NRSO Road Safety

 

Apostolos Ziakopoulos defended his PhD Thesis on Spatial Analysis of Road Safety and Traffic Behaviour using High Resolution Multi-parametric Data, July 2020 Apostolos Ziakopoulos has successfully defended his PhD dissertation titled: Spatial Analysis of Road Safety and Traffic Behaviour using High Resolution Multi-parametric Data. This PhD thesis was carried out at the Department of Transportation Planning and Engineering at the School of Civil Engineering of the National Technical University of Athens under the supervision of Prof. George Yannis, using data from OSeven Telematics. Read the whole article...

Latest Developments

UN – New Global Road Safety Target – Fatalities reduction at least 50% by 2030, August 2020 The UN General Assembly has adopted a new resolution on “Improving global road safety” which was co-sponsored by 55 governments. Among key decisions, the resolution proclaims the period 2021–2030 as the Second Decade of Action for Road Safety, with a goal of reducing road fatalities and injuries by at least 50% from 2021 to 2030, and in this regard calls upon Member States to continue action through 2030 on all the road safety-related targets of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). The resolution calls for action to reduce road traffic deaths and injuries as a pressing development priority. It also endorses the Stockholm Declaration, approved at the third Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety, held in Stockholm on 19 and 20 February 2020.

ITF – Best Practice for Urban Road Safety, September 2020 The International Transport Forum (ITF/OECD) published recently a new Report titled “Best Practice for Urban Road Safety”, in which seven case studies of cities that are implementing data-driven road safety policies are presented. It highlights relevant experiences aimed at reducing the number of traffic casualties and protecting vulnerable road users in Barcelona, Bogota, Buenos Aires, Fortaleza, London, New York and Rotterdam and illustrates the diverse approaches to better understand road crashes and to prevent road traffic deaths and serious injuries.

NACTO – Streets for Pandemic Response and Recovery, May 2020 A new NACTO resource on emerging street practices for pandemic response and recovery was developed through a collaboration between the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO), the NACTO Global Designing Cities Initiative, Bloomberg Associates, Street Plans, and Sam Schwartz. This resource aggregates and synthesizes emerging practices in transportation and street design in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. It highlights cities’ current efforts to re-organize streets to best manage this crisis and support economic recovery. This new resource will be revised and expanded regularly as more data becomes available on what approaches are the most successful at meeting city goals.

PIARC – Review of Global Road Safety Audit Guidelines, 2020 The World Road Association – PIARC recently published the  “Review of Global Road Safety Audit Guidelines – With Specific Consideration for Low- and Middle-Income Countries”. This Report involves a comprehensive review of current Road Safety Audit Manuals and Guidelines from a range of different countries to establish current practices and considers previous international reviews to determine key areas where additional guidance is required, or exemplar practice is well established. The initial consideration is given to the core issues facing many countries regarding implementing a comprehensive audit system.

ETSC – How to improve the safety of goods vehicles in the EU? May 2020 The European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) has published the 39th PIN Flash Report “How to improve the safety of goods vehicles in the EU?“. This report examines the toll transport of goods and services has taken in terms of road deaths over the period 2010 to 2018. It examines the performance of individual countries, as well as the European Union as a whole, in tackling the risks, and describes some of the policies needed to reduce future deaths and serious injuries related to goods traffic.

Our Publications

UCyprus – 23rd EURO Working Group on Transportation, Paphos, September 2020 KIOS Research and Innovation Center of Excellence (KIOS CoE) of University of Cyprus organized the 23rd EURO Working Group on Transportation EWGT 2020 which took place with great success in Paphos, Cyprus, on 16-18 September 2020. The sessions focused on various themes including advanced methodologies for road safety analyses.   NTUA actively contributed with the following presentation:  European Countries’ Road Safety Evaluation by Τaking Ιnto Account Multiple Classes of Fatalities

EAN – 6th Virtual Congress of the European Academy of Neurology, May 2020 The 6th Congress of the European Academy of Neurology took place virtually with great success, on 23 – 26 May, 2020.  The theme of the congress was “Time for Action: Predict, Prevent, Repair”.  The sessions focused on showing the novel therapeutic interventions, designed to predict, protect and repair neurodegenerative diseases. Some sessions concerned cognitive impairment and road safety.  NTUA contributed actively with the following presentations: Driving behavior of patients with mild Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) or amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment (aMCI) carriers of the apolipoprotein e4 allele (APOE4)  The subjective perception of driving ability of patients with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) and mild Alzheimer’s Disease Dementia (AD)

