The 104th General Assembly of the United Nations has adopted the “Progress declaration of the high-level meeting on improving global road safety“, reaffirming the global target of reducing road traffic deaths and injuries by at least 50% by 2030. Furthermore, Governments committed to undertake various actions, such as establishing or designating a national lead agency or equivalent entity to coordinate road safety across government. The Declaration also highlighted the need to ensure that public road transport systems, including bus rapid transit and similar systems, are safe, affordable, accessible and inclusive, including for children, older persons and persons with disabilities.  

The Directorate General for Mobility and Transport (DG Move) of the European Commission recently announced new mandatory life-saving systems for all new passenger cars and vans registered across the EU, starting on 7 July 2026. These new systems include an advanced emergency brake detecting pedestrians and cyclists, a driver distraction warning system, better forward vision, new tests for worn tyres, and an expanded safety glass area to protect pedestrians in accidents. These requirements support the EU’s long-term Vision Zero goal of near-zero road fatalities by 2050, while helping to better protect vulnerable road users and encourage wider adoption of advanced driver-assistance systems.  

The Directorate General for Mobility and Transport (DG Move) of the European Commission recently published its implementation strategy for its Directives to modernize EU rules on driving licences and driving disqualifications with the active contribution of NTUA. These initiatives aim to increase road safety across the EU, reducing the number of road deaths as well as undue administrative burden on citizens and authorities. The measures include an EU-wide accompanied driving scheme for 17-year-old drivers, a probationary period for novice drivers, and more systematic checks of people’s fitness to drive. The new rules also adjust training and testing requirements and set out key steps for the introduction of mobile EU driving licences and the EU-wide recognition of driving disqualifications, ensuring drivers who commit serious offences are held accountable across the EU.  

The European Road Safety Charter of the European Commission has announced the finalists for its Excellence in Road Safety Awards 2026, as a part of the EU Road Safety Conference which will take place on 23 November 2026 in Brussels, recognizing inspiring initiatives from Charter members across Europe that advance road safety through smart infrastructure, real-time data, immersive training and child-friendly streets. Fifteen finalists were selected across five categories: At Work, Education, Technology, Urban, and Vulnerable Road Users. The winners will be announced at a ceremony during the Event.  

The Directorate General for Mobility and Transport (DG Move) of the European Commission recently adopted an Implementing Regulation establishing a common set of urban mobility indicators to be applied across the European Union. This Implementing Regulation mandates Member States to collect policy-relevant data on urban mobility, helping cities, Member States and EU institutions to monitor developments on the basis of reliable data. It covers key dimensions of urban mobility, including sustainability, safety and accessibility. This adoption marks an important step in strengthening the evidence base for urban mobility policy in the EU. Better data will support better decisions, enabling public authorities at all levels to plan and invest more effectively in sustainable urban transport. 

The PHOEBE Decision Support Tool (DST) is now available through the PHOEBE Dashboard. Developed within the Horizon Europe PHOEBE project, the platform enables practitioners, researchers and decision-makers to assess and compare the impacts of road safety interventions using evidence from real-world European pilot cases. Users can explore safety, mobility and environmental performance indicators, Impact Modification Factors (IMFs), and supporting statistical evidence to evaluate different intervention scenarios. The dashboard supports transparent, data-driven decision-making towards safer and more sustainable transport systems. 

The United Nations Road Safety Fund (UNRSF), has recently launched the UN Road Safety Lab, a new Knowledge Hub and AI-enabled knowledge platform for road safety. Established in 2018, UNRSF brings together 21 UN member organizations, governments, the World Bank, the private sector and civil society under a single coordinated framework, mobilizing resources and driving system-level road safety reforms in low- and middle-income countries. The new Lab is hosted by the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), the training and capacity-development arm of the UN, and organizes its content across four core areas: Knowledge Products, Platforms of Engagement, Learning, and AI-Enabled Knowledge Solutions, alongside an interactive map showcasing the countries where the Fund is active. 

The World Health Organization (WHO) recently released new road death data, showcasing that despite the addition of more than one billion motor-vehicles to the world’s roads, road traffic deaths declined by 21% between 2011 and 2025. With nearly 60% of the world’s population now living in urban areas, growing demand for mobility threatens to overwhelm transport systems that were largely designed around private motor vehicles. This data show that across the world, 10 countries reduced road deaths by 50% in the decade to 2021 and more than half of all countries reported falling fatalities in that period. Yet progress is uneven, with 36% drop in deaths in the WHO European Region, a 15% drop in the Western Pacific Region, a 2% drop in the WHO South-East Asian Region, no change in rates in the Americas and a 17% rise in deaths in the WHO African Region. 

