NRSO Road Safety Update - January 2019

NTUA Road Safety Research ranked 2nd in Europe and 6th worldwide, 2019 NTUA Road Safety Research is ranked 2nd in Europe and 6th worldwide according to a recent study titled: “Visualization and analysis of mapping knowledge domain of road safety studies“, published at the leading safety Scientific Journal Accident Analysis and Prevention. Moreover, NTUA Prof. George Yannis appears to be among the most productive scientific authors worldwide in the field of road safety. This ranking is based on a systematic analysis of all road safety studies published on Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE) and Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) between 2000 and 2018, containing several interesting performance indicators on road safety research worldwide (topics, trends, papers, journals, universities).    NTUA Road Safety Observatory in figures 2018 The infographic of the 2018 NTUA Road Safety Observatory (www.nrso.ntua.gr) activities, highlights one more very intensive year, striving with highly scientific expertise to improve road safety in Greece, in Europe and worldwide. The nrso people with excellent dedication, efficiency and expertise were active in 22 innovative research projects, succeeded to publish 67 scientific papers (21 in peer reviewed journals), reached almost 100.000 nrso website page-views, handled more than 115.000 emails and run more than 4.800 km!  Latest Developments WHO – 10 Facts on Global Road Safety 2018 The World Health Organization (WHO) has published the 10 key facts on global road safety as derived from the recent Global health estimates and the  Global status report on road safety, published in 2018. The first fact is that “Road traffic injuries are a global public health problem“. To reduce the number of road traffic deaths and injuries, a holistic framework such as the Safe System Approach needs to be adopted to ensure a safe transport system for all road users.  ETSC – The Status of Traffic Safety and Mobility Education in Europe, 2019 The European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) has published a Report titled “The Status of Traffic Safety and Mobility Education in Europe” with the active contribution of NTUA. Even though the overwhelming majority of European countries consider education as an essential part of the integrated approach to traffic safety, this first overview of traffic safety and mobility education in Europe demonstrates that in practice road safety education in schools at all levels is not sufficient. Only in the Czech Republic, Ireland and Germany is road safety education provided at all levels.   Statistics Corner WHO Global Road Safety Interactive Map 2018 The World Health Organisation (WHO) published an Interactive Map on Global Road Safety, based on the recently published Global Status Report on Road Safety 2018. This Interactive Map is a highly useful tool allowing to visualize a wealth of information and several road safety parameters per country as well as to highlight the shocking fact that every 23 seconds a road user looses their life.  Road fatalities characteristics, Greece 1991-2017 Basic characteristics of road fatalities in Greece for the period 1991-2017 are summarised in a comprehensive Table prepared by the NTUA Road Safety Observatory (data source: ELSTAT). Since 2007, there are approximately 900 less road fatalities per year in Greece. According to these time series data a spectacular decrease in road fatalities for children 0-14 years old (-71%), young drivers (-61%) and on motorways (-61%) is observed during the last decade. On the contrary, fatalities decrease during the last decade is quite limited for moped riders (-26%), older drivers (-28%) and at rural (36%) and urban (37%) junctions.  Our Publications 98th TRB Annual Meeting – Washington, 2019 The Transportation Research Board (TRB) 98th Annual Meeting was held with great success in Washington, D.C., on 13-17 January 2019. The meeting program covered all transportation modes, with more than 5,000 presentations in nearly 800 sessions and workshops, addressing topics of interest to policy makers, administrators, practitioners, researchers, and representatives of government, industry, and academic institutions. A number of sessions and workshops focused on the spotlight theme for the 2019 meeting: Transportation for a Smart, Sustainable, and Equitable Future.    NTUA actively contributed with 6 innovative presentations: Read the whole article... SaferAfrica Webinar – Road Safety Data in Africa, 2018 Within the framework of the Horizons 2020 project SaferAfrica (African-European Dialogue Platform on Road Safety) a webinar titled “Road Safety Data in Africa” was successfully organised with the active contribution of NTUA, on December 20th, 2018. This webinar addressed key findings from a review on road safety data collection systems and definitions in African countries, together with the respective recommendations and guidelines for a minimum set of harmonised data collection procedures and standard definitions. In addition, the results of the analysis of key road safety data and risk factors in Africa were highlighted.   