Are you involved in urban transportation planning? Your voice is valuable for PHOEBE project, which aims to improve road safety prediction tools holistically! Please participate in the PHOEBE’s 20-minute survey that studies the key outputs and analyses supporting transport policy and safety objectives.
You are invited to send us your input by 15 February 2023! 
POLIS, the European Cities Network, is organising the 2023 Annual Polis Conference, which will take place in Leuven, on 29-30 November 2023. The POLIS Annual Conference is Europe’s leading sustainable urban mobility event, providing an opportunity for cities and regions to showcase their transport achievements to a large audience of mobility experts, practitioners, and decision-makers from both the public and private sector.
The NTUA Institute of Communication & Computer Systems (ICCS) together with the European Technology Platform ALICE are co-organising the 9th International Physical Internet Conference (IPIC 2023) which will be held in Athens on 13-15 June 2023. This year’s conference will be open to all physical internet topics and focusing on Physical Internet as a suitable approach to overcome the latest global breakthroughs. The Call for contributions welcomes submissions related to the Physical Internet principles with a variety of themes to be covered.
The European Commission has just published Guidelines on methodology for network-wide road safety assessments, with the active contribution of NTUA. Τhese Guidelines aim to help public authorities in EU Member States to carry out the safety assessments of their road networks as required under the Road Infrastructure Safety Management Directive. The guidance documents comprises a framework addressing both a reactive (accident based) and a proactive (feature based) safety assessment, covering issues such as the lane width, road curvature, design of junctions, roadside layout and potential conflicts between motorised vehicles and vulnerable road users and also suggests a methodology for a common safety rating system for classification of the existing road network. This way, the authorities will be able to identify priorities for future actions and investment to address road safety concerns. 
A new publication titled EU Road Safety: Towards “Vision Zero” has been recently published by the European Commission. This publication presents a comprehensive overview of projects managed by CINEA and funded under Horizon 2020-the EU’s R&I programme that develop, test and exploit innovative solutions for a safer road transport. This document calls for a new approach to safe mobility to be achieved by 2030: one rooted in safety as a core value, and not one in which safety may come second to factors such as cost, speed, aesthetics, or profits. It draws on work done in the past few years by the H2020 funded projects.
The European Commission together with 2Zero, ERTRAC and CCAM is organising the Road Transport Research Results Conference (RTR Conference) which will be held in Brussels on 14-16 February 2023. For the past six years, the RTR Conference has been a unique entry point into the achievements of EU-funded projects in road transport. Once again this year, participants will learn about results and expected impacts of CINEA supported Horizon 2020 projects, and the next steps in key areas for road transport research.
The CITA International Conference will be held in Rotterdam on 6-8 June 2023. The theme of the Conference is “Safe and Sustainable Road Transport”. Beside the plenary sessions, with top level representatives of the most relevant stakeholders, there will be the opportunity to attend different split sessions: Vehicle compliance in low- and middle-income countries, new technologies and data management, environmental protection, corporate Members’ presentations, inspection procedures and methods, electric Vehicle & New transport modes, the Roadworthiness Package, vehicle approval. The full renewed program will be announced soon.
The 34th International Cooperation on Theories and Concepts in Traffic safety Conference (ICTCT) will be held in Winneba, Ghana, on 8-9 June 2023 under the theme Enhancing traffic safety: prospects and challenges for Safe System approach on African continent. The conference is organized in close co-operation with the University of Education, Winneba. Extended abstracts should cover any of the list of theme(s) that is suggested and be submitted until 3 February 2023.
The International Transport Forum (ITF) has recently published a new Policy Brief titled Improving motorcyclist safety: Priority actions for Safe System integration. This Brief summarizes the current extent of PTW usage worldwide, highlights pressing safety issues for motorcyclists and presents priority actions for improving motorcycling safety. It results from a series of virtual workshops on motorcyclist safety held in 2021 and co-hosted by the ITF and key roadsafety partners.
University of Cantabria is organising the 25th Euro Working Group on Transportation Conference (EWGT 2023) which will be held on 6-8 September 2023 in Spain. There will be 4 different topics, that authors can send their extended abstracts on, including : Transport Modeling and Control, Planning and Operation, Transport Economics and Policy, Innovative and Sustainable Solutions. This year the 25th EWGT, wants to reward the excellent quality of all the papers received, therefore the organization has established the following 3 categories of prizes. 1. EWGT2023 Award for the best paper of the congress, 2. EWGT2023 Award to the best PhD poster, 3. Mention and diploma for the best papers in each of the congress topics.
