The Pioneer Alliance organised successfully an open session for Viewpoints on Sustainable Cities, within the Internet of Things for Smart Cities School. NTUA actively contributed with the following presentations: 

•  Automation and public transport
•  New Data for Urban Road Safety

     

The World Bank Global Road Safety Facility (GRSF) has published a Guide, which gives a precise assessment on the magnitude and complexity of road safety challenges faced by Low and Middle Income Countries and assists policy makers understand the road safety framework in context of their own country systems and performance.  This valuable Guide responds to the critical need for collecting and documenting accurate road safety performance data.  

The World Bank Global Road Safety Facility (GRSF) has published a Guide in order to assist a jurisdiction to determine the level of readiness to move to automated enforcement and -among others- aims in identifying the powerful practical value of Automated Enforcement in saving lives and reducing injuries and to identify also issues and criteria to be considered before commencing automated enforcement.  

The World Bank Global Road Safety Facility (GRSF) has published a Report, highlighting  examples of GRSF’s effective delivery of global road safety solutions for the period of 2017-2019, such as the Green Transport in Vietnam, the BIRGS in Colombia and the Road Safety Barrier in Nepal.  Since the first volume of this publication, GRSF work has come to fruition in these years and has pushed significantly forward the road safety agenda.    

The International Traffic Safety Data and Analysis Group (IRTAD) of the International Transport Forum (ITF) organised online the 31st Meeting on 22 October 2020, in which the latest international road safety developments were discussed. NTUA contributed actively with the following presentation:  Impact of COVID-19 on traffic safety behavior in Greece and worldwide

The European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) and DVR with the support of the German Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure, organised an online PIN Talk, which was held on 19 November.  National experts from Germany shared their experience with international and private sector experts on how to involve stakeholders in road safety programmes. 

The International Road Traffic and Accident Database (IRTAD) of the International Transport Forum (ITF/OECD) published the Road Safety Annual Report 2020, which provides an overview of road safety performance for 42 IRTAD countries. Based on the latest data, the report describes recent road safety developments in these countries and compares their performance against the main road safety indicators. This year, a highly interesting special section on the impact of covid-19 pandemic on road accidents is added.  NTUA has contributed to the detailed report for Greece.  

The 7th International HUMANIST Conference was hosted on 26-27 October 2021 in Rhodes, Greece. The theme of the conference was “Human Perspective in an Evolving Transport Era“. The 2021 conference brought together researchers, experts and stakeholders from several multidisciplinary communities that are active in the field of human factors in transport. Topics for this year’s symposium included, but were not limited to: C-ITS, driver monitoring, automation, electrification, new vehicle types, smart cities, towards effective MaaS and mobile transport apps, enhanching accessibility and inclusion ensuring the safety of VRUs, ergonomics (passive safety, new vehicles interior).  NTUA contributed actively with the following presentations:

• Monitoring and Improving Driving Behaviour of Motorcyclists Through an Innovative Smartphone Application
•  State-of-the-art Technologies for Post-Trip Safety Interventions
•  A Review of Real-Time Safety Intervention Technologies
•  Usability with a twist: A conceptual model for including emotions into User Interface evaluation

The European Road Transport Research Advisory Council (ERTRAC), the European Green Vehicles Initiative Association (EGVIA) and the European Commission organised the 4th European-wide Conference dedicated to the presentation of results from road transport research in H2020 funded projects (H2020RTR), which was held on 30 November & 1 December 2020. The Conference aimed at presenting what the projects have discovered, how they overcame the hurdles and challenges and resolved them, and what were the next research steps in the fields covered by their research.  

The International Road Federation (IRF), together with Qatar University, Qatar Transportation and Traffic Safety Center, Khatib and Alami and World Conference on Transport Research Society, organised with great success an Online Technical Workshop on “Role of Road Safety Audits in Improving Traffic Safety”, which was held online on 8-10 November 2020.  The Workshop aimed at building the understanding of the importance and benefits of RSAs. Furthermore, it provided basic information on the scope and procedure of RSAs as well as the role and skills of the RSA team.  

IRF organised with great success an online conference titled “Roads to Recovery: a Sustainable Mobility for a Sustainable Future” which was held on 12 November 2020. The main objective of the conference was to discuss priorities for the road sector going forward. The conference was structured around three main sessions: High-Level Panel debate on Recovery for the Road Sector, Safer roads to save lives, Fostering innovation to accelerate road sector transformation. 

Within the 18th European Week of Regions and Cities organised by the European Committee of the Regions,  RADAR and SLAIN projects were featured in the session ”Modelling the future of Road Safety using Network-wide Risk Assessment”, which was held with great success on 14 October 2020.  Key questions concerned: How do you design a safe road infrastructure? How can you identify risk on roads? How do you propose an economically viable crash countermeasure?     NTUA actively contributed with the following presentation:  Network-wide Road Safety Assessment

POLIS in cooperation with the LEVITATE and CoEXist projects organised with great success a webinar titled “Mobilising Mobility: Impact assessment of automated vehicles” which was held on 15 October 2020. The Webinar provided insights into the methods developed for assessing the impacts of automated vehicles across a range of mobility domains and the findings from their application in real-life scenarios and using policy options such as parking regulation, road pricing and dedicated AV lanes.  

