The International Transport Forum (ITF) is organising the 2021 ITF Summit which will be held online, on 17-28 May. ITF’s research unit supports the Summit with topical analyses and a pre-summit Research Day is organised with leading institutions to provide cutting-edge academic input to the Summit debate. Side events hosted by ITF partner organisations take place in and around the Summit thereby allowing greater opportunities for presentations of recent work and dialogue on key issues complementing the Summit theme. 
Registration is open
Registration is open 
A paper titled “Identifying the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on driving behavior using naturalistic driving data and time series forecasting” authored by Christos Katrakazas, Eva Michelaraki, Marios Sekadakis, Apostolos Ziakopoulos, Armira Kontaxi and George Yannis is published in Journal of Safety Research. Based on data collected through the OSeven smartphone application, the results of this Paper revealed the intensity of the impact of COVID-19 on driving, especially on average speed, speeding, and harsh braking per 100 km. Road crashes in Greece were reduced by 49% during the months of COVID-19 compared to the non-COVID-19 period.
NTUA within the framework of the Sixth UN Global Road Safety Week is organising a Scientific Workshop titled “Innovation in Road Safety Research” which will be held online on May 20th, 2021. The objective of this Workshop is 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 and to open up the discussion in a round table with high-level experts on key innovations in road safety research in Greece, in Europe and worldwide. NTUA supports actively the UN Global Road Safety Week pledge for speed limits of 30km/h in urban areas. 
- Workshop Programme:
- Participation is free upon registration:
- Workshop WebLink:
A paper titled “Investigation of accidents involving powered two wheelers and bicycles – A European in-depth study” authored by L.Brown, A.Morris, P.Thomas, K.Ekambaram, D.Margaritis, R.Davidse, D.Shingo Usami, M.Robibaro, L.Persia, I.Buttler, A.Ziakopoulos, A.Theofilatos, G.Yannis, A.Martin and F.Wadji, is published in Journal of Safety Research. Highly detailed data have been collected for 500 accidents involving PTWs or bicycles in the EU, which were analyzed on a case-study basis and led to detailed insights on such accidents. Analysis results suggest that ‘looked but failed to see’ remains a common cause, and in many cases the actions of the other vehicle were the critical factor, though PTW rider speed or inexperience played a role in some cases.
The Research in Mobility Committee of the UITP organised with great success an online event on 27 April, in which Road Safety and many other interesting topics were discussed. NTUA actively contributed with the following presentation: 
Mobility and Safety Research Challenges in Public Transport
Mobility and Safety Research Challenges in Public Transport
The EU-funded Horizon 2020 project Levitate (Societal Level Impacts of Connected and Automated Vehicles) is organising a Webinar on Road safety assessment of automated vehicles, which will be held online, on 27 May, 14:00-15:30 CET. The Webinar will offer a discussion on which road safety impacts can be expected from Connected and Automated Transport Systems and how best the different types of impacts can be quantified. Key findings from the Levitate project analyses will be presented including estimation of impacts using microsimulation and those focusing on Vulnerable Road Users.
The Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering of National University of Science and Technology of the Sultanate of Oman (NU) organized with great success the first lecture in the context of International Webinar series on Sustainable Road Safety, which was held on 5 May. Dr. Stergios Mavromatis, Assistant Professor at the NTUA, Department of Transportation Planning, delivered a webinar titled Role of Infrastructure design in achieving sustainable Road safety. The Webinar gave a deep insight into the existing issues in accident analysis and discussed the proactive and reactive strategies with appropriate examples. The Vision zero and safe system approach were presented , while the improvement of road design to reduce potential crashes was explained with practical examples.
The International Commission for Driver Testing (CIECA) is organising the 53rd CIECA Congress, which will be held online, on 26-28 May. With this congress, entitled “Different drivers & vehicles. Safety for all”, CIECA wants to explore the challenges that new trends in mobility, and the inclusion of modern technologies in vehicles present for driver training and testing.
The fifth Newsletter of the Horizon 2020 project BeOpen (European forum and observatory for open science in transport) was recently released with the results of the second event held virtually at the US TRB (Transportation Research Board) 2021 Annual meeting and successive presentations of the TOPOS Observatory and Forum key features to the transport and open science community. Additionally, this Newsletter gives a preview of the outcomes of the internal workshop on Impact assessment of open science in transport research.