The World Health Organization has released a Road Safety Manual for decision-makers and practitioners concerning Powered Two- and Three-Wheeler (PTW) Safety. This second edition of the Powered- Two and Three-Wheeler Safety Manual offers guidance to help decision makers and practitioners put in place the comprehensive set of laws, regulations and actions needed to save lives. Rooted in new case studies and evidence, including from low- and middle-income countries, it includes guidelines on developing safer roads, ensuring safer mobility for all road users, vehicle safety standards, and actions to improve emergency responses to crashes.
The International Road Traffic and Accident Database (IRTAD) of the International Transport Forum(ITF/OECD) published the Road Safety Annual Report 2022 focusing on the development of road safety in the year 2021, the first year of the Second Decade of Action. The analysis draws on road safety data from 34 IRTAD member countries. It outlines short‑term trends for the year 2021 and long‑term trends for the period 2010‑19. The Report also presents provisional data on road deaths for the first semester of 2022 (January to June).
Τhe European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) has recently published a new Report titled “Progress in Reducing Drink-driving and other Alcohol-related Road Deaths in Europe“. This Report aims to provide an updated overview of the drink-driving situation in Europe, covering 30 countries: 25 Member States of the European Union together with the United Kingdom, Israel, Norway, the Republic of Serbia and Switzerland. It looks at country-by-country progress in reducing road deaths attributed to drink-driving over the past decade. A range of recommendations for further tackling drink-driving are included for national governments and the EU institutions throughout this Report.
The 8th International HUMANIST Conference will be held on 21-22 September 2023 in Berlin. The theme of the conference is “Accelerating the transformation towards sustainable mobility by human-centred design“. The Conference will bring together researchers, experts and stakeholders from several multidisciplinary communities that are active in the field of Human Factors in Transport. It is a unique and attractive forum to present current and planned activities as well as to share ideas and experiences.
Getting into 2023, we steadily progress in our scientific excellence quests with persistence, dedication and passion to promoting evidence based safe mobility everywhere and for all. The decade targets and programs for safer roads everywhere are well set globally and we should strengthen our individual and collective efforts to sincerely include traffic safety into the mobility agenda and start implementing the vision zero traffic fatalities.
We thank you all for the excellent cooperation and we are sending you our very best wishes for Merry Christmas and a Very Lucky New Year, full of personal and professional achievements.
The Vision Zero Conference organised by the Government Offices of Sweden, Trafikverket (Swedish Transport Administration) and Vinnova (the Swedish Innovation Agency), will take place in Stockholm on 26-27 June 2023. High-level representatives from government authorities, international organisations, private sector, academia, policy makers, NGOs, municipalities, and development banks will exchange knowledge and experiences, and discuss the way forward in order to reach the global goals. The Conference’s main topics will be :
-
Vision Zero in a rapidly changing world
-
Agenda 2030 as an enabler for road safety and vice versa
-
Private sector role and engagement
-
Knowledge transfer and capacity building
-
Safe modal shift including safety for powered two-wheelers
-
New technologies and innovations
A paper titled “The transformation of the insurance industry and road safety by driver safety behaviour telematics” authored by Apostolos Ziakopoulos, Virginia Petraki, Armira Kontaxi and George Yannis, has been published in Case Studies on Transport Policy. The aim of the present research is to expand on the aforementioned topics based on trends from recently published research and discuss the transformation of the insurance industry by driver safety behaviour telematics. An overview of the relevant technological advancements is provided, followed by the integration practices of telematics adopted by the insurance industry. 
The European Commission organised with great success the EU Road Safety Results Conference which was held as a hybrid event (in Brussels and online), on 8 December 2022. The Conference was an opportunity to engage with EU Member State authorities and all stakeholders across the road safety community. In addition, it allowed participants to exchange views and experiences on the efforts to reach Vision Zero. The EU Road Safety Results conference 2022 Presentations are now available.
The Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) has recently launched 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.
A paper titled “One year of COVID-19: Impacts on safe driving behavior and policy recommendations” authored by Eva Michelaraki, Marios Sekadakis, Christos Katrakazas, Apostolos Ziakopoulos and George Yannis, has been published in Journal of Safety Research. This study presented a descriptive overview of several driving behavior indicators as well as road crash data in correlation with the strictness of response measures in Greece and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The results indicated that during the lockdown periods, speeds were increased by up to 6%, while harsh events were increased by about 35% in the two countries, compared to the period after the confinement. However, the imposition of another lockdown did not cause radical changes in Greek driving behavior during the late months of 2020.
