The World Bank’s Global Road Safety Facility published recently a Report titled “Guide for Road Safety Opportunities and Challenges: Low- and Middle-income Country Profiles”. The Report will support decision-making with key data, social and economic assessments for all 125 low- and middle-income countries. The Road Safety Country Profiles present information on management, roads, speed, vehicles, road users, and post-crash care, along with information on the current status for each country, region and with extensive information on key risk factors, issues and opportunities.  

The Africa-Europe Alliance for Sustainable Investment and Jobs was launched by the European Commission in September 2018, as an effort to drive forward intercontinental cooperation on an equal footing. During the first six months of 2019, the discussions held within the Transport Task Force (TTF) with the active contribution of NTUA, delivered a final Report offering recommendations and conclusions on three important areas of transport cooperation: aviation, road safety and connectivity. On Road Safety the report brings forward thirteen recommendations to reduce road accident injuries.  The recommendations address five main priority areas, namely road safety management and data collection, infrastructure safety, vehicle safety, safety of road users and post-crash care.  

The Mobility 2020 Road Safety Conference (MOBILITET) organised by Institute of Transport Economics (TØI), took place on 4-5 February  2020, in Oslo, Norway. The MOBILITET 2020 gathered Norwegian and international scientists, politicians, key figures from the government and business community. Climate issues, urbanization, innovation, technology, traffic safety and mobility trends constituted key focus areas of the Conference.  NTUA actively contributed with the following presentation:  Skal den enkeltes frihet gå på bekostning av andres ulykke?

The “Innovation, Emerging Mobility Trends, and the Role of the Private Sector in Road Safety” event which was organised by the ITF, the Volvo Car Group, and Volvo Group and the members of ITF’s Corporate Partnership Board (CPB), was held with great success on 18 February 2020, in Stockholm, Sweden. The event brought together top road safety experts, policymakers and other stakeholders to discuss the ongoing CPB work on the role of the private sector in improving road safety.  NTUA actively contributed with the following presentation:   CPB Report: Safer Roads with Automated Vehicles?

iRAP and FIA Foundation with the support of FedEx Express, have launched a new tool for Star Rating for Schools (SR4S). The SR4S is the first evidence-based tool for measuring, managing and communicating the risk children are exposed to on a journey to school. It supports quick interventions that save lives and prevent serious injuries from day one.  

The International Transport Forum (ITF/OECD) published recently a new Report titled “Safe Micromobility” as part of the ITF Corporate Partnership Board and with the active contribution of NTUA. This Report explores the safety aspects associated with the increasing use of e-scooters and other forms of micromobility in cities. It considers a range of actions to make urban traffic with micromobility safe, including in street layout, vehicle design and vehicle operation, user education and enforcement of rules. The report offers ten recommendations for policy makers, city planners, operators and manufacturers.  

Athenian Brewery organized a Roundtable Meeting titled “Responsible Alcohol Consumption and Road Safety”, which was held with great success in Athens, Greece, on 12 February 2020.  Participants exchanged ideas and proposals creating opportunities for actions aimed at educating especially the youngers and informing about responsible alcohol consumption, driving behavior, road accident prevention, and reduction. NTUA actively contributed with the following presentation: Driving Under the Influence of Alcohol and Road Safety 

The International Council on Alcohol, Drugs and Traffic Safety (ICADTS) and Coimbra Higher School of Engineering (ISEC) in close collaboration with World Association for Connecting People (WACP), InOutCister (Lda), Robocorp (I2A-IPC) and Digitware are organizing the 23rd International Council on Alcohol, Drugs and Traffic Safety (ICADTS) Conference, which will be held in Coimbra, Portugal, on 28-30 June 2020. Representative members of organizations will work to define prevention strategies, assessment methodologies and implementation of new practices and processes aimed at increasing traffic safety. Speakers are expected to share their experiences to start the new decade with a clear goal: Commit to act for safe mobility. 

The European Transport Safety Council (ETSC), the Flemish Foundation for Traffic Knowledge (VSV) and Fundación MAPFRE have published a Report titled “Key Principles for Traffic Safety and Mobility Education”. This report is published as part of the LEARN! (Leveraging Education to Advance Road safety Now) project and it sets out 17 recommendations that should be implemented in all European countries, in order to ensure that everyone – and especially children and youngsters – receive high quality traffic safety and mobility education. They are accompanied by best practice examples that illustrate how these principles can be applied in practice. This list of principles is primarily aimed at decision makers, authorities at national and local level and other actors such as head teachers.  

