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| Latest Developments |
| | | | The European Commission presented its ‘Sustainable and Smart Mobility Strategy’
together with an Action Plan of 82 initiatives as a guide for the next
four years. This strategy lays the foundation for how the EU transport
system can achieve its green and digital transformation and become more
resilient to future crises. Traffic safety is a major component of the EU Mobility Strategy. As outlined in the European Green Deal, the result will be a 90% cut in emissions by 2050, delivered by a smart, competitive, safe, accessible and affordable transport system.  | | | |
| | | | Τhe European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) has published the 41st PIN Flash Report titled Reducing road deaths among young people, aged 15 to 30. This Report looks at the progress made in Europe in reducing road deaths among young people.
It is based on the latest available data from the 32 EU and non-EU
countries that participate in ETSC’s Road Safety Performance Index (PIN)
programme, examining trends over time as well as differences between
countries, which are very significant.   | | | |
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| | | | The Hellenic Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport proposed the New Driving Safely Law, which has been recently adopted by the Greek Parliament.
The new law reforms the driving examinations’ framework, with the
priority of ensuring the integrity of the procedure and the promotion of
road safety. Among other things, the new safety net consists of double
identity checks, camera recordings during the exams and collection of
the audiovisual reports. Also, a temporary driving license is foreseen for young people aged 17 years old,
who will be able to drive only within their residence area accompanied
with a co-driver of over 25 years old holding a driving license for at
least 5 years.  | | | |
| Statistics Corner |
| | | | The European Commission published a breakdown of fatalities in the EU
by road user and (other) “main vehicle” involved in the crash. The
matrix shows clearly that fatalities overwhelmingly occur in collisions
involving cars and trucks, and the need to increase the protection of vulnerable road users such as pedestrians and cyclists. EU
policies are already evolving in this direction with the new mandatory
safety measures introduced by the General Safety Regulation focussed on
VRUs.   | | | |
| | | | The new EU road fatalities interactive infographic of the NTUA Road Safety Observatory, based on European Commission CARE data for 2019, allows for performance comparisons for different types of road crashes. It is demonstrated that disaggregate data can reveal hidden road safety problems, allowing national Authorities to focus on targeted road safety countermeasures.   | | | |
| Our Publications |
| | | | POLIS, the European Cities Network, organised with great success the 2021 Annual Polis Conference,
which took place on 1-2 December 2021 in Gothenburg, Sweden. The
Conference provided an opportunity for cities and regions to showcase
their transport achievements to a large audience of mobility experts, practitioners and decision makers. With a focus on innovation, sustainability and co-creation, Gothenburg hosted one of Europe’s most dynamic clusters within the field of mobility and safety.   NTUA actively contributed with the following presentation: | | | |
| | | | The network of thematic experts Vip4Ride organised with great success the 2nd International Conference which was held in Alexandroupolis, on 14-15 October, under the theme: “Intermodal Transports: Innovations in Planning, Management, Business Development & Decision Making” and focusing on the main economic advantages of developing intermodal transport, energy and tourism sectors.
Special attention was given to decision making for investments and
project financing in large infrastructures to promote intermodal
options.  NTUA actively contributed with the following presentations: | | | |
| | | | A paper titled “Investigation of the speeding behavior of motorcyclists through an innovative smartphone application“, authored by Armira Kontaxi, Apostolos Ziakopoulos and George Yannis is published in Traffic Injury Prevention.
Using risk exposure and riding behavior indicators calculated from
smartphone sensor data, Generalized Linear Mixed-Effects Models are
calibrated to correlate the percentage of riding time over the speed
limit with other riding behavior indicators. Results indicate that the
parameters of trip duration, distance driven during risky hours, morning peak hours and the number of harsh accelerations
are all determined as statistically significant and positively
correlated with the percentage of speeding time. Additionally, the
provision of rider feedback and riding during afternoon peak hours are
statistically significant and correlated with decreased percentages of
speeding time.  | | | |
| | | | A paper titled “Modelling self-reported driver perspectives and fatigued driving via deep learning” authored by Alexandros Zoupos, Apostolos Ziakopoulos and George Yannis is published in Traffic Safety Research.
A binary logistic regression model was trained to provide causal
insights on which variables affect the likelihood that a driver engaged
in driving while fatigued, whereas a Deep Neural Network (DNN) was
subsequently trained on the data, slightly outperforming the binary
logistic model. Results demonstrate that drivers reporting driving under
the influence of drugs, fatigue, or alcohol, as well as speeding,
safety, and texting while driving or drivers who were more acceptable of
fatigued driving were more likely to have recently driven while
fatigued, and from the results of this paper it was concluded that declared fatigued driving behavior can be predicted from questionnaire data, providing new insights to fatigue detection.  | | | |
| | | | An NTUA Diploma Thesis titled “Comparative analysis of road safety factors across generations, in Greece” was recently presented by Reggina Mermiga. From
the application of Log-Linear regression models it emerges that the
number of road casualties follows a rising trend in the transition from
the older to the younger generations, which presumably can be attributed
to increased mobility of younger generations. Additionally, most car
crash victims between the ages of 26 and 64 belong to Generation X while
those involved in a two-wheeled vehicle accident belong to Generation
Y, most probably due to the fact that the members of the two generations are connected to different financial periods but
also to the tendency of the members of Generation Y to experience
delays in their transition to the following stages of their life.   | | | |
| Upcoming Events |
| | | | 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  | | | |
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| | | | 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  | | | |
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