Meta-regressions of exposure parameters used in spatial road safety analyses, September 2020 A paper titled “Meta-regressions of exposure parameters used in spatial road safety analyses, September 2020” authored by Apostolis Ziakopoulos, and George Yannis, is now published in Advances in Transportation Studies. The objective of this paper is to obtain quantitative estimates that several study characteristics impose on the values of their coefficients applying meta-regression techniques to three common exposure parameters (traffic volume/AADT, roadway length and vehicle distance traveled). Results indicate that the impact of traffic volume on crash counts was positively correlated with taking speed limit and road user age into consideration in spatial analyses, while the impact of road length on crash counts in spatial analyses was found to be higher in studies considering only fatal crashes.

Driving behaviour during texting and surfing in rural roads using a driving simulator, March 2020 A Diploma Thesis titled “Driving behaviour during texting and surfing in rural roads using a driving simulator” was recently presented by Marios Sekadakis. The aim of this Diploma Thesis is to investigate the impact of texting and web surfing through smartphone on the driving behaviour and safety of young drivers on rural roads. It was found that driver distraction leads to statistically significant increase of accident probability, headway distance and lateral distance variation. On the other hand, it was observed that speed variation and headway distance variation were reduced.

Upcoming Events

ITF Webinars on Urban Mobility and Safety, September-October 2020 The International Transport Forum (ITF) is organising three on-line webinars titled ‘Safe system in cities: multi-agency commitment for a Vision Zero agenda in London’,  ‘Safe speeds in cities: street design, speed limits and law enforcement’ and  ‘Safe streets in cities: identifying dangerous locations before a serious crash happens’ which will take place on 17, 24 September and 1 October 2020, respectively. The webinars will explore the policy toolkit for the elimination of serious and fatal crashes. This includes speed management, street design, predictive analytics, procurement and the engagement of a wide range of stakeholders.

IRF – Webinar: Global Trends on the Status of Traffic Safety under the Covid-19 Pandemic, September 2020 The International Road Federation (IRF), together with Qatar University, Qatar Transportation and Traffic Safety Center, National Traffic Safety Committee of Qatar Government and World Conference on Transport Research Society, are organising a Webinar on “Global Trends on the Status of Traffic Safety under the Covid-19 Pandemic”, which will be held on 29 September 2020 at 2:00 PM – 4:00 PM CEST. This webinar aims to discuss the potential impacts of the current Covid-19 Pandemic and the associated mobility restriction policies on road traffic safety status.

ESRA2 Webinar Series: Measuring Global Traffic Safety Cultures, 2020 ESRA2 (E-Survey of Road Users’ Attitudes) project with the active participation of NTUA is organising six on-line webinars under the theme “Measuring Global Traffic Safety Cultures to Support Effective Road Safety Policy Development” starting on 23 September 2020. The Webinar topics concern: Enforcement and traffic violations – Seat belt & Child restraint systems – Senior road users – Support for policy measures – Pedestrians – Cyclists – Moped drivers and Motorcyclists – Gender Issues –  Young road users – Subjective safety and risk perception – Vehicle automation.  Registration for the September 23rd webinar is now open.

Radar/Slain – Modelling Road Safety using Network-wide Risk Assessment, October 2020 Within the 18th European Week of Regions and Cities organised by the European Committee of the Regions,  RADAR and SLAIN project are featured in the session ”Modelling the future of Road Safety using Network-wide Risk Assessment”, which will be held on 14 October 2020 at 11:00 am-12:00 pm CET.  How do you design a safe road infrastructure? How can you identify risk on roads? How do you propose an economically viable crash countermeasure? These will be some of the questions that will be discussed at this session. Invited speakers are George Yannis, Lina Konstantinopoulou, Marko Sevrovic, moderated by Olivera Rozi.

NTUA – Road Safety and Simulation International Conference, Athens, September 2021 The National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), in cooperation with the Hellenic Institute of Transportation Engineers (HITE) organises the 8th Road Safety & Simulation International Conference 2021 (RSS2021) which will be held on 22-24 September 2021 in Athens, Greece. The Conference’s theme this year will be: “Road Safety and Digitalisation” aiming to capture all recent trends in road safety emerging technologies, surrogate measures, augmented and virtual reality, big data, modeling and simulation, which are expected to boost global road safety in the coming years. Road safety experts and scientists from all over the world will join forces for a widely open and vivid discussion on both traditional and innovative solutions with high potential for traffic safety improvement.