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 road safety presentations concerned:
How much driving data do we need to assess driver behavior?- Investigating the Temporal Evolution of Driving Safety Efficiency Using Data Collected from Smartphone Sensors
- Time series classification using imbalanced learning for real-time safety assessment
- Road Safety Data, Knowledge and Decision Support Systems Global Challenges in the Digital Era
- The African Road Safety Observatory
- Impaired Cycling and Crash Involvement: A Survey Across OECD Countries on Data Availability and Legislation
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). 
The 47th Annual ASECAP Conference (known as 47th ASECAP Information Days) will take place on 29-31 May, 2019 in Costa Navarino, Messinia, in southwestern Peloponnese in Greece. Given the disruptive nature of the technological developments of the last 10 years and the trends foreseen which will dramatically impact mobility, ASECAP’s Technical Program Committee is issuing an Open Invitation for Presentations in order to attract presenters in the very wide field of Development, Financing, Construction, Operation and Maintenance of Motorways and all related mobility fields and activities.
A paper titled “Road safety behavior of drivers with neurological diseases affecting cognitive functions: an interdisciplinary Structural Equation Model analysis approach” authored by Dimosthenis Pavlou and George Yannis is now published in Advances in Transportation Studies. This research suggests the evaluation of driving behavior by using multiple driving indexes in a combined integrated manner, through a large-scale driving simulator experiment, comprising medical/neurological and neuropsychological assessments of 225 active drivers, and a set of driving tasks for different traffic volumes, different driving environments, including in-vehicle distraction conditions. The statistical analysis methodology developed and implemented was based on Principal Component Analysis and Structural Equation Models (SEMs). SEM results indicated that the impact of neurological diseases affecting cognitive functions is significantly detrimental on the latent variables “driving performance” and on the observed variables “reaction time” and “accident probability”. The AD group had the worse driving behavior profile among the examined groups with neurological diseases affecting cognitive functions.
The European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) has published a briefing synthesis titled “EU Strategy for Automated Mobility”. ETSC warmly welcomes and fully agree with the Commission’s acknowledgement that when it comes to automated mobility, “only the highest safety and security standards will suffice”. This must remain the guiding principle in the years to come. Automated driving has the potential to significantly improve road safety. However, recent collisions involving vehicles with automated technology on board demonstrate that automated driving may also pose new risks to road safety, and that the technology is not yet mature.
The 4th Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems and related developments in Greece, which was organised by ITS Hellas, took place with great success in Athens, on 18-19 December 2018. The aim of the conference was to discuss the broad deployment of Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) as a tool to achieve economic growth and prosperity and ensure the effectiveness, efficiency and safety of transport for the benefit of the respective industry, the end-users and the environment. NTUA actively contributed with the following presentation: Telematics for Safe, Green and Smart Driving: The BeSmart Project
At the end of another year full of scientific excellence and innovation and great achievements, like the new breakthrough Road Safety Decision Support Systems: SafetyCube, SafeFITS, AfricaRSO, we persist with creativity and passion for a brighter, more automated and safer traffic future everywhere and for all.
We thank you all for the excellent cooperation and we are sending you our very best wishes for joyful Christmas holidays and a lucky and fruitful new year 2019, plenty of personal and professional achievements. 
On 20th December 2018, at 14:00 CET a webinar “Road Safety Data in Africa” is scheduled. The session addresses road safety data practices in Africa as documented in the context of SaferAfrica project. Initially the findings from a review on road safety data collection systems and definitions are presented. At a second stage, recommendations and guidelines for a minimum set of harmonised data collection procedures and standard definitions are provided applied in the short – to medium term aiming to improve African data collection systems. Finally, the road safety data collected in previous phases are analysed and certain risk factors based on specific topics are identified and reported.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) within the framework of the Global status report on road safety 2018 which has been published by with the active contribution of NTUA, in December 2018, highlighting that the number of annual road traffic deaths which has reached 1.35 million, published an Interactive Map which is a tool visualizing several road safety parameters per country and highlighting the shocking fact that every 23 seconds a road user looses their life.
About 1.35 million people die each year on the world’s roads and between 20 and 50 million sustain non-fatal injuries. Road traffic crashes are a major cause of death among all age groups and the leading cause of death among children aged 5-14 and young adults aged 15–29 years. This fact file presents data from WHO‘s most recent Global health estimates and the Global status report on road safety, published in 2018, through 10 facts on global road safety. 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.
The Global Status Report on Road safety 2018 has been published by World Health Organisation (WHO) with the active contribution of NTUA, in December 2018, highlighting insufficient progress as the number of annual road traffic deaths has reached 1.35 million. Road traffic injuries are now the leading killer of people aged 5-29 years. The report suggests that the price paid for mobility is too high, especially because proven measures exist. These include strategies to address speed and drinking and driving, among other behaviours; safer infrastructure like dedicated lanes for cyclists and motorcyclists; improved vehicle standards such as those that mandate electronic stability control; and enhanced post-crash care. Drastic action is needed to put these measures in place to meet any future global target that might be set and save lives.
