The 2nd Annual Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems and related developments in Greece, organised by ITS Hellas took place with great success in Athens, on 19-20 December 2016. Aim of the conference was to discuss the latest developments and the wide application of Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) in Greece, as a mean of economic development and prosperity and to ensure the effectiveness, efficiency and transport safety for the benefit of users and the environment.  

The NTUA presentation concerned: Intelligent Transportation Systems supporting older drivers: Review and Future directions 

A Regional workshop on road safety, hosted by the Kenya National Transport and Safety Authority and co-organised by the Africa Transport Policy Program (SSATP) of the World Bank, the International Road Traffic Accident Database organisation (IRTAD) of the ITF/OECD and the United Nations Economic Commissions for Africa and for Europe, took place with great success in Nairobi, Kenya from 13 to 15 December 2016. 

This Workshop covered United Nations Road Safety legal instruments, fundamentals of road safety data management and minimum data requirements for all African countries to monitor progress towards the Decade of Action for Road Safety and Sustainable Development Goals, with active participation of African international road safety stakeholders and experts, including the active contribution of NTUA with the following presentations:

Africa Road Safety Workshop Safety Performance Indicators 

The SaferAfrica Road Safety Observatory

Basic Aspects of Road Safety in Africa – Short Questionnaire

This year’s Annual Polis Conference on “Transport innovation for sustainable cities and regions” took place with great success on 1 and 2 December 2016 in Rotterdam, Netherlands, organised by POLIS, the European cities and regions networking for innovative transport solutions. More than 400 mobility professionals and experts from across Europe and beyond came together to debate on urban and regional mobility.  

All presentations are now available. 

The 3rd International Congress “Traffic Enforcement: Challenges & Perspectives” was organised by the Emirates Traffic Safety Society (ETSS), the Arab Road Safety Organization (AROSO), La Prévention Routiére Internationale (PRI) and the Traffic Injury Research Foundation (TIRF) and took place with great success in Abu Dhabi, on 2-3 November 2016. Key road safety experts contributed the state of the art developments on traffic safety enforcement worldwide. The final programme of the Congress is available here: 

NTUA presentation concerned: ‘Best Practices for Efficient Traffic Safety Law Enforcement Programs‘ 

The 2016 Safe Roads – Safe Kids Summit took place with great success on December 8-9, 2016, in Washington D.C. It was a biennial event designed to significantly enhance the visibility of global road safety on the international agenda and to reduce the number of deaths and injuries among children. The Summit offered stakeholders at all levels the opportunity to work together in a manner that is action-oriented and focused on meaningful outcomes, including international organizations, governments, corporations, foundations, researchers, non-governmental organizations, health care workers, first responders, law enforcement, families and children. The 2016 Safe Roads – Safe Kids Summit built momentum for urgently-needed progress on road safety for children worldwide. It focused on rapid implementation of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (Global Goals) as they apply to road safety for children.  

The agenda is available here: 

The Ministry of Public Works and Transport (MPWT), Lao PDR, the Ministry of the Environmet (MoE), Japan, Partnership on Sustainable, Low Carbon Transport (SLoCaT), the United Nations Economic and Social Commission of Asia and the Pacific (UN ESCAP) and the United Nations Centre for Regional Development (UNCRD) are organising the Intergovernmental Tenth Regional EST Forum in Asia under the theme “2030 Road Map for Sustainable Transport ~ Aligning with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)”. The forum will be held from 14 to 16 March 2017 in Vientiane, Lao PDR. It is expected that approximately 500 participants, including senior government representatives from Asia and the Pacific countries, city mayors, international experts, resource persons, and others as listed below will be attending the conference. 

The Transportation Public Health Link (TPH Link), the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP (SOM) are organising the International Conference on Transport & Health (ICTH). ICTH is a direct participatory experience. Policy-makers, practitioners and academics from multiple disciplines involved in transport planning and engineering, public health, urban planning, spatial and architectural design, environmental planning, economics and beyond came together in Barcelona, Spain, on 27-29 June 2017, and shared their stories of success and failure; build world-wide collaborative friendships; but most importantly, leave inspired! The theme for ICTH 2017-Barcelona was “Changing Perspectives: Health Impacts of Urban & Transport Related Exposures.”

The European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) held the 6^th Annual European PRAISE Conference on work-related road safety in Brussels on 19 October. Using the roads is a necessary part of our working lives but it’s an ordinary activity that leads to an incredibly high level of injury and death. The conference brought together fleet safety managers, EU institutions, government representatives and road safety experts to discuss the latest developments and priorities in work related road safety. The winners of the ETSC PRAISE awards 2016 were also announced. The program included contributions from leading occupational health and safety experts and featured presentations of ETSC’s new reports: ‘Managing Grey Fleet Safety’ and ‘Making Taxis Safer’. 

The agenda  and the press release  are now available.

