The 9th International Expert Symposium on Accident Research (ESAR) took place online on 23-24 March 2021. ESAR was organised by the Medical School of Hannover and it was a platform for exchanges of information on accident research issues. The conference focused on accident research general, accident causation, pre-crash analysis, accident reconstruction, new data sources for accident research such as video observation and EDR, injuries, regulation and consumer information.    

A new book titled ‘Highway Safety Analytics and Modeling‘ authored by Dominique Lord, Xiao Qin, Srinivas R. Geedipally, has been recently published. This book covers the key elements needed for making effective transportation engineering and policy decisions based on highway crash data analysis. It covers all aspects of the decision-making process, from collecting and assembling data to making decisions based on the results of the analyses. The book discusses the challenges with crash and naturalistic data, identifying problems and proposing best methods to solving them. It examines the nuances associated with crash data analysis, showing how to develop countermeasures, policies, and programs to reduce the frequency and severity of traffic crashes  

The Canadian Association of Road Safety Professionals (CARSP) and La Prévention Routière Internationale (PRI) in partnership with the Traffic Injury Research Foundation (TIRF) and Desjardins, are organizing the 2020 Joint Conference which will be held online on 22-25 August 2021. The theme of the conference is “Equitability: Road Safety for all through Vision Zero and Sustainable Safety” and it will integrate two events, the 30th CARSP Conference and the 14th PRI World Congress. Equitability was chosen to highlight the need for “road safety for all” across road users, while road safety deficiencies are experienced universally. This year’s conference will offer the Students Paper Competition, the Vehicle Safety Enhancement Special Student Award and the Student Poster Competition whereby students can showcase their work on a road safety topic. Abstracts submission deadline: 1 March 2021. 

The European Union Road Federation (ERF) has organised a Roadside Safety Event which was held with great success online on 15 December 2020. The conference was a unique opportunity for road safety experts around the globe to exchange information concerning the latest trends and developments in the area of roadside passive safety and road safety design.  NTUA actively contributed with the following presentation:

•  Impact of Median Jersey Barriers in the Design of Compound Alignments

POLIS, the European Cities Network, has organised with great success the 2020 Annual Polis Conference which was held online from 30 November to 3 December. Cities and Regions showcased their transport achievements and get connected with up to 600 committed transport innovation professionals who work in local and Regional Governments and related public and private sector Organisations. NTUA actively contributed with the following presentation:

•  Development of a Policy Support Tool to assess Societal Level Impacts of Connected and Automated Vehicles

On 16 November 2020, the European Investment Bank (EIB) and nine other multilateral development banks (MDBs) signed a high-level joint statement on road safety, under the auspices of the World Health Organization and the United Nations Road Safety Collaboration.  The statement highlights the MDBs’ aim to provide further access to safe, affordable and sustainable transport systems for all and to improve road safety, with special attention to the needs of vulnerable road users.  

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) is organising the 2021 Road Safety Conference which will take place on 28-29 October 2021 in Hague, Netherlands. The conference focuses 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. Extended abstracts submission deadline: 15 February 2021 

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 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 Institute of Communication & Computer Systems within the EU funded Horizon 2020 project L3Pilot organised a Summer School titled “Developing and Testing Automated Driving“, which was held on-line with great success, on 9-10 September 2020. The L3Pilot Summer School 2020 focused on the theory and practice of Automated Driving Implementation and Testing and in particular on the progress of the largest European pilot-testing of SAE Level 3 driving functions implemented by L3Pilot partners.  NTUA actively contributed with the following presentation:  A methodological framework from data collection to impact assessment of autonomous vehicles

The IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Society (ITSS) organised the 23rd IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITSC) which was held on-line, on 20-23 September 2020. The conference focused on new developments in theory, analysis, simulation and modeling, experimentation, demonstration, case studies, field operational tests, and deployments.  NTUA actively contributed with the following paper and presentation:   Impacts of Autonomous Shuttle Services on Traffic, Safety and Environment for Future Mobility Scenarios

The SHOW (SHared automation Operating models for Worldwide adoption) project organised its 1st Pan-European Workshop, titled «How to make CCAM in Cities a reality» which was held on-line on 18 September 2020. In this workshop, a selection of high-level keynote speakers shared their views and experiences about Connected and Cooperative Automated Mobility, while interactive sessions about Use Cases for CCAV in Urban Mobility and Best Practices for Business and Operating Models in Europe and worldwide took place.  

A paper titled “Meta-regressions of exposure parameters used in spatial road safety analyses, September 2020” authored by Apostolis Ziakopoulos, and George Yannis, is now published in Advances in Transportation Studies. The objective of this paper is to obtain quantitative estimates that several study characteristics impose on the values of their coefficients applying meta-regression techniques to three common exposure parameters (traffic volume/AADT, roadway length and vehicle distance traveled). Results indicate that the impact of traffic volume on crash counts was positively correlated with taking speed limit and road user age into consideration in spatial analyses, while the impact of road length on crash counts in spatial analyses was found to be higher in studies considering only fatal crashes. 

KIOS Research and Innovation Center of Excellence (KIOS CoE) of University of Cyprus organized the 23rd EURO Working Group on Transportation EWGT 2020 which took place with great success in Paphos, Cyprus, on 16-18 September 2020. The sessions focused on various themes including advanced methodologies for road safety analyses.   NTUA actively contributed with the following paper and presentation:  European Countries’ Road Safety Evaluation by Τaking Ιnto Account Multiple Classes of Fatalities

The International Transport Forum (ITF) is organising 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 will take place on 17, 24 September and 1 October 2020, respectively. The webinars will explore 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.   

ActTravelWise orginised a webinar titled “The Emergency Active Travel Fund: Plans and Implementation at the Local Level” which was held with great success on 14 September 2020.  Authorities who received funding under the Emergency Active Travel Fund, shared their plans and how they intend to implement them on the ground to benefit local residents. Athens took the opportunity to introduce a step-change in active travel infrastructure. Lastly, a panel discussion took place, with the opportunity for other local authorities to share their plans and any issues or challenges. Presenters: George Yannis, Laura Wells, Ambrose White, Lynsey McGarvey, and Sian Fox.   NTUA actively contributed with the following presentation:  Athens Great Walk transformation project

The Slovenian Traffic Safety Agency organized the periodical training course for Road Safety Auditors which took place with great success on September 14-16, 2020 in Ljubljana, Slovenia. NTUA actively contributed with the following lecture:  Innovations in Road Safety Audit practices in the European Union and internationally

The International Transport Forum (ITF/OECD) published recently a new Report titled “Best Practice for Urban Road Safety”, in which seven case studies of cities that are implementing data-driven road safety policies are presented. It highlights relevant experiences aimed at reducing the number of traffic casualties and protecting vulnerable road users in Barcelona, Bogota, Buenos Aires, Fortaleza, London, New York and Rotterdam and illustrates the diverse approaches to better understand road crashes and to prevent road traffic deaths and serious injuries.  

Global Alliance of NGOs for Road Safety  organised with great success an online Q&A session with Dr. Etienne Krug, Director of the Department of the Social Determinants of Health, WHO which was held on 22 September 2020. This webinar gave an insight on the new UN General Assembly resolution A/RES/74/299 on improving global road safety answering questions like what the resolution is, why it matters, and how it can help you to advocate for safer roads.