The World Road Association – PIARC, within its knowledge sharing year-long campaign for “boosting Road Safety in LMICs”, made public a comprehensive synthesis on Speed Safety, as presented by the Member of the Technical Committee 3.1 “Road Safety”, John Barrell, with the active contribution of NTUA. This synthesis contains the key speed safety fundamentals and issues together with the corresponding measures and recommendations for road safety Authorities and decision makers.
According to the Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT) road crashes data for 2021 in Greece, 36% of road fatalities are passenger car occupants, whereas 34% of road fatalities are power two wheelers. Most car occupant fatalities occur outside built-up areas, while most motorcycle and pedestrian fatalities occur inside built-up areas. 
According to the latest Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT) data for 2021, most road fatalities in Greece occur at daytime, 346 out of 624 total fatalities. At night, inside built-up area with good street lighting occur 125 fatalities and outside built-up area with no street lighting occur 56 fatalities.
The Centro Studi Città Amica per la sicurezza nella Mobilità (CESCAM) of the University of Brescia will organise the 4th International Conference on Road Safety, in Brescia, on 12 June 2023. This year the International Conference will focus on “Innovation technologies”, therefore, create an opportunity for discussion between the various institutions on technological innovations in favor of road safety such as Smart roads, on-vehicle technological systems, and technologies to improve driving behaviour. 
According to the Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT) data, among the 624 persons killed in Greece in 2021: 310 were outside built-up areas and 314 were inside built-up areas. Half of fatalities occurred in rural areas. The lowest percentage of fatalities occurs on motorways, despite the significant amount of vehicle kilometers driven.
According to Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT) data, 624 persons were killed in Greece in 2021: 447 drivers, 82 passengers and 95 pedestrians. Males account for 81% of all road fatalities in Greece during the last decade. In 2021, there is no region with female fatality rate over 27%, while males aged 25-49 y.o. account for 33% of all road fatalities.
According to Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT) data, 624 persons were killed in Greece in 2021: 447 drivers, 82 passengers and 95 pedestrians. Since 2020, there is a slight increase in driver fatalities, from 68% to 72% of total road fatalities. In 2021, older pedestrians (65+) account for 44% of pedestrian fatalities and people aged 25-49 y.o. account for 37% of total fatalities.
The European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) published a new LEARN! Flash Report titled Linking Education on Sustainable Mobility with Traffic Safety. The Report focuses on how education on traffic safety and sustainable mobility can be linked and supported to ensure that children receive high-quality education that teaches them to move around safely and sustainably. The Report also examines how schools, parents and municipalities can promote safe and sustainable mobility outside of formal education.
SuM4All together with the International Road Federation published a new Report titled Enhancing Policy and Action for Safe Mobility that provides practical guidance, case studies, and resources to help countries implement the Safe System approach. It advocates for several key steps towards safer roads: managing speeds more effectively, rethinking the design of streets and highways, leveraging vehicle technology, improving post-crash care, strengthening traffic law enforcement, reforming licensing systems, and promoting alternatives to private car use.
NTUA Professor George Yannis has contributed actively at the ITF 2023 Summit held in Leipzig, Germany, on 24-26 May 2023, on key discussions on the design of safe and equitable future transport systems for all. In his presentation on Social Cost–Benefit Analysis of Key Urban Mobility Policies in Athens demonstrated the high usefulness of the social Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) for the promotion of key urban mobility and safety policies, including comprehensive appraisal of externalities (impact on safety, environment, congestion, etc.). The policies investigated concerned City-wide Speed Limit 30km/h, Congestion Charging Schemes, Ridesharing Services and Telematics Insurance Schemes, which were proved highly beneficial for the society welfare.
Road fatalities in Greece in 2022 presented a slight increase (2%) compared to 2021 figures, according to the provisional ELSTAT data. This slight increase is mainly attributed to the returning back to normal traffic from the pandemic period. During the last decade, Greece presented an impressive road safety improvement in the European Union, with a decrease of 28% in road fatalities since 2013 and a decrease of serious injuries of 48%. The rate fatalities per million vehicles has decreased by 33% since 2013.
NTUA within the framework of the Seventh UN Global Road Safety Week organised with great success a Scientific Workshop titled “Road Safety Research Challenges” which was held in Athens (and online) on May 19th, 2023. The objective of this Workshop was to highlight through an intensive flow of presentations the main findings and challenges of key road safety research projects carried out within the NTUA Department of Transportation Planning and Engineering.
