According to the EU road fatalities infographic of the NTUA Road Safety Observatory, thirteen countries have a better performance than the EU average, namely UK, Denmark, Ireland, Netherlands, Sweden, Malta, Germany, Spain, Finland, Slovenia, Austria, Slovakia, and France. Greece has been ranked 22nd in 2018 but has demonstrated the highest road fatalities rate reduction (51%) in the last decade, followed by Slovenia (48%), whereas the EU average 10-year reduction is 31%. 

The International Transport Forum (ITF/OECD) published recently a new Report: “Road Safety in European Cities – Performance Indicators and Governance Solutions”. This reports benchmarks road safety performance for 72 urban areas, mostly in Europe, and illustrates governance solutions to improve urban road safety with case studies conducted in Lisbon (Portugal) and Riga (Latvia). The report proposes new road safety indicators to assess the level of risk for each mode of transport. It finds that a modal shift away from private motor vehicles could significantly enhance road safety in dense urban areas and deliver public health benefits associated with increased physical activity and improved air quality.  

The European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) is organising the 13th Annual Road Safety Performance Index (PIN) Conference which will take place on 19 June 2019 in Brussels. During the event the latest road safety figures will be presented and actions needed to accelerate road safety progress will be identified. A high level representative on behalf of their country will receive the PIN award for achievements in road safety. The PIN conference will be attended by national road safety experts, high level officials and decision makers from across Europe and will provide an opportunity to discuss ways in which road safety in the EU can be further improved. 

The ESRA consortium will host the 2nd ESRA Symposium on Global Road Safety Performance Indicators, which will take place in Brussels, on 18 June 2019. New results from the ESRA2 date, collected at the end of 2018, will be showcased. Presentations will focus on key results of global road safety performance indicators (i.e., release of 32 country fact sheets and thematic reports on speeding, mobile phone use, and fatigue). The symposium is sponsored by the Forum of European Road Safety Institutes (FERSI). 

The Forum of European Road Safety Institutes (FERSI) has restyled and updated its website. The website not only provides information about FERSI, its members and activities, it also provides relevant links to road safety information, road safety organisations, major policy documents and European projects. 

The European Platform of Transport Sciences (EPTS) is oganising the 17th International Conference – ETC 2019 which will be held in Bratislava, Slovakia, on 13-14 June 2019. Since its first meeting in 2001 in Vienna the purpose of EPTS is the enhancement of the dialogue between politics, science and economy in the field of European transport. This is to be accomplished by organising scientific events, encouraging the exchange of opinions and experiences, joint PR efforts, the enhancement of scientific research and continuing education, cooperation with other scientific institutions and support of young scientists, especially through the Young Forum of European Transport Sciences (YFE). 

According to the European Commission preliminary statistics, fewer people died on European roads in 2018 but more efforts are needed to make a big leap forward. In 2018, there were around 25.100 fatalities in road accidents in the EU 28. This is a decrease of 21% compared to 2010, and 1% compared to 2017. The EU countries with the best road safety results in 2018 were the United Kingdom (28 deaths/million inhabitants), Denmark (30/million), Ireland (31/million), and Sweden (32/million), whereas the best improvement since 2010 was demonstrated by Greece (-45%) and Lithuania (-43%). With an average of 49 road deaths per one million inhabitants, this confirms that European roads are by far the safest in the world, but it also shows that we are off track to reach our target of halving the number of road deaths by 2020. 

The Sixth Global Meeting of Nongovernmental Organizations Advocating for Road Safety and Road Victims will take place in Chania, Crete, Greece, from 8–13 April 2019. This Global Meeting will be the biggest gathering of Road Safety NGOs and Stakeholders in 2019 and the most important event leading up to the end of the Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011–2020. 270 NGOs, politicians, multilateral agencies, corporate stakeholders, and road safety advocates, from 76 countries, will reflect on progress so far and assess what further specific actions are needed to achieve substantial and lasting reductions in the number of deaths and serious injuries occurring daily on the world’s roads. 

According to Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT) data, 731 persons were killed in Greece in 2017: 507 drivers, 106 passengers and 118 pedestrians. Male drivers account for 66% of all road fatalities in Greece. Young male drivers aged 15-24 years old account for 16% of all male driver fatalities and older people account for more than 59% of all pedestrian fatalities. The higher accident severity was found in accidents involving older persons (6.4 fatalities per 100 accidents) and young people 15-24 years old (3.7 fatalities per 100 accidents). 

A paper titled “The European road safety decision support system on risks and measures” authored by the Horizons 2020 SafetyCube project team is now published in Accident Analysis and Prevention. The European Road Safety Decision Support System is an innovative system providing the available evidence on a broad range of road risks and possible countermeasures. This paper describes the scientific basis of the DSS. The structure underlying the DSS consists of (1) a taxonomy identifying risk factors and measures and linking them to each other, (2) a repository of studies, and (3) synopses summarizing the effects estimated in the literature for each risk factor and measure, and (4) an economic efficiency evaluation instrument (E3-calculator). 

FIA launched a brand new visualized tool-website with key figures on vision and its impact on road safety in 14 countries all over the world. It provides data regarding visual disorders population percentages of each country, vision legislation and driving license, minimum acuity for both eyes, minimum vision field etc. 

