Ethos Events in collaboration with the financial and business portal banks.com.gr and the magazine CHRIMA are organizing for the second consecutive year the 2nd Auto Forum titled: “Change your car!”. The conference will take place on 7 November 2018 in Athens. The subject of the 2nd Auto Forum is the latest technological advances in the field of passive safety in the automotive sector and the need for consumers to understand the potential of the new technology in order to “escape” untouchable or at least slightly injured after a violent collision caused by a traffic accident. 
The Eurostat regional yearbook 2018 gives a detailed picture relating to a broad range of statistical topics across the regions of the EU Member States, as well as the regions of the EFTA and candidate countries, including the European Regions with the lowest and highest road accident rates. Each chapter presents statistical information in maps, tables, figures and infographics, accompanied by a descriptive analysis highlighting the main findings. 
The International Road Federation (Geneva, Switzerland) along with the Arab Road Safety Organization (AROSO), the Emirati Traffic Safety Society (ETSS), La Prevention Routière Internationale (PRI) is co-organizing an International Conference on: ” Safer Roads & Mobility” which is going to be held in Abu Dhabi, UAE, on 24 – 25th, October, 2018. The conference program will focus specifically on Pillar II “Safer Roads and Mobility” of the Decade of Action for Road Safety (2011-2020) due to its sensitive impact on reducing road traffic fatalities.
The 2018 International Research Council on the Biomechanics of Injury Europe Conference took place with great success in Athens, Greece, on 12-14 September 2018. The focus of IRCOBI is on the avoidance and reduction of the severity of traffic accidents, with special emphasis on advanced safety technologies and the biomechanics of injury.
A preliminary analysis of in-depth accident data for powered two-wheelers and bicycles in Europe
The chair of Transportation System Engineering of the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and the Department of Transportation Planning and Engineering of the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) co-organised the 7th Symposium of the European Association for Research in Transportation (hEART), which took place with great success in September 5-7 2018 in Athens, Greece. hEART is an interdisciplinary research conference, covering all areas of transportation research, with a focus on quantitative methods and analysis of transport systems. The aim of the Symposium was to connect research in transport modelling, transport economics and transport policy with advanced practice.
A Diploma Thesis titled “The effect of anger on driver behavior and safety” was presented by Orestis Gavalas in July 2018. The aim of the Diploma Thesis is to investigate the effect of anger on driver behavior and safety. In order to achieve this goal, a driving simulator experiment was conducted and a questionnaire including the DAX scale was filled in a sample of 125 drivers. The collected data were grouped into anger components using the factor analysis method. Subsequently, both linear and logarithmic regression models were developed. Valuable conclusions were reached including men demonstrating higher levels of driving anger as well as that anger decreases with increasing age. The presence of anger is related to the increase in average speed, the reduction of headway (measured in time) and the increase in the probability of being involved in an accident and a road traffic infringement. On the other hand, forgiveness and noble mindedness lead to fundamentally opposite effects.
SafetyCube is a research project funded by the European Commission under Horizon 2020, the EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation, in the domain of Road Safety. The latest SafetyCube newsletter is now available, highlighting the innovative road safety Decision Support System (DSS) which is now online enabling policy-makers and stakeholders to select and implement the most appropriate strategies, measures and cost-effective approaches to reduce casualties of all road user types and all severities in Europe and worldwide.
A Diploma Thesis titled “Critical driver behaviour and risk factors in Europe” was presented by Dimitrios Vachaviolos in July 2018. The aim of the present Diploma Thesis is the analysis of critical behavior and risk factors of drivers in Europe. To this end, we analyzed the responses of a representative sample of 17,980 European citizens who participated in the pan-European ESRA survey, which took place in 2016. The analysis of behavior and the investigation of the critical factors affecting driver behavior and safety, was carried out by using statistical methods of cluster analysis and binary logistic regression. The model results revealed that speeding leads to the increase of accident involvement probability, as is the case also for fatigue – drowsiness and distraction.
The ICoRSI International Symposium on Safety of Vulnerable Road Users will be held in Central South University, Changsha, Hunan, China, on 25-26 March 2019. This is the second symposium in a series of which the first was held in Paris, France. The conference theme is “Sharing Experiences on Safety of Vulnerable Road Users“. In addition to presentation of scientific papers, international experts will also make keynote presentations on themes related to vulnerable road users. The conference encourages participants to exchange research ideas and practical experiences dealing with: Statistics and surveillance, Safety campaigns, Education, safety and training, Enforcement of rules and legislation, Vehicle and safety equipment interventions, Infrastructure design and safety, Post-crash care of victims.
The 3rd Global High-Level Conference on Road Safety which will be held on 19–20 February 2020, in Stockholm, Sweden will mark the conclusion of the UN Decade of Action for Road Safety and will be closely coordinated with the World Health Organisation (WHO). The aim of the conference is to discuss how the global targets for road safety can be developed, not the least in relation to the already existing goals for road safety in the 2030 Agenda. One important task will be to prepare a declaration focusing on global road safety efforts up to 2030. The conference will gather minister-led delegations from some eighty countries and their representatives from various sectors of society affected by road safety. In addition, representatives of business, research, organisations and relevant international institutions will attend.
The African Road Safety Observatory is now on line. It is a space for interaction to highlight the relevant road safety needs in African countries, developed with the active contribution of NTUA. It is one of the main results of EC funded SaferAfrica project and includes various knowledge and tools, such as statistics, reports, fact sheets, knowledge resources and links and it is integrated with crowd-sourcing functions to facilitate the participation of experts and end-users. Moreover, the Observatory, through a reserved area, is designed as a tool for managing all the activities of the Dialogue Platform created by SaferAfrica project and, in particular, for the consultancy of a Management Board as well as of a Stakeholders Group.
