The 5th Congress of the European Academy of Neurology (EAN2019) took place with great success in Oslo, on 29 June – 02 July. More than 6.000 participants from more than 100 countries attended with an overwhelmingly positive feedback in several Symposia, Teaching Courses, Focused Workshops, Hands-on Courses, and Interactive Sessions. Some sessions concerned cognitive impairment and road safety in which NTUA contributed actively with the following presentations:
- The neurological assessment of driving fitness of patients with Alzheimer’s Dementia (AD) or Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI): A systematic review of the existing guidelines
- The slowest to respond: reaction time, accidents and driving errors in neurology patients in urban simulated driving
- The slowest to respond: Reaction time, accidents and driving errors in neurology patients in rural simulated driving
Akis Theofilatos, Dimosthenis Pavlou, Dimitris Tselentis, and Apostolis Ziakopoulos, Research Associates of the Department of Transportation Planning and Engineering of NTUA were awarded with the NTUA Thomaidion Award for outstanding road safety publications in scientific journals. The awards for publications in Scientific Journals concerned:
- Theofilatos A., Yannis G., Investigation of powered 2-wheeler accident involvement in urban arterials by considering real-time traffic and weather data, Traffic Injury Prevention, Volume 18(3), April 2017, Pages 293-298
- Pavlou D. – Beratis I.N., Papadimitriou E., Andronas N., Kontaxopoulou D., Fragkiadaki S., Yannis G., Papageorgiou S.G. Mild Cognitive Impairment and driving: Does in-vehicle distraction affect driving performance?, Accident Analysis & Prevention, Volume 103, June 2017, Pages 148-155
- Tselentis D., Yannis G., Vlahogianni E., Innovative motor insurance schemes: A review of current practices and emerging challenges, Accident Analysis & Prevention, Volume 98, January 2017, Pages 139-148
- Theofilatos A., Ziakopoulos Α., Papadimitriou Ε., Yannis G., Diamandouros K., Meta-analysis of the effect of road work zones on crash occurrence, Accident Analysis & Prevention, Volume 108, November 2017, Pages 1-8
The Department of Transportation Planning and Engineering of the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) was ranked 16th in Europe and at 80th place worldwide among all Transportation Science & Technology Schools, according to the ShanghaiRanking’s Global Ranking of Academic Subjects (GRAS) 2019. NTUA Road Safety activities have contributed to this excellent performance. Accordingly, the NTUA Civil Engineering School was ranked 7th worldwide (3rd European) among all Civil Engineering Schools.
The European Commission – DG Move has published a study titled “Sustainable Transport Infrastructure Charging and Internalisation of Transport Externalities” which aims to assess the extent to which existing policies internalise the external and infrastructure costs of transport and to discuss ways by which further internalisation could be achieved. As input for this assessment, the infrastructure and external costs of the various transport modes are estimated and a comprehensive overview of transport taxes and charges applied in the various countries is provided. According to the study results, the most important cost category is accident costs equating to 29% of the total external costs, which on the contrary of most other costs it is not targeted by any taxes or charges aiming its reduction.
The ESRA Consortium with the support of the Forum of European Road Safety Institutes (FERSI) organised the 2nd ESRA Symposium on Road Users Attitudes Worldwide, which took place with great success in Brussels, on 18 June 2019. New highly interesting results from the ESRA2 Global Survey on Road Users Attitudes, collected at the end of 2018, were showcased, namely thematic reports on speeding, mobile phone use and fatigue together with 32 country fact sheets . NTUA contributed actively with the following presentations:
The European Commission – DG Move has published a Staff Working Document titled “EU Road Safety Policy Framework 2021-2030 – Next steps towards “Vision Zero” which includes details as to how it intends to put its Strategic Action Plan on Road Safety into practice . This Document includes a first list of Road Safety Key Performance Indicators (KPI), elaborated in close cooperation with Member States and the active contribution of NTUA, that will be monitored across the EU to underpin the target of 50% reduction in fatalities and serious injuries by 2030. The list (including indicators like vehicle safety, seat belt and helmet wearing rate, speed compliance and post-crash care) is a living document that will be developed further over time, but first data can be gathered on this basis from next year.
The European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) published the 13th edition of PIN Annual Report , with the active contribution of NTUA, presented at the 2019 Annual PIN Conference which took place with great success on 19 June, 2019 in Brussels. According to this PIN Report, the new European figures show that the number of persons killed last year fell by just 1% and the EU target to cut road deaths in half over the decade to 2020 looks well out of reach.
Ireland was the winner of this year’s ETSC Road Safety Performance Index (PIN) award, being the second safest EU Member State in 2018, in terms of road mortality (road deaths per million inhabitants) and having moved up five places in the ranking of EU countries since 2010 when it held the 7th place.
The 1st newsletter of the Horizon 2020 project Levitate was recently released highlighting the key activities of the first 6 months of the project. It contains an inspiring interview with Rune Elvik, Senior research officer at TØI, suggesting that any progress in Connected and Automated Transport cannot eliminate the human factor. Furthermore, it highlights the results from the first Workshop of the Levitate Stakeholder Group in Gothenburg on May 2019 and of the respective presentation of Levitate project at the scientific Workshop organized by the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) on ‘Digitalisation and Road Safety Research’ in Athens on May 2019.