Participate now at the survey of the Horizon 2020 project Drive2theFuture. The survey aims to explore opinions about the acceptance of Autonomous Vehicles for different transport modes while it is structured of four main areas corresponding to each transport domain (aviation, maritime, rail, road) and every section includes a simple description of what automation means for each mode.  The survey is available in several languages here: 

iRAP in cooperation with ITF and the World Bank are organizing a workshop entitled: “Achieving the UN Road Safety Targets by 2030” which will take place on 17-18 Febuary 2020 in Stockholm,  Sweden. The iRAP innovation workshop brings together leaders at the highest level of global and regional impact including government, policy, financing, technology, infrastructure management and data innovation. A number of sessions will focus on the global structure needed to deliver the 2030 targets, big data for big life savings, lobal planning and design standards, international case studies of success and the business case for safer roads and investment innovation. 

The 27th ITS World Congress in Los Angeles will take place in Los Angeles, CA, on 4-8 October, 2020. The conference will focus on the New Age of Mobility and will cover 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. It is the intent of this World Congress to focus on these issues through the exchange of information and dialogue among our attendees. 

The European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) has published the 38th PIN Flash Report “How safe is walking and cycling in Europe?“, with the active contribution of NTUA. This Report examines the most recent available data on the current safety levels of cycling and walking across the EU and other countries that provide data to ETSC as part of its Road Safety Performance Index (PIN) programme, and it concludes with recommendations for action at EU. It is highlighted that for a serious shift to walking and cycling, particularly for local journeys in densely populated areas, the very design of urban spaces will need to change. Motorised traffic will need to slow down when it comes into spaces used by vulnerable road users; separated infrastructure and smart intersection design will be essential; school streets without cars may need to become the norm. 

Vlaamse Stichting Verkeerskunde (VSV) in cooperation with Flanders, Road Safety GB, UHasselt, ETSC and Polis are organizing a European Road Safety Summer School which will take place in Mechelen, Belgium, on 24-28 August 2020, targeting road safety professionals. The schedule of the Summer School for these 5 days included key topics on:  road safety strategies, strategies in education and awareness raising, infrastructure, technologies, enforcement and technical site visits. 

The 6th International Conference on Vehicle Technology and Intelligent Transport Systems (VEHITS) will be held in Prague, Czech Republic, on 2-4 May 2020. The purpose of VEHITS 2020 is to bring together engineers, researchers and practitioners interested in the advances and applications in the field of Vehicle Technology and Intelligent Transport Systems. This conference will cover areas such as Connected Vehicles, Data Analytics, Intelligent Transport Systems and Infrastructure, Intelligent Vehicle Technologies, Smart Mobility and Sustainable Transport Services.  Paper Submission Deadline: 5  February 2020

The World Road Association – PIARC recently published the Catalogue of Case Studies, containing a properly documented set of interventions designed, implemented and operated worldwide to improve road safety in three specific fields: Vulnerable Road Users (VRUs), Human Factors (HF) and interventions in Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs). This Catalogue is aimed to be enriched in the future with new case studies, showing other applications, different solutions to solve the same problems and better representing the safety interventions applied or applicable in LMICs. 

The World Road Association – PIARC recently published the  “Review of Global Road Safety Audit Guidelines – With Specific Consideration for Low- and Middle-Income Countries”. This Report involves a comprehensive review of current Road Safety Audit Manuals and Guidelines from a range of different countries to establish current practices and considers previous international reviews to determine key areas where additional guidance is required, or exemplar practice is well established. The initial consideration is given to the core issues facing many countries regarding implementing a comprehensive audit system. 

World Road Association- PIARC launches a new Strategic Plan by organizing kick-off meetings for all its 22 Technical Committees and Task Forces, on 22 January – 14 February 2020 in Paris, France. A thousand experts from about 140 countries will participate in the meetings in order to discuss how to organize their work for the next four-year cycle. PIARC organizes its efforts into four Strategic Themes: Road Administration; Mobility; Safety and Sustainability; and Resilient Infrastructure. The main purpose of the kick-off meetings is to discuss expected outputs, so as to initiate a prompt start to their work. 

The IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Society (ITSS) is organizing the 23rd IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITSC) which will be held on 20-23 September 2020 in Rhode Island, Greece. The conference welcomes papers and presentations in the field of Intelligent Transportation Systems, dealing with new developments in theory, analysis, simulation and modeling, experimentation, demonstration, case studies, field operational tests, and deployments. ITSC 2020 particularly invites and encourages prospective authors to share their work, findings, perspectives and developments as related to implementation and deployment of advanced ITS applications.  Author guidelines and important information for paper submission are available here.

The 1st newsletter of the Horizon 2020 project i-DREAMS (Safety Tolerance zone calculation and interventions for driver – vehicle – environment interactions under challenging conditions) was recently released highlighting the key activities of the first 8 months of the project with the active contribution of NTUA. It contains the project video, a closer look at the Safety Tolerance Zone concept and the i-DREAMS prototype, the team behind this exciting project, the expert advisory board members and some publications and press releases.  Sign up here.