The  21st International Conference on Alcohol, Drugs and Traffic Safety organised by the International Council on Alcohol, Drugs and Traffic Safety (ICADTS) took place with great success in Gramado, Brazil on 16-19 October 2016. This international Conference sets an excellent opportunity to meet all those involved in Road Safety Research, particularly from the fields of Drugs and Alcohol, and promotes discussion and interaction with investigators, academics and professionals working in this area. 

The 2016 TISPOL Conference organised by the European Traffic Police Network took place with great success on 4-5 October, in Manchester. There was an interesting and varied line-up of speakers from police, policymaking and industry across Europe coverning a wide range of traffic enforcement and road safety topics. The 200+ people involved with TISPOL International Road Safety Conference made it an exceptionally useful and worthwhile event. Two days of compelling and engaging content were delivered without exception by passionate and enthusiastic people, all with something worthwhile to add to the theme of innovation and success.

The 12^th International Conference on Injury Prevention and Safety Promotion, Safety 2016, took place with great success in Tampere, Finland, on 18-21 September, 2016. It was an initiative of the World Health Organisation (WHO) and its network of WHO-Collaborating Centres for injury prevention, attended by more than 1.100 participants from more than 120 countries. The conference programme consisted of 1.004 presentations and traffic safety was one of the major conference topics.

NTUA presentations concerned:

Characteristics of road accidents with youngsters in Europe

Comparative analysis of road accidents by gender in Europe

Exploration of accident probability of drivers with brain pathologies

Developing the European Road Safety Decision Support System

Exploring the difference of traffic parameters by severity level and accident type in urban areas

Correlation of road safety performance with social and economic indicators in the EU

Willingness to pay for innovative vehicle insurance schemes

The 15th International Alcohol Interlock Symposium organised by the Traffic Injury Research Foundation (TIRF) and the European Transport Safety Council (ETSC), took place with great success on 13-15 September, in Brussels. Alcohol interlock programs have expanded greatly in recent decades. Today, programs combine technological advances with more tailored and efficient monitoring strategies to deliver high-quality services. The theme of the 2016 Symposium is “Efficiency Through Automation”. As alcohol interlock technology evolves, it becomes increasingly important to understand how intelligent devices can be embedded in sophisticated vehicles and linked to database systems to make services more accessible and enhance road safety. 

Please use the following link to download the presentations:

NTUA presentation concerned: Alcohol Interlocks & Building Capacity for Automated Solutions

A workshop on ‘Regulating drink driving to protect all road users’ will take place on 18 October 2016, in Brussels. This year’s European Transport Safety Lecture will be given by Prof Richard Allsop, Emeritus Professor of Transport Studies, University College London and will be followed by a panel debate. The event is part of the SMART project on drink driving. 

The Sixth International Conference on Traffic and Transport Psychology (ICTTP2016), organised by QUT’s Centre for Accident Research and Road Safety – Queensland (CARRS-Q) and Griffith University’s Menzies Health Institute Queensland took place in Brisbane, Australia, on 2-5 August 2016. It was the first time an ICTTP has been held in the Southern Hemisphere and only the second time outside of Europe. The Conference was a global forum, with a theme of “UN Decade of Action For Road Safety: The Half-way Point”, at which nearly 400 road safety experts from 39 countries attended, including researchers, practitioners, policy-makers and industry from the areas of public health, law, medicine, economics, law enforcement, public policy, education, human factors, and psychology met, presented and discussed on the latest work being undertaken in these areas.

The World Conference on Transport Research (WCTR) organised by the WCTRS and the Tongji University took place on 10-15 of July 2016, at Shanghai, China. The programme included more than 1.170 papers presented in oral and poster sessions. The authors from 65 countries ensured WCTR 2016 as a truly international event. The aims of the WCTR Conference were to offer a unique opportunity to bring together experts in all aspects of transport research, from all parts of the world and to stimulate the exchange of ideas in the broad field of transport research. 

The Conference Key Findings are now available. 

NTUA presentations concerned:

  Human factors of pedestrian walking and crossing behaviour

  Road safety data and priorities in South-East European regions

  Review of driving performance parameters critical for distracted driving

  Assessing the driving performance of drivers with cerebral diseases

  Investigation of road accident severity per vehicle type

  Texting on Young Drivers Behavior by Means of Multivariate Copulae Analysis

The Benchmarking Albania towards EU Road Safety Conference organised by AVIS Albania and Trans Andriatic Pipeline (TAP) took place on 6 July 2016, in Tirana. The Conference provided a platform for private stakeholders, government officials and international entities operating in Albania to raise awareness regarding the importance of road safety. Discussions also focused on current road safety reality and challenges and, above all, promoting ideas for new initiatives and policies.  

NTUA presentation concerned:  Road Safety Investments and Interventions in South East Europe 

The Annual Road Safety Conference of the Bar Ilan University, took place with great success in Tel-Aviv on 7 July 2016. More than 100 road safety experts and stakeholders have discussed on current developments and challenges on road safety worldwide, with emphassis on driver behaviour and respective road safety measures.

NTUA presentation concerned: Risk factors, driver behaviour and accident probability. The case of distracted driving. 

