
and Authorities?
Read the whole article...
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Upcoming Events
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Comité National de Prévention des Accidents de la Circulation and SSATP are organizing the 1st African Road Safety Forum which is going to take place on 13-15 November 2018 in Marrakech, Morocco.
The main objective is to bring road safety to the political attention
of the African continent to achieve the goals of the Decade of Action
for Road Safety 2011–2020 and the UN Sustainable Development Agenda and
to promote international cooperation in the field of road safety and
sustainable mobility.
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The 2018 Polis Conference on “Transport innovation for sustainable cities and regions” will take place on 22 and 23 November 2018, in Manchester, UK, organised by POLIS,
the European Cities Network. The conference will provide an opportunity
for cities, metropolitan areas and regions to showcase their transport
achievements to a large audience, and for the wider transport community
to engage with representatives of local and regional authorities
on innovative transport solutions. Road Safety is one of the key areas
of the Conference, as is also the subject of the special joint POLIS–ITF workshop titled: From Safety Data to Safer City Streets.
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