The European Road Safety Charter of the European Commission recently published an article titled “Road infrastructure: A foundation for safer roads“, highlighting the critical role of road infrastructure in achieving safer roads. Road design can either support safe behavior or create danger. Many roads encourage high speeds without adequate protection, increasing crash severity. Undivided roads raise head‑on collision risks, unsafe roadsides worsen run‑off crashes, and missing footpaths or crossings leave vulnerable users exposed. To create self-explaining and forgiving roads, six core design principles guide safer infrastructure: provide orientation by making the road environment easy to read and anticipate; attract attention through clear design and signs highlighting hazards; promote standardization with consistent layouts that help users recognize situations; support the detection of potential conflicts through good visibility and guidance at critical points; improve clarity with visible and easy to interpret signs and markings and provide passive safety through forgiving roadsides and designs that reduce injury severity. 

A Paper titled “Traffic safety culture within the safe system: developing a common definition of traffic safety culture” authored by Tor-Olav Nævestad, Uta Meesmann, Henriette Wallén Warner, Susanne Kaiser, Ingeborg S. Hesjevoll, Vibeke Milch, Sonja Forward, Mathias De Roeck, Michael Schachner, Dimitris Nikolaou, Gunilla Björklund, Alexandra Laiou, Hanna Wennberg, Eva Aigner-Breuss and Anita Eichhorn was recently published in Frontiers in Sustainable Cities. This study developed the following definition of traffic safety culture, based on a three-step refinement approach, combining literature reviews, Delphi studies and focus group discussions: “Traffic safety culture encompasses shared values, beliefs, attitudes, norms, and patterns of behaviours that shape how traffic safety is understood and enacted within a meaningfully defined group of actors in the transport system. This meaningfully defined group of actors can refer to road users, organizations, authorities, or other actors within the transport system.” 

The Horizon Europe PHOEBE (Predictive Approaches for Safer Urban Environment) Project organized with great success its online Final Webinar on 30 June 2026. This 90-minute online event showcased the PHOEBE framework from inception to implementation, together with the various integration steps taken within the project. The outcomes of the PHOEBE pilots, covering mode choice and behavioural modelling, iRAP and AIMSUN models were presented, and related policy recommendations were discussed.  NTUA actively contributed with the following presentation:

•  Phoebe Project: Overview, Use cases & methodology

The Horizon Europe PHOEBE (Predictive Approaches for Safer Urban Environment) Project organized with great success and high attendance its Final Event as a dedicated Workshop within the 10th Road Safety and Simulation International Conference (RSS2026), held in Naples, Italy, on 23 June 2026. The event showcased the project’s innovative framework for forecasting and improving urban road safety through the integration of advanced road safety assessment, microsimulation, behavioural modelling, socioeconomic analysis, driver telematics, and artificial intelligence. Bringing together researchers, policymakers, practitioners, and industry representatives, the workshop highlighted the project’s key scientific achievements, demonstrated integrated safety prediction tools for vulnerable road users and active mobility, and explored evidence-based recommendations for safer, smarter, and more sustainable urban transport.   NTUA actively contributed with the following presentations:

•  Phoebe Project: Athens Use Case
•  Phoebe Project: Overview, Use cases & methodology

The World Road Association (PIARC) together with the Polish Road Congress Association and the General Directorate for National Roads and Motorways (GDDKiA), are organizing the 3rd PIARC International Conference on Road Tunnel Operations and Safety, which will be held in Krakow, Poland, on 30 September-2 October 2026. The Event will focus on the planning, design and construction of road tunnels, with particular emphasis on safety, operation and maintenance, presenting best practices and experiences from international and Polish Projects. This third edition of the Conference will bring together tunnel operators, designers, firefighters, researchers and representatives of road administrations from around the world.

The World Conference on Transport Research Society (WCTRS) organized with great success the 17th World Conference on Transport Research which was held in Toulouse, France, on 6-10 July 2026. For the last 40 years, WCTR has been organized every three years by the WCTR Society, uniting specialists from the transportation sector worldwide. Topics for discussion at the World Conference on Transport Research were grouped into 9 distinct themes which include maritime and air transport logistics, infrastructure design, traffic management in urban environments or the emergence of transport in developing countries.  

The NTUA actively contributed by presenting 9 papers and a key note speech:

• •  Artificial Intelligence and Road Safety
  •  Enhancing Risky Driving Behavior Classification Using Conditional GANs (cGANs): A Data Augmentation Approach
  •  Identifying Dangerous Driving Behaviour through Big Data and Machine Learning Techniques
  • Analysis of the Acceptability and Cost Benefits of Reducing the Speed Limit to 80 km/h on the Intercity Road Network in Greece
  • Weak supervision and fine-tuning with contrastive learning for multiclass lane marking segmentation
  • A Time-Window GNN-Based Network Partition for Identifying High- and Low-Risk Nodes in Road Networks
  • Advances in Advanced Driver Assistance Systems and Automated Driving technologies within the European Context
  • Exploring Public Perceptions of city-wide 30 km/h Speed Limits in Greece: A Survey-Based Study
  • Influence of Vehicle Characteristics on Driving Events Based a Naturalistic Driving Experiment
  • When the Lights Go Out: Observing Pedestrian and Driver Behavior During a Traffic Signal Failure in Central Athens