Five NTUA PhD Researchers awarded with the NTUA Thomaidion Award, May 2018 Emmanouil Barmpounakis, Panagiotis Papantoniou, Dimosthenis Pavlou, Dimitris Tselentis and Panos Georgiou PostDoc Researchers of the Department of Transportation Planning and Engineering of NTUA were awarded with the NTUA Thomaidion Award for outstanding publications in scientific journals for the year 2016. The awards for publications in Scientific Journals concerned: Read the whole article... Investigation of the effect of tourism on road crashes, 2019 A paper titled “Investigation of the effect of tourism on road crashes” authored by Vasileios Bellos, Apostolos Ziakopoulos, and George Yannis is now published in Journal of Transportation Safety & Security. Based on police data on road crashes in Greece for the 5-year period of 2011 to 2015, negative binomial regression models were developed, which led to the conclusion that tourists are more often involved in road crashes in Greece. Furthermore, the increase of the relative rate ratio of road crash involvement for foreign tourists in touristic regions indicates a clear increased accident risk of foreign tourists compared to Greek drivers.  Comparative investigation of road accidents cost in the European Union, 2018 A Diploma Thesis titled “Comparative investigation of road accidents cost in the European Union” was presented by Ypatia Mihou-Archimandritou in July 2018. For this analysis, social, economic and transport indicators from various international sources were exploited and a common database was developed, containing data about the rate of passenger cars use, GDP per capita, population, road accidents fatalities, suicides, number of passenger cars, Misery Index and other for the year 2015. The results led to a conclusion that an increase of the rate of passenger cars use leads to a decrease of the accident cost, while an increase of Misery Index leads to an increase of the accident cost. Furthermore, in economically strong countries higher accident cost is observed in comparison to the other two groups.   Events ASECAP/HELLASTRON – Modern Motorways: Prevention and Road Safety in Europe and Greece, 2018 The European Association of Operators of Toll Road Infrastructures (ASECAP), supported by the Hellenic Association of Toll Road Network (HELLASTRON), organised a Press Conference on Road Safety on the occasion of the EDWARD – European Day without a Road Death 2018, which took place with great success on September 19, 2018. The theme was “Modern motorways: Prevention and Road Safety in Europe and Greece” and Commissioner for Transport Violeta Bulc said: “I am glad to see such an engaging and dedicated contribution of Greece to the third European Day Without A Road Death (EDWARD) taking place this year on 19 September during the European Mobility Week. Thank you GREECE and all involved!”.  RSI Panos Mylonas – Road safety video campaigns, 2019 The Road Safety Institute ‘Panos Mylonas’ with the support of the European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) produced and implemented two video campaigns focusing on driver distraction due to mobile phone use:   and one video campaign focusing on the importance of seat-belt especially at the back-seat, titled: “Seat-belt – The belt which “ties” us with life“: . The objective is to highlight these very crucial road safety risk factors and promote these campaigns through social media.  HIT/HITE/Hellastron – Road Safety Awards in Greece, 2019 The Road Safety Awards in Greece were established in 2018 by the Hellenic Institute of Transportation Engineers (HITE), HELLASTRON and the Hellenic Institute of Transport (HIT). This year, two awards have been announced: the first one concerns the “Best Road Safety Young Researcher Publication” addressed to students, graduates, postgraduate, doctoral or postdoctoral researchers and the second one concerns the “Best Road Safety Action” addressed to Organisations and Institutes.  HITE / HIT – 9th International Congress on Transport Research (ICTR), Athens, 2019 The Hellenic Institute of Transportation Engineers (HITE) and the Hellenic Institute of Transport (H.I.T.) are co-organizing the 9th International Congress on Transport Research (ICTR), which will be held on 24-25 October 2019, in Athens, Greece. The spotlight theme of the 2017 Congress is: “Transportation 4.0: The Smart Evolution”. ICTR 2019 will host innovative research and development work in the field of transportation systems, operations and infrastructures, in Greece and abroad. The Congress objective is to showcase recent top-notch research activities in transportation, merge research findings and policy making tasks, facilitate the exchange of knowledge in the local and international level and draw conclusions and shape recommendations on the future of transportation.