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The International Road Traffic Safety Analysis and Data (IRTAD) Group of the International Transport Forum (ITF) has recently launched a new and highly useful interactive Road Safety Dashboard, showcasing up-to-date crash and mortality data from 35 IRTAD member countries.
This Dashboard is exploiting the long-standing IRTAD database, with
data collected directly from relevant national data providers. This data
includes county strategies and targets, road fatality data from 2013 to
2023 with country comparisons and country profiles with road fatalities
by user group and mortality rate by age.  |
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Latest Developments
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The European Commission with the active contribution of NTUA, SWOV, VIAS Institute and KFV has published at the European Road Safety Observatory, the Personal Mobility Devices Thematic Report
which mainly refers to the safety of electric scooters. This Thematic
Report highlights that a high proportion of crashes with a PMD are
caused by falls, that can lead to common head injuries and by increasing helmet use would prevent these injuries.
Moreover, a series of specific countermeasures are suggested, such as
an e-scooters ban from pavements, a lower 30 km/h limit in urban areas
and training motor vehicle users to be prepared to interact with PMDs is
equally important for micro-mobility safety.  |
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The Directorate General for Mobility and Transport (DG Move) of the European Commission recently published a Report
to address the critical need for Safe and Secure Parking Areas (SSPAs)
for professional drivers across the European Union, focusing on their
availability, security standards, and development potential. This Report
highlights persistent challenges in the road transport sector,
including driver shortages, inadequate parking infrastructure, and
security concerns, which hinder the sector’s operational efficiency and
driver well-being. To address this issue, the Study recommends strategic investments, including the rapid upgrade and certification
of existing parking areas that already meet the required safety and
security standards. Furthermore, this Report highlights that improved
connectivity and digitalisation are essential drivers for making SSPAs
more accessible and attractive. |
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EIT Urban Mobility has just published the EIT Urban Mobility Academic Research Board Annual Report: Strategic Research Priorities and Gaps, with the active contribution of NTUA. This Report outlines key challenges in urban mobility across Europe and highlights five core priority areas: economic productivity, resilience and adaptation, decarbonization, health and safety, and accessibility and inclusion.
The Report presents a high-level perspective on knowledge gaps and
future research priorities which are examined in the context of societal
goals, systemic pressures, and critical policy levers, bringing
together leading researchers from across Europe and beyond. |
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Statistics Corner
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The European Commission with the active contribution of NTUA, SWOV and KFV has published at the European Road Safety Observatory, the Cyclists Facts and Figures Report which
refers to cyclist fatalities on EU roads. According to this Report, in
contrast to the number of fatalities in crashes with other modes of
transport, the number of cyclists killed on EU roads has remained at more or less the same level for the past decade:
since 2012 a decrease of -3%, since 2019 a decrease of -1%. In 2022,
half of all cyclist fatalities (50%) were cyclists aged 65 years or
older on average and more than half of cyclist fatalities occurred in
crashes on urban roads (57%), 42% on rural roads and 1% on motorways. |
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Our Publications
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The 13th Symposium of European Association for Research in Transportation (hEART2025) took place with great success in Munich, on 10-12 June 2025. The Symposium offered an opportunity for in depth discussion in all scientific methods and analyses in transport. NTUA actively contributed with the following papers, posters and presentations:
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The Dutch Institute for Road Safety (SWOV) organized with great success the Trendline 2025 Conference which took place in The Hague, Netherlands on 10-11 June 2025, a key event for professionals working with road safety data, policy, and innovation. This Conference presented the results of the initial road safety KPIs,
compared these with the Baseline values, discussed the methodologies
for the new KPIs, and showed how KPIs can be used to support road safety
policies.  NTUA actively contributed with the following presentations:
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ITF together with Eurostat
organized with great success the Workshop on Promoting Data-Driven
Decision-Making which took place online, on 15 May 2025. The main
objective of this Workshop was to promote data-driven decision-making and enhance statistical and data analytics capacity
among statisticians in National Statistics Institutions and Other
National Authorities, policymakers, transport authorities, researchers,
academics, and industry stakeholders in Southeast Europe for effectively
managing urban mobility performance. NTUA actively contributed with the following presentation:
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At a recent podcast in 4NewMobility Leadership Talk, NTUA Professor George Yannis provided a technical conversation, hosted by Astrid Rohles, about 30 km/h speed zones which turned into something much bigger: a vision for healthier, safer and more human cities.