Workshop presentations:
Workshop presentations:
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- NTUA Road Safety Observatory – nrso
- National Road Safety Strategy – Greece 2030 – nrss
- Shared Automation Operating Models for Worldwide Adoption – Show
- Holistic Approach for Driver Role Integration into Automation – Hadrian
- Driver needs and behaviour in automated traffic – Drive2theFuture
- Driver-vehicle-environment interactions and safety tolerance zone – i-Dreams
- Smart city mapping for safer and eco driver behaviour – SmartMaps
- Smartphone applications for driver safety behaviour support – BeSmart
- Predictive Approaches for Safer Urban Environments – Phoebe
- AI for Vision Zero in Road Safety – Ivory
- E-Survey of Road users’ Attitudes – ESRA3
- Support to the European Road Safety Observatory – ERSOnext
- Support of technical activities for the development and collection of Road Safety KPIs – Trendline
- National Access Point Coordination Organisation for Europe – Napcore
- A Methodology for Network-wide Road Assessment – NetSafety
- Modelling road infrastructure safety – i-SafeModels
- Global Road Safety Knowledge Exchange – Piarc
- Micromobility Safety: Back to the Future – Mimob
- Unsafe traffic events – Ute
- Promoting 30km/h speed limit in all Cities – 30 Marathons in 30 months
The Horizon Europe research project PHOEBE (Predictive Approaches for Safer Urban Environment) has recently released the PHOEBE 1st Newsletter, highlighting the pilots in Athens, Valencia and West Midlands and the engagement with first stakeholder groups. PHOEBE has also created cooperating bonds with the sister projects V4SAFETY and SOTERIA from the same EU road safety funding call. The PHOEBE newsletter aims to keep you informed about the project’s progress, news, events and results. Sing up here
Sing up here
The Horizon 2020 research project SHOW (SHared automation Operating models for Worldwide adoption) has recently released the SHOW 7th Newsletter. The Newsletter provides information on the latest outcomes of the project. The pilot sites had the opportunity to present their achievements in a recent Review Meeting with the European Commission. With most of the sites now operating, the project is already moving to a new stage where the focus will be on the lessons learned and the transfer of knowledge; the replicability of the pilot sites in other areas; and the impact on business models, policy and regulation beyond the lifetime of the project. SHOW will be present also at a number of upcoming events, including ITS European Congress and the UITP Global Public Transport Summit.
The European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) will organize an online event, titled Road Safety to the role of speed in the same system on 23 May 2023. This PIN talk will focus on the role of speed in the safe system, with a particular emphasis on speed on rural roads. There will be presentations on how speed is managed in Sweden and in France with an example also of how a private company deals with speed within its fleet.
The Global Road Safety Partnership has published a guide for determing readiness for speed cameras and other enforcement. This guide has been prepared to assist a jurisdiction to determine the level of readiness to move to automated enforcement (AE). Speed cameras enforcing speed limits are a common application of AE and there are many systemic legal and operational elements that must be in place before AE can be effective. Speed management requires significant attention worldwide and plays a critical role in reducing road traffic deaths and injuries.
The Global Road Safety Partnership has published a guide to the use of penalties to improve road safety. This guide provided direction on how a suite of penalties can be used to deter road users from behaviours that either cause or worsen road trauma. It will serve as reference for governments wanting to improve their penalty systems to maximise their impact on improving road safety. Penalties for traffic offences are a critical component of behaviour change techniques that have been used extensively with the aim of encouraging road users to comply with traffic laws and to use the road system safely.
The Global Road Safety Partnership has published a Guide to Assist the Implementation of Child Restraint Systems in Low- and Middle-Income Countries. This Technical Guide is intended to assist the introduction of child restraint into a country once the political commitment has been made to create the necessary regulations. It has been developed to complement an international programme of work undertaken by the Global Road Safety Partnership to improve the safety of children when using the road.
The Global Road Safety Partnership has developed a number of practical “how-to-guides” around advocacy campaign planning. There are four main sets: the general advocacy campaign toolkit, policy implementation campaign toolkit, media advocacy toolkit and the GRSP Positin Papers. The latter are designed to create an understanding of the scale of road traffic deaths and injuries and their linkages to other humanitarian and development issues.
The European Commission has published the results of the Baseline project on 8 key performance indicators that influence road safety in Europe, with the active contribution of NTUA. This study aimed to give a clearer understanding of road safety performance in the participating Member States. The key performance indicators addressed in this project were on speeding, distraction; use of seatbelts and child restraint systems; use of helmets; vehicle safety; infrastructure safety and quality of post-crash care. This project is the biggest effort ever undertaken in Europe (and beyond) in the field of data collection and analysis for road safety performance indicator a road safety strategies and monitorings at national and European level.