European Commission DG Move together with the Transport Area of the Florence School of Regulation organised an important Executive Seminar on “Speed and Speed Management in Road Safety Policy” held online on 8 October 2020, with the active contribution of NTUA.  Key Road Safety Experts contributed to a Synthesis Paper intended to guide policies in speeding globally  together with the respective Key Conclusions  highlighting the need for:

• high quality communication on the centrality of speed and speed management at all levels of government;
• more efficient speeding enforcement, including the use of dynamic speed limits;
• promoting Intelligent Speed Assistance Systems in vehicles (ISA)
• Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) on speeding to support evidence-based road safety policies;
• partnerships between all levels of government and with stakeholders and industry in order to make speed a central road safety issue for all

 

The Forum of European Road Safety Research Organisations (FERSI) organised with great success the 2021 Road Safety Conference which took place on 28-29 October 2021 in Hague, Netherlands. The conference focused on the exchange of national and regional experiences with implementing evidence-based road safety measures with specific focus on the road to successful implementation, including overcoming barriers and promising ways to facilitate decision making.  

A paper titled “Car drivers’ road safety performance: A benchmark across 32 countries” authored by C. Pires, K. Torfs, A. Areal, C. Goldenbel, W. Vanlaar, M. A. Granie, Y. A. Stürmer, D. S. Usami, S. Kaiser, D. Jankowska-Karpa, D. Nikolaou, H. Holte, T. Kakinuma, J. Trigoso, W. Van den Berghe, U. Meesmann, is now published in the Journal of IATSS. This paper is based on the second edition of the E-Survey of Road Users’ Attitudes (ESRA), an online survey carried out in 2018 and includes data from more than 35,000 road users across 32 countries. The objective is to present the main results of the ESRA survey regarding the four most important risky driving behaviours in traffic: driving under the influence (alcohol/drugs), speeding, mobile phone use while driving, and fatigued driving. 

The European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) has published a Position Paper concerning the European Commission roadworthiness package implementation report for Directives 2014/45/EC on periodic roadworthiness tests, 2014/47/EC on technical roadside inspections of commercial vehicles and 2014/46/EC on issuing registration certificates. ETSC has prepared this updated position paper to feed into this process including priorities not taken on board last time and new developments such as eCall and automation.   

The Global Designing Cities Initiative (GDCI), a program of the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO),  in partnership with the International Road Assessment Program (iRAP) published recently the “iRAP Star Ratings of NACTO-GDCI’s Global Street Design Guide”. Released in 2016, the Global Street Design Guide has served as a blueprint for safer and higher-performing streets, and as a tool for addressing the 1.35 million road accident deaths and up to 50 million injuries that occur each year as a result of poorly-designed roads. As such, iRAP’s Star Rating methodology offers a useful framework for validating the tools and transformations featured in the publication.  

The 27th ITS World Congress took place with great success in Los Angeles, CA, on 4-8 October, 2020. The conference focused on the New Age of Mobility and covered areas such as: 1) Seamless Mobility and Changing Behavior, 2) Fueling the Future: Alternative Fuels and Emission, 2) The Path to Vision Zerο, 3)Disruption on the Digital Highway: Data, 4)Technology from Entry to the Last Mile, 5)Connectivity or Spectrum / Networks, 6) Intelligent, Connected and Automated Vehicles, 7)Organizing for Success, Governance, Business Models, International Cooperation. This World Congress focused on these issues through the exchange of information and dialogue among attendees. 

The International Council for Road Safety International (ICoRSI) organised with great success a series of twelve Global Road Safety Dialogues on current key issues in road safety, which were held online on 20 October – 5 November 2020. Each dialogue features Key International Road Safety Experts on the subject who will be challenged by an Interlocutor on issues dealing with road safety interventions and research around the world.   The recordings and the presentations of all the sessions are now available:    

The International Cycling Safety Conference (ICSC2020) organised with great success a webinar titled “Single bicycle crashes as a rising problem” which was held online at November 5th 2020. The large majority of serious injuries among cyclists are due to single crashes and in a few countries the same applies to cyclist deaths. This special session highlights the size of the problem, trends, existing data and knowledge and provide a discussion about why so little is known about causes and measures to address single-bicycle crashes.      

The International Association of Traffic and Safety Sciences (IATSS) organised with great success the 6th Global Interactive Forum on Traffic & Safety which was held online on 26 November 2020. Researchers and practitioners at this symposium clarified the definition and measurement of “traffic culture” and explored its relationship with road user behaviour and traffic safety stakeholders actions. The results of these discussions are expected to pave the way for implementing more effective traffic safety measures in order of importance and urgency.   NTUA actively contributed with the following presentation:

•  Global Diversity in Traffic Safety Culture

The European Union Road Federation (ERF) organised with great success a conference titled “Shaping the Future of New Mobility” which was held on 14 October  2020, gathering more than 160 participants. The purpose of the organisers (ERF, FIEC, the French Road Federation, the FNTP and the CICA) was to present the main findings of the international comparative study dealing with the impact of new mobility uses on road infrastructure and its equipment. The recordings and the presentations of the conference are now available:     

Since 56 years, the  International Road Federation (IRF) World Road Statistics (WRS) continues to be the major comprehensive, universal source of statistical data on road networks, traffic and inland transport, including traffic accidents. This year the WRS 2020 (data 2013-2018) covers over 200 countries, 100 indicators, with the active contribution of NTUA for the Greek data. This year a variety of new packages are offered comprising the WRS Book, the WRS Excel file and the IRF Data Warehouse (in cooperation with Total Foundation), an online platform allowing data visualisation and comparisons between countries/ indicators. 

The International Transport Forum (ITF) organised with great success three on-line webinars titled ‘Safe system in cities: multi-agency commitment for a Vision Zero agenda in London’,  ‘Safe speeds in cities: street design, speed limits and law enforcement’ and  ‘Safe streets in cities: identifying dangerous locations before a serious crash happens’ which took place on 17, 24 September and 1 October 2020, respectively. The webinars explored the policy toolkit for the elimination of serious and fatal crashes. This includes speed management, street design, predictive analytics, procurement and the engagement of a wide range of stakeholders.