 

The European Commission together with 2Zero, ERTRAC and CCAM are organizing the Road Transport Research Results Conference (RTR Conference) which will take place in Brussels, on 23-24 February 2027. This 10th anniversary edition aims to deliver a holistic view of how the European research scene is moving forward, bringing benefits to the environment, economy and European society overall. More than 500 on-site participants will learn about EU-funded and Horizon Europe projects’ results and expected impacts, and what the next research steps are in essential areas for road transport: Green Vehicles, Urban Mobility, Logistics, Intelligent Transport Systems, Safety, Automated Road Transport, Batteries.

ERTICO is organizing the ITS World Congress 2027 which will be held in Birmingham, UK, on 25-29 October 2027, under the theme: “Connect ideas. Transform Transport”. This Event provides a unique platform for governments, industry leaders, researchers, and innovators to collaborate on the development of safer, greener, and more efficient transport systems. The ITS World Congress brings together the international mobility community to exchange ideas, showcase innovation, and accelerate the deployment of intelligent transport solutions worldwide. Programme is available here. 

Future Transportation Journal has recently launched the Special Issue titled: “New Challenges in Road Safety Infrastructure Management” aiming to address emerging challenges and propose innovative solutions for enhancing the safety, resilience, and performance of road infrastructure systems. It provides an opportunity to present the latest scientific advances in infrastructure safety assessment, risk analysis, proactive safety management, connected infrastructure, artificial intelligence applications, digital twins, and data-driven decision-support tools for road safety infrastructure management. The manuscript submission deadline is until 28 February 2027. Guest editors of this special issue from NTUA are: Dr. Stergios Mavromatis, Prof. Dr. George Yannis.

The Horizon Europe research project CulturalRoad has recently released the CulturalRoad 4th Newsletter, which provides information on the latest outcomes of the EU-funded CulturalRoad Project aiming to develop innovative methodologies to ensure the equitable deployment of Cooperative, Connected, and Automated Mobility (CCAM) services. This version of the Newsletter highlights that the project’s partners have shared their achievements, results and ongoing research at several key events, including the RTR Conference, Hannover Messe, ITS European Congress and TRA 2026, and hosted two webinars, one with the sister project Diversify-CCAM focusing on inclusive automated mobility, and a second one with representatives from the project’s five demonstration sites discussing their experience engaging local communities. Furthermore, it introduces new blog posts from the demonstration sites, where partners share more on the co-creation activities and stakeholder workshops.

A Paper titled “Social values behind the wheel: How does social value orientation shape speeding behaviour across drivers in Europe?” authored by Amir Hossein Kalantari, Amna Chaudhry, Mark Burke, Ana María Pérez-Zuriaga, Apostolos Ziakopoulos, Eleonora Papadimitriou, Shanna Lucchesi and Amir Pooyan Afghari was recently published in Transportation Research Part F: Psychology and Behaviour, The Study examined how Social Value Orientation (SVO), a personality trait capturing tendencies toward altruism, cooperation or competitiveness, is associated with drivers’ stated propensity to speed across three European urban contexts, the West Midlands (UK), Athens and Valencia, using Random-Parameters Ordered Probit models with heterogeneity in the means. Results show that road design, traffic density and speed enforcement are associated with self-reported speeding, but these associations vary substantially across contexts and drivers. Furthermore, in the West Midlands, a stronger prosocial orientation weakened the links between behavioral risk constructs and stated speeding, while in Athens the same trait mainly strengthened the association between speeding tendencies and speeding propensity. The study suggests that speed-management strategies may be more effective when physical design and enforcement are paired with communication that presents speed limits as credible, locally relevant and clearly connected to the safety of other road users.

A paper titled Physical Fitness and Highway Driving Performance: Evidence from a Driving Simulator Study of Young Drivers authored by Marios Sekadakis, Theofanis Mitsis, Thodoris Garefalakis and George Yannis has been published in Theoretical and Applied Ergonomics. This Paper investigates the relationship between cardiorespiratory fitness and driving behaviour in a highway environment using a driving simulator, with 46 young drivers aged 19 to 27 classified into high-fitness and low-fitness groups based on estimated maximum oxygen consumption, and each participant completing three simulated highway driving scenarios under varying traffic and lighting conditions. The findings suggest that higher physical fitness is associated with greater adaptability in driving behaviour, reflected in increased headway distance variability and slightly higher driving speeds, while high-fitness drivers also exhibited longer time to collision, suggesting improved anticipation and more effective management of traffic conditions. Moreover, environmental factors, particularly traffic volume and lighting conditions, remained the dominant influences on driving behaviour overall. Overall, the Study highlights the importance of considering health-related factors in road safety research and offers insights for developing preventive strategies targeting young drivers.