A Road Safety Workshop was organised by the SafetyCube EC funded project, regarding the first viewing of the SafetyCube European Road Safety Decision Support System (DSS). It took place with great success at BRSI in Brussels, on 27 September 2016. The purpose of the workshop was to illustrate how existing road safety knowledge can be collected, structured and distilled into the SafetyCube DSS that can be queried in terms of safety risk factors and potential countermeasures, including crash scenarios. Key road safety stakeholders had the opportunity to watch the methodology followed and test the SafetyCube DSS prototype, allowing vivid discussion for its further improvement.  

The NTUA presentations concerned

Design of the European Road Safety Decision Support System

 SafetyCube – Infrastructure risk factors and measures

The Intelligent Vehicles Symposium (IV’16),  sponsored by the IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Society (ITSS) and organised by Chalmers University of Technology and SAFER Vehicle and Traffic Safety Centre, took place in Gothenburg on 19-22 June 2016. Several technical sessions, workshops, poster sessions, exhibition, and technical visits will highlight the latest research and applications for Intelligent Vehicles and Vehicle-Infrastructure Cooperation.  

The results of the European Survey of Road users’ safety Attitudes (ESRA) were presented at a targeted Conference that took place with great success on 20 June 2016, in Brussels. This Conference was organised by the Consortium of 17 Institutes that participated at the survey under the coordination of the Belgian Institute for Road Safety (IBSR).  

During the conference, the Main Results of the ESRA Survey 2015 were presented together with the first six Thematic Reports on European drivers attitudes towards:

 Speeding

 Driving under the influence of alcohol & drugs

 Distraction & fatigue

 Subjective safety & risk perception

 Enforcement & support for road safety policy measures

 Seat belt and child restraint systems

NTUA presentation concerned: ESRA Thematic Report – Speeding

The European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) presents annual awards, as part of the PRAISE project, in recognition of organisations that have made an outstanding commitment to improving work-related road safety. The competition is divided into three separate categories according to the size and type of the applicant organisations: SME (Small-Medium Enterprise), large company and public authority. The winners will be chosen by an independent panel of experts appointed by ETSC. The deadline for applications is the 1st of September 2016 and the awards will be presented at ETSC Annual PRAISE Conference in Brussels in Autumn 2016. 

The 11th International Road Safety Seminar GAMBIT 2016 is organised by Gdańsk University of Technology in collaboration with the Motor Transport Institute, the Road and Bridge Research Institute and the Foundation for the Development of Civil Engineering and will take place on 17-18 November 2016, in Gdańsk. This year’s special formula of the GAMBIT Seminar ties in with “Development of Road Innovations”, a research programme of the National Centre for Research and Development and the General Directorate for National Roads and Motorways.  

The Private Sector Global Coalition Together for Safer Roads (TSR) composed by 16 leading global companies has organised on June 14th, 2016, in New York a Round Table Discussion on Technology’s Impact on Road Safety. The Members of the TSR Coalition Expert Panel initiated the discussion on three key domains: a) The Technology Horizon and the People/Technology Interface, b) Using Information and Communication Technologies – and More – to Make Roads Safer and c) Policy and Partnerships Supporting Road Safety Technologies. This Round Table Discussion demonstrated the high potential of technology for safety improvement as well as the role of the Member Companies to promote and exploit this potential.

NTUA presentation concerned:  Star rating driver safety behaviour by the use of smart technologies   

The 7th International Expert Symposium on Accident Research (ESAR) took place with great success in Hannover on 9-10 June 2016. ESAR is organised by the Medical School of Hannover, the University of Technology of Dresden and the Federal Highway Research Institute of Germany and it is a scientific colloquium which can be seen as a platform for exchanges of information on accident research issues. Representatives from authorities as well as from medical and technical institutions came together to discuss new research issues and exchange experiences on accident prevention and methodologies of accident reconstruction. The goal of ESAR was to give the opportunity to all kind of studies on Accident Investigation Methodologies, Accident Analysis, Active and Passive Safety, Injury mechanisms and Injury Prevention to an audience of experts from government, industry and other researchers from all parts of the world. 

NTUA presentations concerned:

  The Impact of cognitive impairments on accident risk

  An overview of car occupant fatalities in the European countries

  Developing the European Road Safety Decision Support System

The final project workshop of the research projects PRACT (Predicting Road ACcidents) and ESRET (European Safety Review Tool) took place with great success on June 3rd, 2016, in Manchester, UK. 

Both projects were carried out for the Conference of European Directors of Roads (CEDR), within the framework of the CEDR Road Safety Programme.  The results of both projects provided very useful tools to support decision making in the field of road infrastructure safety in Europe. All presentations are now available.

NTUA presentations concerned:

 PRACT – Predicting Road ACcidents – a Transferable methodology across Europe APM/CMF review and Questionnaire

 PRACT – Predicting Road ACcidents – a Transferable methodology across Europe: Project Results for Practitioners I: Repository

The 2nd Congress of the European Academy of Neurology took place with great success in Copenhagen, on 28-31 May 2016 and was attended by a total of 5521 participants.