The Loughborough University is hosting the 53rd Annual UTSG Conference, which will be held online, on 5-6 July. It is an annual conference for staff, research students and other relative newcomers to transport research of member institutions and overseas universities, which is designed to discuss research needs, research in progress, and to give research students the opportunity to present papers on their work. Abstracts submission deadline: 15 June 2021
The Transportation Public Health Link (TPH Link) is organising the International Conference on Transport & Health (ICTH) which will be held online, on 14-30 June. ICTH aims to provide valuable insights into the health impacts of transport and urban planning, governance, strategic management, policy-making, performance metric tools and the potential return on investment of a dynamic system.
The National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), in cooperation with the Hellenic Institute of Transportation Engineers (HITE) organises the 8th Road Safety & Simulation International Conference 2022 (RSS2022) which will be held on NEW DATES 08-10 June 2022 in Athens, Greece. The Conference’s theme this year will be: “Road Safety and Digitalisation” aiming to capture all recent trends in road safety emerging technologies, surrogate measures, augmented and virtual reality, big data, modeling and simulation, which are expected to boost global road safety in the coming years. Road safety experts and scientists from all over the world will join forces for a widely open and vivid discussion on both traditional and innovative solutions with high potential for traffic safety improvement. Selected papers will be published in key international scientific journals and special awards will be granted to best papers.
According to the EU road fatalities infographic of the NTUA Road Safety Observatory based on preliminary European Commission DG-Move data for 2020, Sweden ranked first in 2020 with 18 fatalities/mil. inhabitants followed by Malta (21) and Denmark (27), whereas Greece ranked 20th (54) and Romania ranked last (85). 13 countries had a better performance than the EU average of 42 fatalities/mil. inhabitants. Greece was the only country that achieved the decade 2010-2020 target of 50% road fatalities reduction, with a performance of -52%. 
The European Commission announced the winners of the European sustainable mobility Αwards. Mönchengladbach was winner of the EUROPEANMOBILITYWEEK Award 2020 for larger municipalities, while Lilienthal for smaller municipalities. The 9th SUMP Award was won by Greater Grenoble Area Mobility Authority (SMMAG) for Grenoble-Alpes SUMP, and the EU Urban Road Safety Award went to Bilbao. The awards were presented during an online ceremony hosted by European Commissioner for Transport, Adina Vălean, and Deputy Director-General of the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Transport and Mobility, Matthew Baldwin.
The European Commission has recently published the Study on market development and safety of personal mobility devices (PMDs) and L-category vehicles, prepared by the Transport Research Laboratory (TRL). The main objectives of this Study were to provide an inventory of the various types of personal mobility devices available on the market, to provide a detailed analysis of the market and the influence of the existing legislations at EU and national level and to provide a collection and evaluation of available data and information on accidents involving personal mobility devices.
The German Federal Highway Research Institute (BASt) recently published a Report titled Safety Performance Indicators in road traffic – Overview and experiences from international practice. The findings of this Report contribute to the conceptual framework of the “Road Safety Research Programme 2019” of the German Federal Highway Research Institute, aiming to describe indicators that precede a potential accident event as a description of the state of the road traffic system and predictors of the accident.
The Transport Community published statistics on road fatalities in 2020 for the Western Balkans’ regional participants, which show that the numbers of road fatalities per million inhabitants are higher in the Western Balkans than the EU average, highlighting the need for intensification of efforts for all pillars of road safety.
The European Commission together with ARCADE project organised with great success the third European Conference on Connected and Automated Driving (EUCAD 2021), which was held online on 20-22 April 2021. Participants enjoyed a blend of policy-oriented plenary sessions, as well as thematic breakout sessions to discuss specific R&I challenges. A virtual exhibition of projects was accessible throughout the three-day event.
According to the European Commission almost 4.000 (-17%) fewer people lost their lives on EU roads in 2020 compared to 2019. Lower traffic volumes, as the result of the Covid-19 pandemic, had a clear impact on the number of road fatalities. Over the previous decade between 2010 and 2020, the number of road deaths dropped by 36%. This was short of the target of 50% fewer deaths that had been set for that decade. However, with 42 road deaths per 1 million inhabitants, the EU has the safest roads in the world.