He emphasized that speeding remains the norm in urban mobility,
endangering lives, discouraging active travel and fueling pollution.
From empirical results across 17 European cities to his personal 30 Marathons in 30 months campaign,
Prof. Yannis made a passionate and data-driven case for a European-wide
roll-out of this low-cost, high-impact measure.
The solution? A coordinated European approach:
- Make 30 km/h the default in urban areas
- Support cities with infrastructure redesign
- Pair soft nudges with smart enforcement
- Communicate, measure and repeat
Steady pace wins the race … in Marathons and in Mobility, while sustainability is earned by avoiding speeding. Full article and related audio-podcast are now available.  |
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A paper titled Analyzing the safety effects of different operating speeds for an autonomous shuttle bus service authored by Maria Oikonomou, Marios Sekadakis, Christos Katrakazas and George Yannis has been published in Traffic Safety Research. This
study utilizes microscopic simulation analysis in order to quantify the
impact of road safety of an automated shuttle bus service within
traffic. In the traffic network of Villaverde, Madrid, several scenarios
were simulated using the Aimsun software considering the various CAV
MPRs and the different operational speeds of the service, namely 15, 30,
and 45 km/h. The analysis revealed that the
conflict frequency is lower when the shuttle bus operates at 45 or 30
km/h compared to 15 km/h, with the 45 km/h speed showing the largest
reduction. This reduction in conflicts is probably due
to the shuttle bus adapting more easily to the average traffic speed and
is more synchronized with traffic flow. The current study establishes a
solid relationship for the conflict frequency of AV shuttles enabling
stakeholders to optimize road safety towards a future of automated
traffic.  |
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A NTUA Diploma Thesis titled “Predicting driver behaviour in a cross-country naturalistic driving study using machine learning techniques”
was recently presented by Giannis Roukos. For this reason, valuable
data on driver behavior were collected through a driving experiment
conducted under real-world conditions in Belgium and the United Kingdom.
In the initial analysis, the importance of the variables was calculated
using the “Random Forest” algorithm, based on which nine input
variables were selected for further analysis. Findings suggest that the average speed of the vehicle was identified was the most significant variable,
while sudden driving events, including both harsh acceleration and
harsh braking, were found to significantly influence the classification
of driving behavior as dangerous.  |
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Upcoming Events
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The European Survey of Road users’ safety Attitudes (ESRA) together with VIAS Institute are organizing the ESRA: 10 years event of global road safety insights and impact which will take place in Brussels, Belgium on 24 June 2025.
This event is a unique opportunity to reflect on the evolution of the
ESRA initiative and its impact on road safety policy. Key findings from
10 years of research will be presented, unveiling a dedicated report and
the new ESRA dashboard, and will be explored how these insights can
drive future improvements in road safety. Furthermore, ESRA4 will be
introduced, the next phase in the mission to create safer roads through
data-driven strategies. Programme can be found here. |
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The European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) is organizing the 2025 ETSC Road Safety Performance Index Conference which will take place in Brussels, Belgium on 24 June 2025. ETSC
will present the findings of the PIN Annual Report looking at progress
in reducing road deaths and serious injuries across Europe.
Furthermore, a panel discussion will look at how reducing speed could
help us reach the 2030 target of reducing road deaths and serious
injuries by 50%. The European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) is also
expected to present its 2025 Road Safety Performance Index (PIN)
Award to a country for its progress in improving road safety. Programme
can be found here. |
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The European Commission and the Hungarian Public Roads together with the European Transport Research Platforms ACARE, ALICE, CEDR, ECTP, ERRAC, ERTRAC, ETRA and Waterborne are organizing the Transport Research Arena Conference (TRA2026) which will take place in Budapest, Hungary on 18-21 May 2026. The conference aims to advance sustainable, inclusive, and innovative transportation solutions under the theme "ReGeneration in Transport". Researchers can submit their abstracts until 30 June 2025. | | | |
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