- Infographic – Road traffic injuries; the facts
- Data visualization – Death on the roads
- Press release
The Journal of Safety Research announced a call for papers: Special issue – Safety, human factors and technology. The objective of this Special Issue is to support the discussion on the future trends of mobility and the implications for the protection of all road users. An important aspect is that technological developments must go hand in hand with users’ acceptance and behavior. Therefore, we are particularly interested in contributions addressing the following topics: The role of human factors and technology on road safety; Interactions between vulnerable road users and automated systems; How can road users influence the technology advancement in transportation.
The African Road Safety Observatory is now on line constituting a space for interaction to highlight the road safety needs in African countries, developed with the active contribution of NTUA. It is one of the main results of the SaferAfrica project funded by the European Commission Horizons 2020 Programme 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, through an interactive Dialogue Platform.
A paper titled “Identification of patterns of driver speeding behaviour and safety margins from tangent to curve” authored by Eleonora Papadimitriou, Stergios Mavromatis, Dimosthenis Pavlou and George Yannis is now published in Advances in Transportation Studies. This paper presents a novel definition of drivers’ safety margins reflected in speed profiles on a tangent to curved road design. These safety margins are based on a vehicle dynamics model, which is implemented to assess the speed variation at impending skid conditions from tangent to curve on the basis of several parameters. Data from a driving simulator experiment are used to test the proposed methodology, explore driver’s speed profiles and the parameters affecting drivers’ safety margins. The results suggest that drivers’ safety margins towards the examined curve are considerable, with the majority of the drivers using less than 55% of the available vehicle engine power.
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.
The International Neuropsychological Society organised the 46th Annual Meeting which took place with great success in Washington, DC from February 14-17, 2018. The topics of the Meeting include clinical neuropsychology, cognitive neuroscience, and neuropsychiatry and internationally renowned, innovative, and pioneering scientists and clinicians from multiple disciplines gave very interesting presentations. NTUA actively contributed with the following interdisciplinary presentation merging two scientific domains – neuroscience and road safety: Predictors of Accidents in Patients with Mild Cognitive Impairment, Mild Alzheimer’s Disease and Healthy Controls in Simulated Driving
UNECE and the Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development of Georgia organised a Workshop titled: “National Road Safety Policy development – trends and challenges| which was held with great success in Tbilisi, Georgia on 13-14 November 2018. The aim of the workshop was to strengthen the knowledge of Central Asia, Caucasus and East-Europe countries on how to define national road safety policy and improve road safety situation. As such, the workshop helped participants to better understand international and regional best practices on road safety management, collection and utilization of robust and reliable road safety statistics and tools (SafeFITS, and RSPR) and methodologies for setting up road safety strategic goals. NTUA actively contributed with the following presentations:
On the occasion of the World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims, the European Commission presented the final Road Safety Figures for 2017, which show for the second year in a row a decrease by 2% of road fatalities in the EU compared to the previous year. European Coordinator for Road Safety Matthew Baldwin said: “Whilst European roads are the safest in the world, the downward curve has flattened out in past years. We still have many challenges ahead of us: I especially think of vulnerable road users, who– as the figures show- are making up a larger share of the casualties, especially in urban areas. We need an active, cooperative, holistic approach amongst all stakeholders to implement what we know needs to be done – the Safe System“.
The European Commission’s Directorate-General for Research and Innovation published a Report titled “Analysis of the state of the art, barriers, needs and opportunities for setting up a Transport Research Cloud”, with the active contribution of NTUA Professor George Yannis. This Report focuses on the requirements for data sharing within the transport research community. In particular, the Report examines the potential of a Transport Research Cloud (TRC) as a subset of the European Union’s European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) initiative. Six domain experts collected data based on their personal experiences, contacts, prior research and a survey sent out to other researchers in the transport domain to enable a preliminary analysis concerning the needs, barriers and potential benefits for the domain should a TRC be realized. Road Safety constitutes a major component of this Transport Research Cloud.
The European Commission’s Directorate General for Mobility and Transport (DG Move) published the Final Report of the “Study on powered two-wheeler and bicycle accidents in the EU, SaferWheels”, with the active contribution of NTUA. The SaferWheels study was conducted to investigate accident causation for traffic accidents involving powered two-wheelers and bicycles in the European Union. The objective of the study was to gather PTW and bicycle accident data from in-depth crash investigations, obtain accident causation and medical data for those crashes, and to store the information according to an appropriate and efficient protocol enabling a causation-oriented analysis.