The University of Thessaly, Department of Civil Engineering, Traffic, Transportation and Logistics Laboratory (TTLog), is organizing the 5^th Conference on Sustainable Urban Mobility (CSUM2020), which will take place on 27 – 29 May 2020, in Skiathos Island, Greece. The theme of this year’s conference is “Advances in Mobility as a Service Systems” and its objective is the dissemination of knowledge and the exchange of good practices among researchers and practitioners in the domain of urban transportation.   Abstract submission deadline: 17 January 2020 

The Transportation Research Board (TRB) 99th Annual Meeting was held with great success in Washington, D.C., on 12–16 January 2020. The meeting program covered all transportation modes, with more than 5,000 presentations in nearly 800 sessions and workshops, addressing topics of interest to policy makers, administrators, practitioners, researchers, and representatives of government, industry, and academic institutions.  A number of sessions and workshops will focus on the spotlight theme for the 2020 meeting: A Century of Progress: Foundation for the Future.   NTUA road safety presentations concerned:

•   Passing Sight Distance Assessment through the Interaction of Road-Vehicle Parameters
•   Investigation of Traffic and Safety Behavior of Pedestrians Texting or Web-Surfing
•   Economic Assessment of Road Infrastructure Safety Schemes in Greece Using Crash Prediction Methodology

The Horizon 2020 project Drive2theFuture is organising the 1st Drive2theFuture Workshop which will be held in Brussels, Belgium, on 6^th March 2020. Drive2theFuture’s mission is to prepare “drivers”, travellers and vehicle operators of the future to accept and use connected, cooperative and automated transport modes and the industry of these technologies to understand and meet their needs and wants. The Workshop will focus on the discussion, exchange of ideas and learning about the future of user-centered automation.  

The Association for European Transport will hold the 48th European Transport Conference, which will take place in Milan, Italy, on 9-11 September, 2020.  The European Transport Conference (ETC) is the annual conference of the Association for European Transport. Each year the conference presents the opportunity to interact with a range of speakers across the Transport Industry, including several Road Safety Topics. The range of topics, the multi-seminar approach and the networking environment make ETC unique among transport conferences, making it the established premier event of its type.    Abstract submission deadline: 4 February 2020

NTUA graduate Dimitrios Giagkou obtained the Ecopolis 2019 Award for Urban Transport for the Diploma Thesis “Mobility and Road Safety in European Cities“, carried out within the NTUA Department of Transportation Planning and Engineering of the National Technical University of Athens. The Environmental Awareness Awards Ecopolis seek to contribute to the promotion and recognition of the increased and proven environmental sensitivity of State Bodies, Local Government, Enterprises, Scientific and Research Institutions as well as Public Media Services.

L3Pilot is organising a Summer School entitled “Developing and Testing Automated Driving“, which is going to be held in Athens, Greece on 13-14 May 2020. The L3Pilot Summer School 2020 will focus on the theory and practice of Automated Driving Implementation and Testing. It invites researchers, PhD students, developers, technicians and other professionals to learn more about the progress of the largest European pilot-testing of SAE Level 3 driving functions implemented by L3Pilot partners as well as to discuss the latest findings and main challenges in the areas of Automated Driving Technology.  A poster area will be also available. 

The Department of Highway Engineering  of the Gdansk University of Technology and the Foundation for the Development of Civil Engineering in Gdansk is organizing the 13th International Road Safety Conference GAMBIT 2020, which will be held on 7-8 May 2020 at the Gdansk University of Technology, Poland. The conference focusing on challenges and requirements of improving road safety until 2030,  it will cover topics such as challenges and opportunities for implementing Vision Zero, programmes and strategic actions for road safety until 2030, road safety innovation, from science to practice – an overview of road safety research projects, vulnerable road users, new technologies for road safety, road safety in road design guidelines, safe road surfaces, road safety management, safe public transport and urban mobility versus road safety.  

A paper titled “A systematic cost-benefit analysis of 29 road safety measures” authored by Stijn Daniels, Heike Martensen, Annelies Schoeters, Wouter Van den Berghe, Eleonora Papadimitriou, Apostolos Ziakopoulos, Susanne Kaiser, Eva Agner Breuss, Aggelos Soteropoulos, Wim Wijnen, Wendy Weijermars, Laurent Carnis, Rune Elvik, Oscar Martin Pere is now published in Accident Analysis & Prevention: Volume 133. Cost-benefit analyses were carried out for measures with favorable estimated effects on road safety and for which relevant information on costs are available, within the Horizon 2020 SafetyCube project. The information on crash costs was based on data from a survey in European countries and the results were assessed in terms of benefit-to-cost ratios and net present value, providing highly useful support to decision makers. 

ARCADE Joint Connected and Automated Driving (CAD) Network and ERTRAC Working Group on “Connectivity and Automated Driving” are organizing the 3rd Stakeholder workshop of the joint CAD network which will be held in Brussels, Belgium, on 13 February 2020. The workshop is targeted stakeholders from industry, scientific research, policy makers, public and road authorities, user associations and others with an interest in Connected and Automated Driving.