The SHOW project (SHared automation Operating models for Worldwide adoption) will organise the 4th Pan-European Workshop, titled “Shaping Seamless AV Integration in Public Transport”, which will be held in Düsseldorf, on 12 October 2023. The workshop will provide a dynamic exploration of cutting-edge advancements in automated shared mobility, along with a field trip to nearby Monheim to experience the real-life AV service fully integrated into public transport. The different sessions will combine concise presentations by industry leaders, experts, and project participants, followed by interactive panel discussions that delve deep into the heart of each topic. 
The World Road Association – PIARC organised with great success two webinars which were held online on 5 and 15 September 2023, with the active support of NTUA. The topics of the Webinars were: Infrastructure, Tunnels, Speed, Data and Management, Behaviour, VRUs, Vehicles. The webinars provided solutions and recommendations to build road safety expertise in all countries with focus on Low and Middle Income Countries, in order to adopt effectively the Safe System Approach and reduce fatal and serious crashes on road network. NTUA actively contributed with the following presentation:
NTUA actively contributed with the following presentation:
Dimitrios Nikolaou, NTUA PhD Candidate & Researcher, received the Young Researcher Best Paper on Road Safety Αward 2023 during the International Congress on Transport Research 2023. The Award is granted jointly by the Hellenic Institute of Transport (HIT/CERTH) and the Hellenic Institute of Transportation Engineers (HITE). The award concerned the paper is titled: “Spatial analysis of telematics surrogate safety measures across road environments”, co-authored by Armira Kontaxi, Apostolos Ziakopoulos and George Yannis.
The Hellenic Institute of Transport (HIT/CERTH) and the Hellenic Institute of Transportation Engineers (HITE) co-organized the 11th International Congress on Transportation Research (ICTR 2023), which was held on 20-22 September 2023 in Heraklion, Greece. The spotlight theme of the 2023 Congress was “Clean and Accessible to All Multimodal Transport“. Special focus was given to innovative and sustainable traffic safety concepts in Greece and worldwide. NTUA contributed actively with the following 16 scientific papers and presentations:
NTUA contributed actively with the following 16 scientific papers and presentations:
Spatial analysis of telematics surrogate safety measures across road environments (Young Researcher Best Road Safety Paper Award)- Road Safety Key Performance Indicators in Greece
- A novel methodology for crash hotspot identification and network-wide safety ranking
- Implementing traffic simulation for road safety assessment: A systematic literature review
- Evaluation of safety interventions on risky driving behavior using data from a novel naturalistic driving experiment
- Identification of safe driving behavior using an ensemble of machine learning algorithms and data from the i-DREAMS experiment
- How do task complexity and coping capacity influence risk? Findings from a novel naturalistic driving experiment in Greece
- Modelling the inter-relationship among task complexity, coping capacity and crash risk
- Impact Assessment of a novel Human-Machine Interface Prototype: A descriptive analysis from the HADRIAN project
- Impacts of automated driving vehicles on bus depot operation using naturalistic data
- Modelling the behaviour of automated vehicles when interacting with pedestrians in jaywalking
- Risk analysis of Western Greece road network using the Highway Safety Manual
- Can we predict safe driving for the elderly through a self-assessment of driving behaviour?
- Analysis of speeding characteristics in Greece
- Analysis of distraction characteristics due to mobile phone use in Greece
- Cost Benefit Analysis of reducing speed limits at the Greek interurban road network
CRC Press has recently published a Handbook written by Christina Ludin-Brown C. and Ashleigh Filtness titled “Fatigue Management in Transportation”, which is designed as a comprehensive reference point, bringing together international expertise from leaders in fatigue science, and showcasing valuable insights from transportation industry practitioners. The 40 authored chapters of this handbook are divided into six sections, to better understand fatigue science, the consequences of fatigue in transportation, contributors to fatigue, managing fatigue and promoting alertness, real world case studies of fatigue management in practice, and future perspectives.
The Global Alliance of NGOs for Road Safety (the Alliance) and the International Road Federation (IRF), with the support of the TotalEnergies Foundation program, have recently released the LEARN Guide, a new resource of information and support to empower road safety advocates globally. This guide is structured in six straightforward steps and enables NGOs and other road safety stakeholders to set up their own LEARN coalitions, benefiting from the tools and learning experiences of existing ones. 
The World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims is observed on the third Sunday of November each year (this year on 19 November 2023) by an increasing number of countries on every continent around the world. From 1995, the European Federation of Road Traffic Victims (FEVR) observed this day, as European Day of Remembrance, that was adopted by the United Nations in 2005, and is dedicated to remembering the many millions killed or injured in road crashes and their families and communities, as well as to pay tribute to the dedicated emergency crews, police and medical professionals who daily deal with the traumatic aftermath of road death and injury. The Alliance’s social campaign for World Day of Remembrance 2018 includes both global and local elements. 
The iRAP’s Star Rating for Schools and AiRAP partnerships will be scaled up to provide 3-star or better journeys to school and address road traffic crashes that are the leading cause of death among children and young people worldwide. In particular, the International Road Assessment Programme (iRAP) is receiving USD$2 million in grant funding and additional support from Google’s philanthropic arm, Google.org, to provide children with a safer journey to school. Successful applicants were announced on 12 September and based on the type of project, Google.org will provide support through a combination of funding, product donations and technical expertise.
