Author: Ioannis Papadogiorgakis
A paper titled Safety contributing factors analysis of older vulnerable road users: General and local perspectives authored by Xueyu Zhang, Xueson Wang, Mohamed Abdel-Aty, George Yannis and Guangzhu Luo has been published in Accident Analysis & Prevention. This paper utilizes an analytic approach to explore the effects of contributing factors for older vulnerable road users’ (VRUs) crashes, with particular attention to the integration of general and local analysis. Socio-economic, road network, public facility, traffic enforcement and older VRU crashes were collected in the grids and gradient tree-boosted Tweedie compound Poisson models as well as geographically weighted random forests were employed. The findings suggest that population and healthcare played an important role in predicting older VRU crashes. The concentration areas for older people, including healthcare facilities, markets, and bus stops, demonstrate that improvement countermeasures should adapt to local conditions. 
NTUA has recently released the 2025 version of Key Road Safety Performance Indicators in Greece in the framework of the EU project Trendline. These KPIs are derived from nationwide field observations in 2025 on four key Road Safety Performance Indicators (KPIs): speed, seatbelt use, helmet use, and driver distraction. Key findings show that only 71% of vehicles on rural roads complied with speed limits (less than in 2022), seatbelt use among rear passengers remained as low as 57%, helmet use increased for both front (85%) and rear riders (60%) and mobile phone use increased on rural roads (12%). These results provide valuable evidence for targeted road safety interventions and the future alignment of Greece with national and EU safety targets. 
According to the Road Safety KPIs on alcohol from the Baseline project, driving under the influence of alcohol is more common during night-time and especially at weekends. Specifically in 2022, the number of drivers under the influence of alcohol was about three times higher on weekend nights than on weeknights. In addition, compared with motorways, urban and rural roads had higher levels of alcohol-impaired driving. 
According to the Road Safety KPIs on distraction from the Baseline and Trendline projects, mobile device use rates are higher among passenger car drivers compared to drivers of other vehicle types. The percentage of passenger car drivers using a mobile device while driving decreased on urban roads and slightly on motorways compared to 2022, in contrast with rural roads. In addition, in 2025, more drivers of light trucks were using a mobile device while driving on all road types compared to 2022.
According to the Road Safety KPIs on helmet use from the Baseline and Trendline projects, in 2025 the helmet use rate among motorcycle riders increased on all road types, with the total rate rising from 79.8% to 85.7%. Specifically on urban roads, the KPI on helmet use increased by 6.7% compared to 2022. In contrast, helmet use among motorcycle passengers remained low. Additionally, the helmet use rates were lower during weekends compared to weekdays on all road types.
According to the Road Safety KPIs on seatbelt use from the Baseline and Trendline projects, seatbelt use among passenger car drivers is higher on motorways than on urban and rural roads. In 2025, seatbelt use was highest among car drivers, followed by front-seat passengers and rear-seat passengers, with all use rates appearing to have remained relatively stable compared to 2022. Seatbelt use among passenger car drivers increased slightly on motorways and rural roads, while it remained stable on urban roads.
According to the Road Safety KPIs on speed from the Baseline and Trendline projects, passenger cars exceed speed limits more frequently on urban roads than on motorways and rural roads, while speeding on urban roads decreased considerably between 2022 and 2025. Specifically, compliance with the speed limit on urban roads for passenger cars increased significantly from 55.8% in 2022 to 72.9% in 2025. In contrast, compliance on rural roads decreased from 78.3% to 71.0%, while on motorways it remained almost stable.
The University of Thessaly, Department of Civil Engineering, Traffic, Transportation and Logistics Laboratory (TTLog) in cooperation with the University of Kentucky and the University of Alabama at Birmingham organized with great success the 8th Conference on Sustainable Mobility which took place in Skyros, Greece on 1-3 July 2026. The theme of this year’s Conference was: “Green and Digital Transition”, aiming to explore how digital technologies, such as AI, big data, automation, and connectivity, can work hand-in-hand with green policies, renewable energy, and low-emission solutions to transform mobility. 