European Commission – DG for Research and Innovation in their Success Stories Web-page recently published the SaferAfrica H2020 project, which has been taken place with the active contribution of NTUA. As a continent, Africa has some of the most lethal roads in the world. A lack of road safety protocols, wanting road conditions and poor post-crash emergency response systems make for alarmingly high fatality rates. To help turn this around, the EU-funded project SaferAfrica is driving policies aimed at improving road safety. “Europe can play an important role by supporting African countries in improving road safety and achieving the Action Plan targets [African Road Safety Action Plan 2011-2020],” says project coordinator Luca Persia. “In this view, the project aims at building favourable conditions and opportunities for the effective implementation of road safety actions in African countries by setting up a Dialogue Platform between Africa and Europe.”
A Diploma Thesis titled “Mobility and road safety in European cities” was presented by Dimitrios Giagkou in July 2018. The objective of this Diploma Thesis is to investigate the impact of mobility characteristics on road safety in European cities. For this analysis, various international databases were exploited with data on road accident fatalities, demographics and mobility characteristics of 25 European cities in 2012. Generalized Linear Models were developed for both the total number of fatalities and for specific subcategories too. The results led to the conclusion that more public transport capacity offered, more cycle trips and fewer motorcycles lead to a reduction in the number of fatalities in urban road accidents. Moreover, it was found that denser road network, higher population density and higher GDP per capita are correlated with fewer fatalities in urban road accidents.
A Diploma Thesis titled “Impact of economic, social and transport indicators on road safety during the crisis period in Europe” was presented by Dimitrios Nikolaou in July 2018. The objective of this Diploma Thesis is to investigate the impact of economic, social and transport indicators on road safety during the crisis period in Europe. For this analysis a database containing Human Development Index (HDI), suicides, passenger-kilometers and road fatalities for European states for 2006-2015 was developed. The results led to the conclusion that Human Development Index has the most important impact and its increase leads to road fatalities decrease. Moreover, the evolution of the economy affects the development of road accidents more than social and transport indicators. After the economic crisis, the impact of the economy is even higher. Concerning passenger-kilometers there is an increase in the relative impact on the number of road fatalities after the economic crisis.
The 3rd Newsletter of the African-European Dialogue Platform on Road Safety (SaferAfrica) has been recently issued with the active contribution of NTUA. This edition highlights the newly born African Road Safety Observatory, the African RSO. It also includes the implementation of the African Road Safety Action Plan: SaferAfrica Recommendations, and finally tries to answer how can an African Road Safety Observatory help to improve road safety in Africa?
The Austrian Presidency of the Council of the European Union, the Austrian Federal Ministry for Transport, Innovation and Technology, the Austrian Road Safety Board (KFV) and the European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) are organizing a high level road safety conference in Vienna on 13 November 2018. The conference will feature a high level panel debate “Road safety 2020+: Challenges in Human Factors, Vehicles and Infrastructure”. Conference participants will be invited to discuss priority measures and actions of the upcoming EU and national road safety strategies with politicians, experts, researchers, NGOs and representatives of the EU institutions.
The agenda is available:
A Diploma Thesis titled “Relation of the performance of road safety to medical, economic and social indicators to countries in the European Union” was presented by Myrto Damianou in July 2018. The purpose of this diploma thesis is to identify potential relationships between road accidents and road behavior, as far as the health sector is concerned. Its aim is to relate the performance of road safety to medical, economic and social indicators related to countries in the European Union. Thus, the 27 European Union Member States are studied for an indicative time frame, from 2008 to 2014. After determining the correlation between road fatalities and the aforementioned indicators, the statistical models were defined, according to the application of the theory of linear regression and the linear mixed model.
A Diploma Thesis titled “Comparative investigation of road accidents cost in the European Union” was presented by Ypatia Mihou-Archimandritou in July 2018. The objective of this Diploma Thesis is the comparative investigation of road accidents cost in the European Union and its correlation with social, economic and transport indicators. For this analysis, data 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.
In the framework of the European Survey of Road users’ safety Attitudes (ESRA), NTUA released 3 new infographics, regarding “Drivers’ self-declared behaviour” , “Drivers’ attitudes towards unsafe behaviour” and “Drivers personal and social acceptability” .
ESRA is a joint international initiative of 26 research centers and road safety institutes; the project has surveyed road users in 38 countries on 5 continents. The purpose of this network is to collect comparable data on the opinions, attitudes, and behaviour of road users concerning road safety and mobility, and to provide scientific evidence for policy making at the national and international levels. The Updated Main Report (2017 edition) of ESRA has been published containing the results from the survey in 38 countries, including 13 Latin America countries.
A Diploma Thesis titled “Investigation of Drivers’ Preferences Towards New Innovative Vehicle Insurance Schemes” was presented by Emmanouil Konstantinopoulos in July 2018. The objective of this Diploma Thesis is to investigate the most important factors that determine the demand of Greek drivers for vehicle insurance services comprising new innovative insurance schemes of Pay As You Drive and Pay How You Drive (PAYD & PHYD), taking into account critical characteristics of driving behaviour. The analysis demonstrated that the young and the female drivers show higher probability of selecting PAYD/PHYD schemes, while the Freelancers are more reluctant to such schemes.
