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Getting into 2022, we continue progressing in our scientific excellence quests with persistence, dedication and passion to promoting evidence-based safe mobility everywhere and for all. The decade targets and programs for safer roads everywhere are well set globally and it is now time to sincerely include traffic safety into the mobility agenda and start implementing vision zero traffic fatalities. We thank you all for the excellent cooperation and we are sending you our very best wishes for Merry Christmas and a Very Lucky New Year, full of personal and professional achievements.
The International Road Traffic and Accident Database (IRTAD) of the International Transport Forum (ITF/OECD) published the Road Safety Annual Report 2021 focusing on the Covid-19 pandemic impact on road safety performance in 2020, identifying how the pandemic affected both mobility patterns and road fatalities. The analysis draws on data on road deaths from 34 member countries of the IRTAD Group and it also contains the IRTAD Country Reports highlighting the latest road safety developments in each country.
Latest Developments
The European Parliament has voted overwhelmingly for road safety measures to reach zero deaths on EU roads by 2050. The vote was based on the EP Transport and Tourism Committee Report on Recommendations on next steps towards “Vision Zero”, which suggests key priorities and include key measures such as among others: 30km/h city speed limits, Zero-tolerance for drink-driving, the European Road Safety Agency, etc.
The World Health Oganisation (WHO) opened the Decade of Action for Road Safety 2021-2030 in Geneva, with the ambitious target of preventing at least 50% of road traffic deaths and injuries by 2030. WHO and the UN Regional Commissions, in cooperation with other partners in the UN Road Safety Collaboration, have developed a Global Plan for the Decade of Action. Road traffic accidents have remained a major cause of death globally, even though every one of those deaths and injuries is preventable.
A Global Plan has been developed to support the implementation of the Decade of Action and its objectives. 
Voi Technology recently published the Voi’s Annual Safety Report with the active contribution of NTUA, under the theme Safer streets with shared micro-mobility, intended to increase transparency and foster a dialogue on how shared micro-mobility can make cities safer. The report covers Voi’s actions to improve road safety, insights on safety risks and opportunities for shared micro-mobility across Europe. Heavy, fast-moving vehicles present the greatest road safety risks, and lack of safe road infrastructure is a significant risk for all lightweight travellers.
Statistics Corner
The European Commission published the final figures on road fatalities for 2020, following the publication of the preliminary figures in April 2021. These figures show that an estimated 18.800 people were killed in a road crash last year, an unprecedented annual fall of 17% on 2019, largely due to the effect of the COVID pandemic on mobility; however this fatalities drop being proportionately less than the sharp fall in traffic levels across the EU.
The Commission has also published the Country Profiles which provide a detailed statistical analysis of the road safety situation in each country. 
Our Publications
The Hellenic Institute of Transportation Engineers (HITE) and the Hellenic Institute of Transport (HIT/CERTH) co-organized with great success the “10th International Congress on Transportation Research” (ICTR 2021), which was held on 2-3 September, 2021, in Rhodes. The spotlight theme of the 2021 Congress was: “Future Mobility and Resilient Transport: Transition to innovation“.
Click here for full list of NTUA's 30 ICTR publications...
The Hellenic Association for the deployment of Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS Hellas), organised with great success the 7th ITS Hellas Conference which was held in Athens, on 8-9 December 2021. This hybrid Conference was held under the theme “Transportation & Logistics 4.0: Exploring Innovation”, focusing on the challenges, the needs and the benefits that will be brought by the progression in the area of transportation in Greece.
NTUA actively contributed with the following presentation:
A paper titled “Analysis of the impact of COVID-19 on collisions, fatalities and injuries using time series forecasting: The case of Greece“, authored by Marios Sekadakis, Eva Michelaraki, Christos Katrakazas and George Yannis is published in Accident Analysis & Prevention. Three different Seasonal Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (SARIMA) time series models were implemented on road casualties data for the period 2010-2020 in order to compare the observed measurements to forecasted values intended to depict assumed conditions; namely, without the appearance of the COVID-19 pandemic. The results demonstrate that fatalities and slightly injured rates were significantly increased during the lockdown period and the subsequent months. Overall, it can be concluded that a worse performance was identified in terms of road safety. Since subsequent waves of COVID-19 cases and other pandemics may reappear in the future, the outcomes of the current study may be exploited for the improvement of road safety from local authorities and policymakers.
A paper titled “Did the COVID-19 pandemic influence traffic fatalities in 2020? A presentation of first findings” authored by Fred Wegman and Christos Katrakazas was recently published online in IATSS Research. The results of this research show that the number of fatalities in 2020 was 17.3% lower in the 24 participating countries compared with the baseline period and the reduction is almost seven times higher than annually in these countries in the period 2010–2019. The reduction in the number of fatalities is associated with less mobility, but a comprehensive analyses should take into account more crash and injury risk factors.
An NTUA Diploma Thesis titled “Comparative analysis of road safety between EU and USA” was recently presented by Charie Tsoukalas. The multivariate linear regression model developed, revealed that an increase in speed limit leads to an increase in lives lost in road crashes and an increase in GDP per capita leads effectively to a decrease in fatal accidents. The benchmarking of all US States and EU countries using Data Envelopment Analysis demonstrated that EU countries are more effective (higher safety performance) than those of the USA, possibly because of the higher vehicle fleet and vehicle-kilometers and lower public transport share in the US.
Upcoming Events
The 10th Symposium of European Association for Research in Transportation (hEART2022), co-organized by KU Leuven and the University of Luxembourg will take place in Leuven, on 1-3 June 2022. The Symposium will offer an opportunity for in depth discussion in all scientific methods and analyses in transport including safety, in plenary, in focus groups and in a summer school intended for PhD students on 31 May 2022.
Registration is open 
Short paper submission deadline: 7 January 2022.
The Qatar Transportation and Traffic Safety Center (QTTSC), the Qatar University and the National Traffic Safety Committee (NTSC) are organising the International Traffic Safety Conference (ITSC2022) which will take place in Doha, on 21-22 March 2022. The Conference theme is: “Towards A World-Class Safe and Sustainable Transport and Traffic System for Developing Countries” and the main objectives are to recognize the transportation needs for the developing countries and to introduce, improve and strengthen arrangements for monitoring serious injuries from road traffic accidents to facilitate action to meet the new targets for the Decade of Action for Road Safety. Abstract submissions deadline: 15 January 2022
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 2022 (RSS2022) which will be held on 8-10 June 2022 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. Selected papers will be published in key international scientific journals and special awards will be granted to best papers. Full paper submission deadline extended to December 31st, 2021.
The Forum of European Road Safety Research Organisations (FERSI) is organising the 2022 Road Safety Conference which will take place on 6-7 October 2022 in Hague, Netherlands. This highly interesting Conference focuses on the exchange of national and regional experiences and implemented evidence-based road safety measures, both positive and negative ones. There will be a specific focus on the road to successful implementation, including overcoming the barriers encountered along the way.
Contribution submission deadline: 13 February 2022 
The European Commission and the Agência Nacional de Inovação (ANI) together with the European Transport Research Platforms ACARE, ALICE, CEDR, ECTP, ERRAC, ERTRAC, ETRA and Waterborne, are organising the Transport Research Arena Conference (TRA2022) which will be held in Lisbon, on 14-17 November 2022. The pillars of the Conference will be the scientific excellence, research and innovation challenges, the latest technological and industrial developments and innovative policies regarding the European Transport Research and Innovation and the cooperation of Europe with other continents. Abstract submissions deadline: December 31st 2021.
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