European Investment Bank and European Commission join forces to support investments in transport safety with special focus on roads. At the TEN-T and CEF Conference in Bucharest, the EU Commissioner for Transport Violeta Bulc together with Vice-President of the European Investment Bank (EIB) Vazil Hudák launched the “Safer Transport Platform” to promote safety as a key element for transport investment and to provide easy access to technical and financial advice, in particular for road safety. The “Safer Transport Platform – Road Safety Advisory” is available via a dedicated website.  

A Diploma Thesis titled “Combined impact of road and traffic characteristics on driver behavior using data from smartphones” was recently presented by Virginia Petraki. High resolution driving behavior data were collected using sensors of smartphones which were combined with traffic and road geometry characteristics and subsequently were depicted spatially using GIS. From the application of these models it is observed that in road segments there is an increase in the number of harsh events if average traffic volume per lane increases in the respective segments. Furthermore, in junctions as the average occupancy increases, there is an increase in harsh accelerations, and as average speed increases more harsh decelerations occur.  

A Diploma Thesis titled “Correlation of driver behaviour and fuel consumption using data from smartphones” was recently presented by Eva Michelaraki. The aim of this Diploma Thesis is the correlation of driver behaviour and fuel consumption using data from smartphones. To achieve this objective, data collected from 17 drivers who participated at a naturalistic driving experiment for four months are analyzed. The results demonstrated that there was a remarkable reduction in fuel consumption, by improving the way participants were driving and also a smoother and a greener driver behavior was achieved. A stronger correlation has emerged between harsh accelerations and fuel consumption, but also speed, braking, smartphone usage while driving, driving at night and demographic features had a direct impact on fuel consumption.  

A Diploma Thesis titled “Self-assessment and Road Behaviour” was recently presented by Mikaela Panagiotopoulou. The aim of the Diploma Thesis is to relate self-assessment and other characteristics of drivers with parameters of their road behavior. To achieve this goal, a pilot simulator experiment was conducted and a questionnaire was filled in a sample of 125 drivers. The application of the models revealed that the drivers who have positively self-assessed their driving abilities drive faster and showcase speedy reaction time. The drivers in general, evaluated realistically their driving skills with an exception when it came to the safety driving measures which were: keeping an adequate headway from the vehicle in front, accurately adjusting their speed on different driving conditions, maintaining speed limits.  

A Diploma Thesis titled “Greek drivers’ attitudes towards aggressive driving” was recently presented by Aggeliki Stefatou. The objective of this Diploma Thesis is the investigation of the characteristics of driver aggressiveness in Greece via their perceptions on their own behavior and the behavior of other drivers. Specifically, within the framework of the SafeCulture survey, the answers of 302 car drivers and 201 two-wheeler drivers on 8 questions regarding speed, 6 questions regarding overtaking behavior and aggressiveness and 4 questions regarding alcohol consumption were analyzed. Results indicate that drivers do not perceive traditional crash factors as causes for their crash involvement. The only contributing factors perceived by drivers was found to be those involving driver overtaking behavior and aggressiveness.  

A Diploma Thesis titled “Spatial analysis of driver safety behavior using data from smartphones” was recently presented by Ilias Parmaksizoglou. The aim of this diploma thesis is to conduct a spatial analysis of driver safety behavior using data from smartphones. Data were processed in a GIS computer environment, resulting to the creation of new tables describing the phenomena observed on the road map of the study (Leoforos Mesogeion) in node and link areas. Analytic maps were developed that aimed to indicate patterns of the accumulation and ranking of the harsh events in the selected road axis. Finally, four linear regression models were developed, which demonstrated speed as the most statistically significant factor in predicting harsh events per day on a region basis.  

A Diploma Thesis titled “Impact of economic, social and transport indicators on road safety during the crisis period in Europe” was recently presented by Valentina Vassili. The objective of this Diploma Thesis is to investigate the impact of economic, social and transport indicators on road safety before and after the crisis period in Europe. For this analysis a database containing Gross Domestic Product per capita (GDP), motorway-kilometers per road network-kilometers, vehicle fleet per population and road fatalities for European states for 2000-2016 was developed.  The results led to the conclusion that Gross Domestic Index per capita has the most important impact and its increase leads to road fatalities decrease. Moreover, the increase of motorway-kilometers per road network positively affects the road fatalities decrease.  

A Diploma Thesis titled “Identification of critical driving parameters affecting speeding using data from smartphones” was recently presented by Aris Kokkinakis. The aim of this Diploma Thesis is to identify the critical driving parameters that affect speeding using data from smartphones. To achieve this objective, data collected from sixty- eight drivers who participated at a naturalistic driving experiment for fifteen months are analyzed. The analysis was carried out with the use of statistical method of linear regression. The results revealed that all six parameters, distance, high intensity harsh accelerations and brakings, harsh cornerings, average deceleration and mobile usage, were statistically significant in the regression models. For the general model, the number of high intensity harsh brakings had the most significant impact, whereas for each type of road separately, distance was the most significant parameter.  

On March 27, 2019 in Ljubljana, the Interreg funded RADAR project organised the first Road Safety Expert Group meeting focusing on Safer Roads Investment Plans. Special emphasis was given into optimisation of using limited road investment and road safety investment funds, by supporting most cost-benefit effective engineering solutions at the most appropriate locations / road sections.  NTUA actively contributed with the following presentation:  Key points for Road Sections Safety in Greece