A paper titled Trajectory-based indicators to determine the local character of intersection conflicts: A micro-spatial analysis authored by Andreas Hula, Apostolos Ziakopoulos, Angel Losada, Andrea Schaub, Peter Saleh and George Yannis has been published in Accident Analysis & Prevention. This paper utilizes the Mobility Observation Box (MOB), which provides a flexible data collection to be used in subsequent video analysis. To facilitate potential MOB uses, this study leverages over 51 h of naturalistic video data at a busy Vienna intersection to advance road safety research, by employing random parameters binary modelling of the likelihood of critical conflict occurrence and Gaussian generalized additive spatial modelling to identify key factors influencing the absolute values of conflict angles on critical conflicts only. The findings suggest that all road user types were ultimately less likely to be involved in safety–critical conflicts compared to cars in both leading and following roles, with the exception of cyclists in the leading role. Within the micro-spatial analysis, the kinematic parameters of the second road user only (speed, max acceleration and max deceleration), the duration of the interaction as well as intersection-specific local effects related to the position of the leading road user were all found to influence the transformed absolute value of the angles of critical conflicts.
Simone Paradiso, NTUA PhD Candidate & Researcher, received the Best Poster Award during the Porsche Symposium for Scientific and Practical Progress in AI, which was held in Stuttgart, on 26 June 2025 as part of the GSERM St. Gallen Summer School 2025. The Symposium included keynote speeches, discussions and a poster session focusing on Generative AI with LLMs. The award for the best poster concerned:
OASA together with NTUA organized with great success the OASA Electrification Workshop which was held on 4 July 2025, in Athens, as part of the Horizon Europe project metaCCAZE. The event marked a significant step forward in co-designing the future of clean, efficient, and citizen-centered public transport in the Greek capital. Particular attention was given to the safety aspects of electric buses. Participants included representatives from OASA, OSY, NTUA, DEDDIE, the Greek Ministry of Transport and other local and national actors involved in sustainable mobility. NTUA actively contributed with the following presentation:
NTUA actively contributed with the following presentation:
A new book titled The Routledge Handbook of Sustainable Urban Transport edited by Lucy Budd, Stephen Ison and Maria Attard has been recently published. This Handbook offers a comprehensive exploration of urban transport sectors, as well as the challenges, impacts and issues being faced. Furthermore, this Monograph exploits technical, social and economic solutions for sustainable urban transport. NTUA actively contributed with the following chapter, co-authored by George Yannis and Eleonora Papadimitriou:
The Institute of Communications & Computer Systems (ICCS) together with International Road Federation (IRF) and several other Organizations, organized with great success the International Symposium Navigating the Future of Traffic Management in Athens, Greece on 29 June – 3 July 2025. This Conference focused on four thematic tracks: digitalization in traffic management, sustainable mobility strategies, integrated infrastructure systems, and road safety innovations. These tracks aimed to address the complex challenges of modern traffic management and offer actionable insights for a safer and more efficient transportation future. 
NTUA actively contributed with the following papers, posters and presentations:
NTUA actively contributed with the following papers, posters and presentations:
- Predicting Pedestrian Violations Using Object Detection and Deep Learning: A Comparative Study of LSTM & GRU Models
- A Geo-Spatial Analysis of Unsafe Traffic Events and Crash Occurrence at Urban Intersections: Insights from Telematics Data and Machine Learning
- Hybrid Modelling for Risky Driving Behavior Classification: Insights from Naturalistic Driving Study
- Preferences of Public Transport Passengers Towards Contactless Bank Card Payments
- Combining diverse data sources for intersection crash analyses based on incomplete records
- Training a YOLO-based model for speed limit sign recognition
- Road Safety Knowledge Exchange in Low and Middle Income Countries
The Secretariat of the African Road Safety Observatory organized with great success a Webinar on road safety performance indicators which took place online, on 14 July 2025. The webinar aimed to enhance mutual learning, encourage regional alignment, and stimulate future capacity-building activities related to SPI development and use. This event brought together national road safety coordinators, members of regional observatories, policymakers, and technical experts to explore the added value of SPIs, the use of appropriate methodologies, and good practices from Africa and other world regions. 