NTUA presentations concerned:

 Driving performance in the frontotemporal dementia spectrum

 Incidental vs intentional memory in patients with Parkinson’s Disease (PD)

 Deviant driving measures of healthy controls, MCI and AD patients in simulated driving

 Deviant driving measures and variability in Parkinson’s disease patients and healthy controls in simulated driving

An International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Intelligent Transport Systems organised by the Brest State Technical University, took place with great success in Brest, Belarus on 25-28 May 2016, with the participation of several road safety experts and stakeholders from Belarus and other European countries.  This Conference took place within the framework of the BeSafe (Belorussian Road Safety Network) EU Tempus project, coordinated by the Research Centre for Transport and Logistics of Roma I University and the active participation of the National Technical University of Athens and the University of Loughborough.

  Star rating driver traffic and safety behavior through obd and smartphone data collection

  A classification of driver assistance systems

The International Conference Road Safety on Five Continents (RS5C) took place with great success in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on 17-19 May 2016. The RS5C is one of the premier and most prestigious international conferences in the road safety area and is organised by the Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute (VTI), in close cooperation this time with the Brazilian National Association for Transportation Research and Education (ANPET) and in association with the Transportation Research Board (TRB), the Forum of European Road Safety Research Institutes (FERSI) and the European Conference of Transport Research Institutes (ECTRI). 

NTUA presentation concerned: ‘Development of a crash modification factors model in Europe‘   

At the 42nd Panhellenic Medical Conference, which took place on 11-14 May in Athens, NTUA presentation concerning: ‘Mobility tests as a predictor of driving behavior of patients with Parkinson’s disease‘ won the best applied research award of scientific presentation paper. 

The international conference on the reliability of statistics & databases in measuring road safety performance index (PIN), took place with great success on 6-7 May 2016, in Tunis. This international conference was organised by the Prevention Routiere Internationale (PRI), the Association Tunisienne de la Protection des Accidents de la Route (ATPR) and the Arab Road Safety Association. Several road safety experts and stakeholders from Africa and Europe discussed the current and future challenges in road safety performance monitoring.  

NTUA presentation concerned: ‘Monitoring Road Safety Policies and Performance‘  

The 11th ITS European Congress, organised by ERTICO and the European Union will take place in Glasgow, on 6-9 June 2016. The Congress consists of an extensive exhibition, live demonstrations and a programme of high level and technical sessions with industry’s experts and political leaders, while the  theme is “Delivering Future Cities Now”. 

The 23rd World Congress on Intelligent Transport Systems, organised by ITS Asia Pacific, ITS America and ERTICO will take place in Melbourne, on 14-16 October 2016. During the event, there will be plenary, scientific, technical and interactive sessions, a dynamic exhibition plus technical demonstration and tours that showcase the applications of the latest ITS technology. 

The 24th World Congress on Intelligent Transport Systems, organised by ITS America and ITS Canada, together with ITS Asia and ERTICO will take place in Quebec, on 29 October – 2 November 2017. 

A workshop on ‘Driving Instructors and Safe Driving: The primary sector of road safety‘ organised by the Pan-hellenic Federation of Driving Instructors within the framework of Athens Money Show 2016, took place with great success on April 23rd, 2016, in Athens. Several presentations and discussions highlighted the key current road safety challenges in Greece, whereas driving instructors delivered safe and eco-driving seminars to visitors of Athens Money Show 2016 with the support of car and motorcycle driving simulators. 

NTUA presentation concerned: Road accident charasteristics and countermeasures. 

During the European Transport Research Arena Conference 2016, that took place in Warsaw from 18 to 21 April 2016, NTUA has contributed a series of road safety presentations with key results from the various national and international road safety research activities that is involved:

  An Exploration of Road Safety Parameters in Belarus and the European Union (BeSafe)

  Pedestrian Risk Taking while Road Crossing: A Comparison of Observed and Declared Behaviour (PedMod)

  Innovative Insurance Schemes: Pay As/How You Driver (PhD)

  Predicting Road Accidents: a Rare-Events Modeling Approach (PhD)

  Use of Accident Prediction Models in Road Safety Management – An International Inquiry(PRACT)

  Development of a Transnational Accident Prediction Model (PRACT)

  Management of Road Infrastructure Safety (IRTAD)

  Road Safety Investments and Interventions in South East Europe (ROSEE)

  Investigating the Effect of Area Type and Traffic Conditions on Distracted Driving Performance(Distract)

  Which are the Critical Measures to Assess the Driving Performance of Drivers With Brain Pathologies? (DriverBrain)

  How Safe Are Cyclists on European Roads? (ERSO+)

  Characteristics and Causes of HGV and Buses Accidents in Europe (ERSO+)

Socioeconomic status and traffic safety of pre-school children: a study in Athens (PhD)

The 6th Edition of the Transport Research Arena 2016 (TRA 2016) took place with great success in Warsaw, Poland from 18 to 21 April 2016. TRA is the major European Conference on Transport Research, supported by the European Commission (EC), the Conference of European Road Directors (CEDR) and the four European Technology Platforms on surface transport: the European Road Transport Research Advisory Council (ERTRAC), the European Rail Research Advisory Council (ERRAC), WATERBORNE TP, and the Alliance for Logistics Innovation through Collaboration (ALICE).