The European Commission – DG Move and the Hellenic Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport organised the kick-off meeting of the project ‘EU Road Safety Exchange’ which took place with great success in Athens, on 10 June 2019. ‘EU Road Safety Exchange’ is a three-year twinning project (2019-2021) that supports improved institutional capacity and exchange of knowledge and best practice on road safety topics between EU Member States. The objective of this project is to reduce the overall number of road deaths and serious injuries on EU roads and help close the road safety gap between EU Member States by providing support to those with the highest potential to make significant improvements. NTUA actively contributed at the kick-off meeting with the following presentation: Motorcycle Safety in Greece
A new book titled ‘La sécurité routière en France – Road Safety in France‘ authored by Laurent Carnis, Catherine Gabaude and Marie-Line Gallenne, was published in May 2019. Since the 1970s, road accidents have undergone a remarkable evolution, which has led to fewer fatalities and fewer casualties on French roads. But the accidents remain too numerous and still defeat the chronicles. Greater road safety justifies measures that give rise to lively discussions where everyone claims to be an expert. This book guides the reader through themes such as trauma victims, alcohol or drugs driving.
The 2020 Lifesavers National Conference on Highway Safety Priorities was held on March 15-17 in Tampa, Florida. The Lifesavers Conference brought together a unique combination of traffic safety and public health professionals, researchers, advocates, practitioners and students committed to sharing best practices, research and policy initiatives that are proven to work.
Tallinn University of Technology (TTU) organised with great success the 2nd Conference “Vision Zero for Sustainable Road Safety in the Baltic Sea Region 2019” which took place in Tallinn, Estonia, on 4 – 5 December 2019. This Conference was a fantastic opportunity for academicians and practitioners to meet and exchange experiences and to learn from the best within road safety including policy, road infrastructure, behavioural aspects and human factors, innovations of vehicles and transportation modes, individual, organizational and political aspects of road safety.
A paper titled “Safety Culture among Private and Professional Drivers in Norway and Greece: Examining the Influence of National Road Safety Culture” authored by Tor-Olav Nævestad, Alexandra Laiou, Ross O. Phillips, Torkel Bjørnskau and George Yannis is now published in Safety Journal. This study investigates road safety culture (RSC) as an explanation for this discrepancy by: (1) Comparing the road safety behaviours among professional and private drivers in Norway and Greece, (2) Examining factors influencing road safety behaviours, focusing especially on national road safety culture, and (3) Examining the influence of road safety behaviours and other factors (e.g., demographic and work-related variables) on accident involvement. The results indicate that aggressive violations are more similar among private and professional drivers within the national samples, than across the national samples, while seat belt use seems to vary according to the professional versus private dimension.
The European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) has published the 37th PIN Flash Report “How to improve urban road safety in the EU“, with the active contribution of NTUA. This Report analyses the latest data urban road safety across the EU and other countries that form part of the ETSC Road Safety Performance Index (PIN) programme, and it conclude with more than twenty main recommendations for action at EU. It is highlighted that the problems can be addressed with the right political leadership, resources and energy. But while the EU, national governments and other actors can help provide the knowledge, finance and guidelines to implement the necessary changes, it will often be up to local authorities to implement them effectively. A comprehensive infographic depicts current urban road safety in Europe, with Pedestrians, Motorcyclists and Cyclists accounting for 70% of all urban road fatalities.
Vlaamse Stichting Verkeerskunde (VSV) in cooperation with Flanders, Road Safety GB, UHasselt, ETSC and Polis organized a European Road Safety Summer School which took place with great success in Mechelen, Belgium, on 26-30 August 2019, targeting road safety professionals. The schedule of the Summer School for these 5 days included key topics on: a) road safety vision and strategy, b) education, awareness raising and infrastructure, c) technologies, enforcement and integrated policy, d) technical site visits.
The 15th World Conference on Transport Research (WCTR) which was organized by the WCTRS and the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT Bombay) took place with great success on 26-31 May, 2019 at Mumbai, India. For the last 40 years, WCTR has been organised every three years by the WCTR Society. WCTR allowed sharing cutting-edge research and advanced state-of-practice and provided a unique opportunity for experts to exchange ideas in all areas of transport research including Traffic Safety Analysis and Policy (C4 Special Interest Group). NTUA contributed with nine presentations:
- Investigating the Correlation between Driver’s Characteristics and Safety Performance
- Investigation of the correlation between stated and revealed driving behaviour using data collected from on-board diagnostics (OBD) devices
- Driving speed model development using driving data obtained from smartphone sensors
- Hybrid Data Envelopment Analysis for Large-Scale Smartphone Data Modeling
- How unexpected events affect lateral position variability?
- Impacts of large urban regeneration projects: The case of the new Athens Intercity Bus Terminal
- Development a Sustainable Mobility Action Plan for University Campuses
- Future trends in transport workforce based on demographic, behavioural, cultural and socioeconomic factors
- Identifying infrastructure risk factors in Africa