BMW in cooperation with Chip Design Germany organized with great success the BMW Summer School which took place in Saint-Raphaël, France on 29 June – 4 July 2025. This year’s event focused on the topic of trust and safety in artificial intelligence, a broad field of discussion and growing relevance at the crossroads of technology, psychology, product safety, law, economics, and ethics. NTUA actively contributed with the following presentation:
NTUA actively contributed with the following presentation:
The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs announced the first ever UN Decade of Sustainable Transport 2026 – 2035 starting in 2026. The Implementation Plan of the UN Decade of Sustainable Transport is expected to serve as a strategic framework to coordinate actions, mobilize resources, and monitor progress towards sustainable transport worldwide. It will be an opportunity to further raise awareness of transport’s crucial role in advancing the Sustainable Development Goals and to gather and rally new solutions, resources and partnerships to advance sustainable transport globally. Ensuring safety in sustainable transport is essential to protect lives, reduce crashes and build trust, resilience and reliable in transport systems.
The World Bank Global Road Safety Facility (GRSF) together with SSATP has published the 2025 Status Report on Road Safety in Africa analyzing findings for road safety on the African continent. The 2025 Africa Status Report on Road Safety reveals that, despite having only 3% of the global vehicle fleet, Africa accounts for 24% of global road fatalities with 259,601 deaths annually. This highlights the urgent need for safer pedestrian and cycling facilities to protect vulnerable road users.
The ETSC Annual Report 2024, highlights a year of impactful advocacy and cross-border collaboration in the pursuit of safer roads across Europe. From championing 30 km/h urban speed limits and tackling loopholes in EU vehicle safety regulations, to supporting EU Member States through the EU-funded Road Safety Exchange programme, ETSC continues to be a leading voice for road safety in Europe. The Report also celebrates milestones such as Finland’s PIN Award for outstanding progress on road safety, the #IWillBeALifesaver campaign, and award-winning educational initiative LEARN!
The UN Road Safety Fund continues to support low and middle-income countries to do that by providing road safety expertise to close gaps on road safety data, enforcement practices, vehicle safety, legislative frameworks, post-crash care, urban street design, among other topics. This UNRSF 2024 Annual Report highlights how collective efforts are saving lives and driving systemic change in road safety.
The Bloomberg Philanthropies Initiative for Global Road Safety (BIGRS) works with Governments and communities to prevent road crashes, deaths and injuries. Since 2007, the initiative has helped implement proven road safety interventions across 22 countries. Currently, the initiative is supporting work in 27 cities and two states across 15 low- and middle-income countries. Its Resources Hub includes case studies and guidance focusing on five areas: strengthening legislation and leadership, enhancing data collection and surveillance, changing road user behavior with media campaigns and enhanced enforcement, improving road infrastructure and advancing vehicle safety.
The Horizon Europe research project metaCCAZE has recently released a new Blog Post authored by George Yannis on the new Greek Road Traffic Code. The new Road Traffic Code introduces city-wide 30 km/h speed limit in all urban streets of one or two directions with a single lane per direction, making Greece the second EU country after Spain to implement such a measure. It is also rationalising and simplifying penalties and linking them to the offences’ seriousness and magnitude. Furthermore it introduces a number of correct and necessary traffic management provisions with emphasis on motorcycles and the 30km/h speed limit in cities.
The Horizon 2020 research project PHOEBE has recently released the PHOEBE 5th Newsletter, which provides information on the latest outcomes of the EU-funded ‘Predictive Approaches for Safer Urban Environment’ (PHOEBE) project aiming to increase the road safety of vulnerable road users, especially those who use active mobility and e-scooters. Particular attention was given to the conclusion of the Project’s model development for the safety of vulnerable road users and the safety use case implementation.
The European Platform of Transport Sciences (EPTS) organized with great success the 23rd European Transport Congress which was held in Paris, France on 26-27 June 2025, under the theme “Future of European transport: infrastructure, service and technologies“. Key topics discussed in this Conference were sustainable mobility and safety, railway transport, challenges in metropolises, airline transport and freight transport. NTUA actively contributed with the following paper and presentation:
NTUA actively contributed with the following paper and presentation:
The European Commission with the active contribution of NTUA, SWOV and KFV has published at the European Road Safety Observatory, the Urban Areas Facts and Figures Report which refers to public roads inside urban boundary signs. According to this Report, in 2023, 38% of all road fatalities in the EU27 occurred on urban roads. In the last decade between 2013 and 2023, the number of fatalities on urban roads decreased by 16%, which is similar to the 15% decrease on other roads (rural roads and motorways). Furthermore, vulnerable road users (pedestrians, cyclists, mopeds, motorcycles) make up 68% of fatalities on urban roads, while pedestrians are involved in 34% of all fatalities.