TRA 2016 Conference contributed to innovation in sustainable mobility for Europe, with the active participation of more than 2.200 participants from more than 50 countries. The main theme of TRA 2016 was – MOVING FORWARD Innovative Solutions for Tomorrow’s Mobility. TRA 2016 seeked to reflect the multidisciplinary nature of the transport sector and, for this reason, addressed all stakeholders in both the public and private sectors and all professionals, regardless of their roles (researchers, practitioners, designers, constructors, operators, administrators, policy makers etc.).  Several road safety sessions and discussions were among the key activities of the TRA 2016 Conference.  

A Workshop on Road Safety and Tourism in Peloponnese, organised by the Greek Society of Regional Scientists and Make Safe Roads Hellas, took place with great success on 19 March 2016, in Vrachati Corinthias, Greece. The aim of this workshop was to emphasize on the necessity of regional level planning for road safety, with particular focus to touristic periods and related vulnerable road users and tourist industry professionals.  More than 80 key decision makers and stakeholders from the regional tourist and road safety sectors contributed and discussed problems and solutions for the upgrade of road safety in tourist areas in Peloponese and in Greece in general. 

All the presentations are now available: 

NTUA presentation concerned: ‘Road safety in Greece and at its touristic areas‘  

The 14th International Athens/Springfield Symposium on Advances in Alzheimer Therapy took place with great success on 9-12 of March 2016, at Athens, Greece. The very latest on Alzheimer therapy were discussed by the very top leaders in the world and it was the very best opportunity to learn and interact in a welcoming scientific environment. Leading scientists discussed new targets and drugs for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease and novel approaches to current therapy.

The Highlights of the Congress are available. 

NTUA presentations concerned:

Association between motor ability tasks and driving parameters in healthy, patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and mild Alzheimer’s disease (AD)

Mini Mental State Examination and Montreal Cognitive Assessment: which is the best predictor of Driving Ability?

Self-assessment of driving performance in patients with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer’s disease (AD)

Mild Cognitive Impairment: The role of in-vehicle distraction in driving behavior

The 5th International Cycling Safety Conference (ICSC2016) organised by SWOV, TU Delft, TNO and Chalmers, will take place on 3-4 November 2016 in Bologna, Italy. The conference invites contributions on new developments, approaches and knowledge in the areas of cycling safety.

Topics for the conference include: Human factors – Safety-related behaviors and attitudes – Bicycle accident causation – Bicycle accident prevention – Active safety systems – Medical aspects of bicycle accidents – Cyclists’ injury prevention – Cycling infrastructures – Cycling education – Naturalistic cycling – Interaction between cyclists and cars/trucks – Helmet use – Cyclists’ impairment, distraction and inattention – Bicycle engineering including intelligent technology – Safe cycling in cities.

The deadline for abstract submission is 30 April, 2016. 

The 22nd International Conference on Urban Transport and the Environment organised by Wessex Institute and the University of Naples Federico II, took place with great success in Crete, Greece, on 21-23 June 2016. This event has been successfully held annually for more than 20 years and its distinctive element is the interaction between academic and practical perspectives where theories and ideas are debated and their practical applications rigorously tested. 

A Road Safety Conference for the International Business Traveler, organised by the Department of Public Health, University of Gothenburg in cooperation with the World Bank Group (WBG) and the Vehicle and Traffic Safety Center at Chalmers (SAFER) will take place in Gothenburg, on 30 May 2016. The aim of the conference is to review road safety from the aspects of the quality of roads, cars, and drivers with a focus on developing countries, and to discuss corporate travel policies and how they can be tailored to avoid collisions and serious injuries among business travelers. 

The Second Serbian Road Congress organised by Road Association of Serbia “Via-Vita” will be held in Belgrade, on 9-10 June 2016. National and international experts shared their knowledge, experience and vision all topics of the forthcoming congress:

– Planning and Design

– Construction and Maintenance of Roads and Structures

– Road Management

– Transport, ITS and New Technologies

– Road Traffic Safety

– Sustainable Development and Environmental Protection  

The Transportation Research Board (TRB) 95th Annual Meeting was held in Washington, D.C., in 10-14 January 2016. 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. More than 35 sessions and workshops focused on the spotlight theme for the 2016 meeting: Research Convergence for a Multi-Modal Future  and more than 75 sessions addressed one or more of three “hot topics”: Transformation Technologies, Resilience and Transportation and Public Health. 

NTUA presentations concerned:

  Development of a training course for road safety auditors in Greece

  Road, traffic and human factors of pedestrian crossing behaviour: integrated choice and latent variables models

  Modeling stopping sight distance on left-turn curves of freeways overlapped with crest vertical curves

SafetyCube – Safety CaUsation, Benefits and Efficiency

A conference on intelligent transportation systems and related developments in Greece, organised by ITS Hellas took place with great success in Athens, on 15-16 December 2015. Aim of the conference was to discuss the wide application of Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) in Greece, as a mean of economic development and prosperity and to ensure the effectiveness, efficiency and transport safety for the benefit of users and the environment. 

NTUA presentation concerned: ‘Intelligent transportation systems and big data for the improvement of driver behavior and safety‘  

POLIS, the European cities and regions networking for innovative transport solutions organised its Annual Conference on “Transport innovation for sustainable cities and regions”, which took place with great success in Brussels, on 19-20 November 2015. More than 400 mobility professionals and experts from across Europe and beyond came together to debate on urban and regional mobility . At the conference, POLIS also launched its new policy paper “Sustainable Urban Mobility and the Smart City”, stating that the role and potential of urban mobility in making the city smarter is currently not sufficiently recognised. 

All presentations are now available. 

A special workshop of road safety data in the cities took place with great success, with the active contribution of NTUA. This workshop aimed at “Translating road safety data into policies and measures” with focuss on two approaches for local road safety policy: one on accident databases including data collection and how to identify measures and the second addressing the potential of road safety performance indicators (SPIs).

The Second Global High-level Conference on Road Safety: Time for Results, hosted by the Government of Brazil took place with great success in Brasilia, on 18-19 November 2015 with the active participation of more than 1.500 high level road safety decision makers and stakeholders from 150 countries. 

The 2nd Global High-Level Conference on Road Safety defined the urgent measures needed to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’s ambitious target to halve road traffic deaths by the end of this decade. The Conference adopted the “Brasilia Declaration on Road Safety”, which will guide action through the end of the UN’s Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011-2020 and beyond.  

The 24th World ITMA Congres took place with great success in Doha, on 16-18 November 2015, covering all areas of Traffic Medicine and its associated disciplines. The motto of the 24th World ITMA Congress was Traffic Medicine and Road Safety in Fast Developing Countries.

The Congress focussed on the progress in traffic safety and traffic injury prevention and treatment in recent years, and brought together more than 400 traffic medicine experts who shared the most advanced traffic medicine concepts, theories and techniques in order to promote traffic crash prevention, traffic safety, first-aid, medical treatment, and accordingly reduce the mortality and disability resulting from traffic injury in the world, to raise the road user’s health standard and the quality of life.

NTUA presentation concerned: ‘Developing efficient traffic safety law enforcement programmes in rapidly developing countries’ 

A workshop on the innovative internet platform e-Drive organised by the General Directorate for Road Safety of the Hellenic Ministry of Infrastructure, Transport and Networks and supported by the European Commission and Digital Greece, took place with great success in Athens, on November 2nd, 2015. e-Drive is expected to become a central road safety web platform in Greece, for developing and exchanging road safety knowledge and resources with final objective to gradually develop conciousness towards an ecological and safe driving behaviour in Greece. The e-Drive Academy platform contains currently a series of programmes, destined for training of young, novice, older and professional drivers.

The XXVth PIARC World Road Congress took place with great success in Seoul, Korea on 2-6 November 2015. The congress was organized in close cooperation between the World Road Association (PIARC), responsible for the content and development of the programme, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport of the Republic of Korea, the Korea Expressway Corporation, the Korea Road & Transportation Association and the PIARC Korean National Committee. The main theme of the XXVth World Road Congress concerned “Roads and Mobility – Creating New Value from Transport” with focus on sustainability and new technologies with the active five-days participation of thousands government officials, experts and business people from the road sector.

An international conference on road accidents, injuries and rehabilitation organised by the Health School of TEI of Crete and Hannover Medical School, took place with great success in Iraklion, Crete, on 22-23 October 2015. During this Conference, the results of the EU co-funded project ‘Reducing the Harm and the Burden of Injuries and human Loss caused by road traffic crashes and Addressing Injury Demands through effective interventions‘ (REHABIL AID) were presented and discussed together with the socio-economic aspects of road accidents in Europe. More than 200 road safety experts, professionals and stakeholders contributed and discussed state of the art developments for road accident and injury prevention and safety promotion in Grece, in Europe and worldwide. 

NTUA presentation concerned: ‘Road infrastructure safety management‘  

The 9th Internationational Congress on Vascular Dementia (ICVD 2015) took place with great success on 15-18 October 2015 in Ljubljiana, Slovenia. The goal of this Congress is to facilitate a fruitful exchange of knowledge between clinicians and researchers in the field, with a particular interest in its overlaps with Alzheimer’s disease as well as the effects of vascular brain disease. 

The 21st Meeting of the International Traffic Safety Data and Analysis Group (IRTAD) organised by the International Transport Forum (ITF) took place in Ljubljana, on 12-13 October 2015. 

NTUA presentations concerned:

 Distraction, Cognition, Behaviour and Driving Analysis of a large data set

 Bicycle Traffic Rules in OECD countries

The FENS Featured Regional Meeting – FFRM 2015 meeting, organised by the Hellenic, Israel and Serbian Societies for Neuroscience, took place in Thessaloniki, on 7-10 October 2015. The three Neuroscience Societies came together for the first time, enhanced their relationships and represented themselves to an international audience. 

NTUA presentation concerned ‘Executive Functions and Driving Performance in a High Traffic Urban Condition in Mild Cognitive Impairment‘ 

The ITS World Congress took place with great success on 5-9 October 2015 in Bordeaux, France. The ITS Congress and Exhibition is the world’s largest event in intelligent transport systems and services. Through the main theme “Towards Intelligent Mobility – Better Use of Space”, the Bordeaux Congress focuses not only on how achieving intelligent mobility will change our lives but also on the benefits space can bring to ITS applications. 

This year’s Road Safety Conference organised by TISPOL took place with great success in Manchester on 7 October 2015. This year’s conference  focused on the challenges of protecting vulnerable road users, and the importance of finding effective solutions to reduce death and serious injury on Europe’s roads. There was an interesting and varied line-up of speakers from police, policymaking and industry across Europe. 

The 2015 Road Safety & Simulation International Conference (RSS), organised by the University of Central Florida (UCF) and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK) took place with great success on 6-8 October 2015, in Orlando, Florida, USA. Under the auspices of the Southeastern Transportation Center, three world-class research centers supported the conference: Center for Advanced Transportation Systems Simulation and the Institute for Simulation and Training at UCF and UTK’s Center for Transportation Research. More than 200 road safety scientists showcased and discussed  advancements in traffic simulation and driving simulator technologies, introducing new initiatives and concepts that have emerged since the previous editions of the RSS conference . 

NTUA presentations concerned:

  In-vehicle distraction and brain pathologies: Effects on reaction time and accident probability

  Cell phone use and driving performance of different age groups

  Comparative analysis of young drivers behavior in normal and simulation conditions at a rural road

The 43rd European Transport Conference (ETC) took place with great success in Franfurt, on 28-30 September 2015. The ETC connects the worlds of research, consultancy, policy and practice. The conference programme is available here.  

The 4th International Cycling Safety Conference took place with great success in Hannover on 15-16 September 2015, hosted by the Accident Research Unit of the Hannover Medical School, in cooperation with the Deutsche Verkehrswacht, the DVR and the ETSC. This conference started as a Dutch initiative of the Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment, TNO, Fietsberaad (Dutch center of expertise on bicycle policy), SWOV and Delft University of Technology together with Chalmers University of Technology. The International Cycling Safety Conference (ICSC) developed to a premium forum for researchers and development engineers in the field of cycling safetyto exchange their knowledge, to extent their network and to bring up new research topics and safety solutions. 

NTUA presentations concerned:

   Analysis of Preferences for the Use of a Bicycling Sharing System in Athens

   Cycling Acceptability Investigation among University Students in Athens, Greece

The 3rd International Conference on Access Management, organised by the Transportation Division of the South African Institution of Civil Engineering (SAICE) and the Access Management Committee of the Transportation Research Board (TRB) will take place in Pretoria, South Africa, on 6-7 July 2016. It be the 3rd International Conference following on from Athens in 2011 and Shanghai in 2014. The aim is to provide a forum to bring together specialists from around the world to interact, debate and exchange information with practitioners, researchers, academics, officials applying access management as well as students and others interested in the subject. The deadline for abstract submission is set for September 30th, 2015. 

The 1st International Conference on Transport and Health organised by the University College London (UCL) and the Transportation Public Health Link (TPH Link) took place with great success in London on 6-8 July 2015. This innovative event combined presentations of submitted work with cross-disciplinary workshops lead by teams of transport and public health professionals on several topics, including Global Road Safety & Injury Prevention.

NTUA presentations concerned:

 Investigating the different distraction mechanism between cell phone use and conversation with the passenger, through a driving simulator experiment

 How cell phone use affects reaction time of older drivers

 How drivers with brain pathologies deal with in-vehicle distraction, what are their emotions and driving habits: a questionnaire assessment

The 1st Congress of the European Academy of Neurology took place with great success in Berlin, on 20-23 June 2015. More than 6.000 participants from more than 100 countries attended with an overwhelmingly positive feedback 8 Symposia, 25 Teaching courses, 23 Focused workshops, 5 Hands-on courses, 3 Interactive sessions, 5 Special Sessions and showed 1.546 posters, including 2 Scientific and 17 Industry Satellite Symposia. Few sessions concerned cognitive impairment and driving. 

NTUA presentations concerned:

 Accident risk of drivers with cognitive impairments

 Assessment of driving performance of drivers with cognitive impairments: which are the critical measures?