Global University Rankings demonstrate excellent scientific performance of the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), our Civil Engineering School and our Department of Transportation Planning and Engineering, along with the NTUA Road Safety Observatory. This is the result of NTUA Scientists’ long standing culture of persistence to our fundamental research principles: a) Scientific Excellence with advanced and innovative technology concepts, b) Research with significant Impact to society and economy, c) State-of-the-art organisation for highly efficient Implementation, d) Systematic international Cooperations. Great thanks to the highly dedicated NTUA Road Safety Research Team and to all our European and worldwide partners. And the exciting journey towards scientific excellence continues …
European Commission and the European Parliament are launching the EU Road Safety Exchange project for a second three-year phase with the active support of ETSC and NTUA. The project connects road safety experts from various European countries to tackle specific road safety challenges through twinning activities. A high-level event in Brussels will mark the official launch of the project on 18 October 2023. The project and its launch event will cover various themes, including the safety of infrastructure, effective enforcement, the protection of vulnerable road users, and driver training.
The European Commission will host the annual Excellence in Road Safety Awards on 19 October 2023 in Brussels, recognising the contributions of the European Road Safety Charter’s community of members towards the common goal of improved road safety across Europe. The award categories for 2023 include best use of data promoting road safety, best project promoting fitness to drive and supporting road safety in the e-commerce sector and best road safety project for road users with reduced mobility.
The International Road Federation (IRF) released the 60th edition of the IRF World Road Statistics 2023 (WRS2023), with data now open to all for free through the IRF WRS Data Warehouse platform, thanks to the generous support of the TotalEnergies Foundation and Michelin Corporate Foundation. The IRF WRS 2023 continues to be the major comprehensive, universal source of statistical data on road networks, traffic and inland transport, including traffic accidents. This year the WRS 2023 includes the latest data covering years 2016 to 2021, with the active contribution of NTUA for the Greek data. It includes over 200 road and transport-sector related indicators across 11 sections, covering more than 200 countries and territories . Follow the launching event on 28 September 2023.
. Follow the launching event on 28 September 2023. 
The European Commission and the An Roinn Iompair (ARI) together with the European Transport Research Platforms ACARE, ALICE, CEDR, ECTP, ERRAC, ERTRAC, ETRA and Waterborne will organise the Transport Research Arena Conference (TRA2024) which will take place in Dublin, on 15-18 April 2024. The pillars of the Conference will be the safe & inclusive transport, the sustainable mobility of people and goods, the efficient & resilient systems and the collaborative digitalisation regarding the European Transport Research and Innovation and the cooperation of Europe with other continents.
A paper titled “Real-Time Monitoring of Driver Distraction: State-of-the-art and future insights” authored by Eva Michelaraki, Chistos Katrakazas, Susanne Kaiser, Tom Brijs and George Yannis, has been published in Accident Analysis & Prevention. The aim of this research is to critically review and assess the state-of-the-art systems and platforms measuring driver distraction or inattention. The results indicated that real-time eye tracking systems, cardiac sensors on steering wheels, smartphone applications and cameras were the most frequent devices to monitor and detect driver distraction. On the other hand, less frequent and effective approaches included electrodes, hand magnetic rings and glasses. 
ETSC, Fundación MAPFRE and the Flemish Foundation for Traffic Knowledge (VSV) organised the 2023 edition of the European Traffic Education Seminar, which was held as an online event, on 12 September 2023. The aims of the seminar were to equip young road users to become safe road users, given the appropriate education. The seminar consisted of three distinct parts, focused on sustainable mobility with traffic safety, safe (pre-)driver and passenger behaviour and e-scooter education.
A paper titled “Star rating of driver’s behavior as a tool to prevent risky behavior” authored by Milan Tešić, Suzana Miladić-Tešić, Katerina Folla, George Yannis and Oscar Oviedo-Trespalacios has been published in Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour. Results were analysed regarding the following aspects: 1) star rating of driver’s behavior and 2) defining the stages of the periodic factors monitoring for each PAU analysed. It was revelated that using a mobile phone while driving, not using child restraints system, alcohol drunk driving during the night and seat belt use at rear seats of passenger vehicles were identified as the most significant factors associated with risky driving behaviors.
A paper titled “COVID-19 and driving behavior: Which were the most crucial influencing factors” authored by Marios Sekadakis, Christos Katrakazas, Eva Michelaraki, Apostolos Ziakopoulos and George Yannis, has been published in Data Science for Transportation. Based on the collected data, XGBoost feature analysis algorithms were deployed to obtain the most significant factors. Results revealed that COVID-19 new cases and new fatalities were the most significant factors related to COVID-19 metrics impacting driving behavior. In addition, the correlation between driving behavior with other factors (i.e., distance traveled, mobile use, driving requests, and driving during risky hours) was revealed. Lastly, the differences and similarities of the harsh event rates between the two lockdown periods were identified.
The 2023 International Research Council on the Biomechanics of Injury Europe Conference will be held in Cambridge, UK, on 13-15 September 2023. Through scientific conferences, training courses and other activities, the IRCOBI Council provides an academically rigorous forum for dissemination of the latest research into injury causation and protective systems.
The Saudi Traffic Safety Society is organizing under the patronage of His Royal Highness Governor of the Eastern Region the sixth International Traffic Safety Conference which will take place in Dammam, Saudi Arabia on 4-6 December 2023. The theme of the conference is “Artificial intelligence and big data for transportation and traffic safety”. Experts, researchers, academics from internationally renowned research centres, institutions and international scientific organizations will take part in this conference.
The Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) has recently released the FIA Road Safety Index, a tool that provides Organisations with a methodology to assess their road safety performance and calculate their safety footprint, relying on a similar concept as the carbon footprint calculators. The safety footprint of an Organisation refers to the number of fatalities and seriously injured persons as a result of road crashes occurring within its entire value chain. Designed on the basis of a long-term commitment, the index offers a systematic approach to identify, measure and follow up road safety results from a value chain perspective.