The European Commission with the active contribution of NTUA, SWOV and KFV has published at the European Road Safety Observatory, the Regional Distribution Facts and Figures Report which looks at the regional distribution of road fatalities on European roads. According to this Report, the number of fatalities per million inhabitants is highest in Eastern Europe. Some of the regions with the highest mortality rates in 2023 can be found in Greece, Romania and Bulgaria. Most countries have both low and high mortality regions. A large variety can be found in decreases and increases of fatalities between regions. Furthermore, the trend in the rate over time tends to vary between regions. In Lithuania, Poland and Slovenia there has been a decrease in all regions. Furthermore, Bulgaria and Belgium have the regions with the highest rates in car occupant fatalities per million inhabitants, while this is also the case for cyclists in Belgium and the Netherlands. The mortality rate of powered two-wheelers is high throughout the South and East of Europe
The European Commission with the active contribution of NTUA, SWOV and KFV has published at the European Road Safety Observatory, the Motorways Facts and Figures Report which refers to motorways, which are public roads with dual carriageways, and at least two lanes each way. In 2023, 9% of all road fatalities in the EU27 occurred on motorways. Furthermore, the proportion of 25–64-year-old fatalities on motorways was higher, while the proportion of 65+ year olds killed was lower compared to other road fatalities (rural and urban roads). Moreover, 67% of motorway fatalities were between 25 and 64 year old, compared to 52% on other roads (rural and urban roads).
The European Commission with the active contribution of NTUA, SWOV and KFV has published at the European Road Safety Observatory, the Junctions Facts and Figures Report which refers to road fatalities at junctions, which are locations where two or more roads meet and traffic can change between different routes, directions, or sometimes modes of travel. According to this report, in 2023 19% of all road fatalities in the EU27 occurred at junctions and road fatalities at junctions in the EU have decreased by 6% since 2019. Moreover, 55% of junction fatalities in the EU27 occur on urban roads. Remarkable is that vulnerable road users are being involved in more than half of all fatalities at junctions (62%), while this share is only 44% for all non-junction fatalities.
The European Commission together with 2Zero, ERTRAC, CCAM and BATT4EU organized with great success the Road Transport Research Results Conference (RTR Conference) will took place in Brussels, on 10-12 February 2026. For the past eight years, the RTR Conference has been a unique entry point into the achievements of EU-funded projects in road transport. This year’s 9th edition Conference attracted its largest audience to date, with more than 500 participants on-site, emphasizing the importance of pre-competitive collaborative research in road transport at the European level.
A paper titled Investigating the impact of in-vehicle warning information complexity on drivers: The role of working memory capacity and cognitive load authored by Kunchen Li, Wei Yuan, George Yannis, Fuwei Wu and Chang Wang has been published in Accident Analysis & Prevention. This Paper investigates the impact of the complexity of the warning messages on the behavior and physiological states of the driver, taking into account individual differences in working memory capacity and cognitive load levels. A total of 37 participants were recruited to conduct a mixed design driving simulation experiment, with working memory capacity treated as a between-subjects factor. The analysis included correlation as well as a Generalized Linear Mixed-effects Model (GLMM). The findings suggest that visually rich warnings lead to increased braking reaction times, especially between drivers having low working memory capacity and under high cognitive load. These findings offer theoretical insights to assist manufacturers in designing human-centered, personalized, and adaptive in-vehicle warning systems.
The European Survey of Road users’ safety Attitudes (ESRA) together with VIAS Institute organized with great success the ESRA: 10 years event of global road safety insights and impact which took place in Brussels, Belgium on 24 June 2025. This event reflected on the evolution of the ESRA initiative and its impact on road safety policy. Key findings from 10 years of research unveiled a dedicated Report and the new ESRA dashboard which can drive future improvements in road safety. Furthermore, ESRA4 was introduced, the next phase in the mission to create safer roads through data-driven strategies. NTUA actively contributed with the following presentations:
NTUA actively contributed with the following presentations:
