Together for Safer Roads (TSR), together with presenting sponsors UPS foundation and CalAmp, announced a vision zero technology fund to support fleet safety in essential services and purpose-based organizations. The fund will underwrite the adoption of lifesaving vehicle technologies and will assist in its implementation among essential service organizations’ fleet operations. 

The Horizon 2020 project HADRIAN published the HADRIAN Newsletter November 2020. The newsletter provides highlights from the technical work completed during the project’s first year, as well as plans for the following year which focus on translating the HADRIAN operational concept into concrete researchand development activities. NTUA actively contributed with a research titled “HADRIAN – Holistic Approach for Driver Role Integration and Automation Allocation for European Mobility Needs”. 

The Forum of European Road Safety Research Institutes (FERSI) published a Paper titled “E-scooters in Europe: legal status, usage and safety“, which presents the legal status, usage and safety of e-scooters in 18 European countries. Many countries are working on more targeted or more elaborate legislation. The objective information about numbers, safety, users and their behaviour is scarce. 

The Forum of European Road Safety Research Institutes (FERSI) published a Position Paper titled “Towards an evidence-based national road safety programme“. The paper intends to offer guidance to Member States on developing a national road safety programme. Its main message is that a road safety programme must be based on scientifically sound evidence in order to ensure that it focuses on the most relevant issues and implements the most appropriate treatments.



The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), recently released a Report titled “Global Trade in Used Vehicles“, which looks at 146 countries that import used vehicles, and calls for action to regulate the trade through the adoption of a set of harmonized minimum quality standards. These would ensure used vehicles contribute to cleaner and safer fleets in recipient countries. UNEP and partners will address these issues, initially with a project focused on Africa.



The Road Safety GB will organise the 6th conference titled “Joining the Dots“, which will be held online, on 2-3 March 2021. This year the conference will be taking a focus on pressing topics facing the profession in this exceptional year and beyond including; changes in travel choice, the impact on roads casualties, shifting road user behaviour and predicting modal shift towards active travel. 

The fourth Newsletter of the Horizon 2020 project BeOpen (European forum and observatory for open science in transport) was recently released with all the past 6 months achievements, including activities and deliverables. The project’s goal is to progress beyond the state-of-the-art, developing an appropriate regulatory framework and policies to support innovation and deployment. 

The Prince Michael International Road Safety Awards 2020 were recently presented by Prince Michael to Road Safety Organisations who have demonstrated outstanding achievement and innovation in improving road safety in Britain and world-wide. At this 30 years celebration, several of NTUA cooperating Organisations (The World Bank, iRAP, Global Alliance of NGOs for Road Safety, Agilysis) were among the awarded Organisations. 

The Horizon 2020 project i-DREAMS recently released its 3rd Newsletter, presenting the main accomplishments of the project, through creative solutions and risk mitigation strategies. The project, focusing on the analysis of the Safety Tolerance Zone, is organised in 10 Work Packages. NTUA actively contributed in the analysis and the evaluation of WP6 (Analysis of risk factors) and WP7 (Evaluation of safety interventions).
The Department of Civil, Environmental, Architectural Engineering and Mathematics of Universita Degli Studi di Brescia, will organise the 25th Living and Walking in Cities Conference in Brescia, on 9-10 September 2021. The LWC International Conference traditionally deals with the topics of urban mobility and quality of life in urban areas, with a specific focus on vulnerable road users. The main areas and topics of the Conference will be transport system and infrastructure, safe mobility for innovative cities and urban planning. 

Rhodes’ Rescuers Association have organised with great success a three-day Webinar titled “Road accidents: Don’t just observe – Act” which was held online on 18-20 December 2020. The Webinar results are expected to bring significant value to road safety efforts at local, regional and national level.
NTUA actively contributed with the following presentation:

University of Aveiro will organise the 24th Working Group on Transportation Meeting (EWGT 2021) which will be held in Aveiro, Portugal, 8-10 September 2021. The main goal of the Meeting is to share information and experiences of research activities, to encourage joint research and the development of theoretical methods and applications, to promote the cooperation among different institutions and organisations, leaders at national level in the field of traffic, transportation and logistic systems.

The 4th ESRA2 Webinar took place with great success on 16 December 2020 including the NTUA presentation titled: “Moped drivers and Motorcyclists”. This presentation was based on the results of the ESRA2 Thematic Report titled “Moped drivers and motorcyclists” focusing on key PTW attitudes from a survey that collected data from more than 35,000 road users across 32 countries worldwide. Speeding, drink and drive, helmet use and mobile phone distraction as well as self-declared safety perception of using mopeds and motorcycles, were among the key issues highlighted.





We leave behind a strange year, lucky to continue progressing with great scientific achievements against all odds. We persisted with dedication and passion to promoting evidence based safe traffic everywhere and for all and much-needed new sustainable mobility schemes too.
We thank you all for the excellent cooperation and we are sending you our very best wishes for Merry and Safe Christmas and a New Year with New Hope and New Values, full of personal and professional achievements. Let’s hope that the exceptional shared responsibility during the pandemic will become the new trend for responsible traffic behaviour, making our roads much safer and soon victims-free, in line with the UN decade and vision zero targets.
May the spirit of true solidarity keep up our faith this Christmas and this New Year 2021: 



The European Commission (DG Move) has recently developed the Sustainable Urban Mobility Indicators, which is a set of practical and reliable indicators that support cities to perform a standardised evaluation of their mobility system and to measure improvements that result from new mobility practices or policies. Two out of the 18 mobility indicators concern key urban road safety indicators to be jointly considered within the new urban sustainable mobility policies.
The complete set of indicators is now available 


The European Commission (DG Move) recently presented the EU Sustainable and Smart Mobility Strategy together with an Action Plan of 82 initiatives (several of which aim to promote and enhance road safety), which lay the foundation for how the EU transport system can achieve its green and digital transformation
.
Commissioner for Transport Adina Vălean said: “As the backbone that connects European citizens and business, transport matters to us all. Digital technologies have the potential to revolutionise the way we move, making our mobility smarter, more efficient, and also greener”.


The “Hellenic Association for the deployment of Intelligent Transport Systems – ITS Hellas, has organised with great success the 6th Intelligent Transport Systems and Developments in Greece Conference which was held online on 14-15 December 2020 with the support of the European Commission Representation in Greece, focusing on issues related to European goals and national aspirations and efforts for the transition to a sustainable and “green” mobility.
NTUA actively contributed with the following presentations:

The European Union Road Federation (ERF) has organised a Roadside Safety Event which was held with great success online on 15 December 2020. The conference was a unique opportunity for road safety experts around the globe to exchange information concerning the latest trends and developments in the area of roadside passive safety and road safety design.
NTUA actively contributed with the following presentation:

The European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) has recently published a Report titled: Alcohol Interlocks in Europe: An Overview of Current and Forthcoming Programmes. This new Report aims at providing a more practical approach showing how each country has implemented their national scheme or intend to implement it in the future. It also identifies strengths and weaknesses to advocate for more effective measures and to inspire other Member States to deliver successful programmes.



The IRF Data Warehouse is a web-based global road data platform and warehouse that can complement and support national and regional efforts to collect and manage data. The IRF Data Warehouse also contributes to capacity-building and advocacy activities on a number of topics and in particular, road safety. The entire time series of the IRF World Road Statistics enables immediate and effective data analysis and is complemented by a series of dashboards and interactive data visualisation tools. 