 Cerebral diseases and distractibility while driving

 Self-awareness of performance in cognitive testing: differences between healthy elderly and patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD)

 Self-assessment of change in driving in relation to current driving performance on a driving simulator in patients with various neurological conditions

 Assessing incidental memory in cognitively intact individuals versus patients with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI)

 The role of sleeping abnormalities on the driving performance of individuals with Mild Cognitive Impairment

 Exploring indexes of driving performance in cognitively intact drivers and drivers with Parkinson’s Disease (PD)

The 5th International Symposium on Highway Geometric Design organised by TRB (Trasport Research Board), UBC (University of Columbia) and TRANSOFT took place with great success in Vancouver, on  22-24 June 2015. More than 300 road experts from more than 40 countries contributed to the discussions of more than 150 presentations on geometric design issues throughout the world, together with country reports featuring recent developments in road design, policy and practices, design and research products. 

NTUA presentations concerned:

 Design Considerations of Modern Roundabouts

 3D SSD Control on Left-turn Curves of Freeways Overlapped with Vertical Curves

A very interesting workshop targeting the upgrade of road transport safety through the improvement of tunnel user behaviour with new training technologies took place in Athens, on 16 June 2015. The workshop was organised by SiEBEN, Mediascape, SYNERGEIA and the Laboratory of Industrial Engineering of the School of Mechanical Engineering of NTUA and concerned very interesting presentations and discussions on the findings of the respective research project safetunnels4u, funded by the Greek General Secretariat for Research and Technology.

NTUA presentation concerned: ‘Road Safety Infrastructure management‘  

The 27th National Conference of the Hellenic Neurological Society took place with great success in Alexandroupolis, on 6-9 June 2015. One of the conference sessions was dedicated to neurological diseases and driving.

NTUA presentations concerned:

 Relationship between sleep disorders and driving behavior of people with mild cognitive impairment

 Self-awareness of cognitive performance: differences between healthy elderly and patients with mild cognitive impairment

 Walking in a direct line as a prognosis indicator of fitness to drive in Parkinson disease patients

The 15th National Congress on Psychological Research organised by  the Hellenic Psychological Society and the University of Cyprus took place with great success in Nicosia, Cyprus, on 27-31 May 2015.  The theme of the conference was ‘Psychology in Greece and the Mediterranean‘ and included topics on driver psychology. 

NTUA presentation concerned: ‘Neuropsychological factors in driving with or without distraction‘ 

The Stakeholders Workshop on the European Road Safety Decision Support System to be developed by the SafetyCube Horizons 2020 research project is scheduled for June 17th 2015 in Brussels. The purpose of this Workshop it to identify the needs and initiate the discussion between key road safety experts and stakeholders for the development of a European Road Safety Decision Support System (DSS) which will provide reliable and easily accessible information for the identification of the most cost-effective measures addressing each specific road safety problem.

The Workshop programme focuses on two main goals:

– to identify user for the European Road Safety Decision Support System

– to identify “hot topics” in terms of risk factors, safety effects and cost-benefit analyses to be considered in the SafetyCube DSS

Attendance is free on first-come first-served basis to those registered at the following link 

The First Danube Region Road Safety Conference: “Towards an Increased Road Safety in the Danube Region, towards Zero Vision”, organised by the EU Strategy for the Danube Region Programme (EUSDR PA1b), together with the Ministry of Infrastructure of the Republic of Slovenia and the Ministry of Construction, Transport and Infrastucture of the Republic of Serbia, took place with great success in Ljubljana, Slovenia, on 20 – 21 May 2015.

More than 100 policy makers, lead experts and international academia gathered in Ljubljana to discuss present and future road safety relevant challenges, solutions and best practices for the 14 countries of the Danube macro-region and beyond, including road safety soft and hard measures, improvement and development of road infrastructure, road safety management and human behaviour in traffic. 

All presentations are now available.

NTUA presentation concerned: ‘Monitoring Road Safety Policies and Performance‘ 

A Regional Conference on Road Traffic Safety and activities within the Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011-2020″, organised by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) – Mission for Kosovo, took place in Pristina, Kosovo on 29 April 2015. More than 50 road safety decision makers, experts and stakeholders adressed all current and future aspects of road safety in Kosovo.

NTUA presentation concerned: ‘Monitoring Road Safety Policies and Performance‘ 

The 67th AAN Annual Meeting organised by the American Academy of Neurology took place with great success in Washington, DC, on 18-25 April 2015. A special session ondriving performance contained very interesting contributions.

NTUA presentations concerned:

 City and rural driving performance in healthy controls, MCI, and AD patients: Preliminary results from a driving simulation experiment with the use of distraction

 Motor abilities and driving performance in Parkinson’s disease (PD)

 Motorway driving performance in healthy controls, MCI, and AD patients: Preliminary results from a driving simulation experiment  

The 9th Panhellenic Conference of Alzheimer Disease and Related Disorders organised by the Greek Association of Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Disorders took place in Thessaloniki, on 23-26 April 2015. 

NTUA presentations concerned:

 Relationship between depression and driving behavior of people with mild cognitive impairment 

 Walking in a direct line as a prognosis indicator of fitness to drive in Parkinson disease patients

The Road Traffic Safety Agency of Serbia (RTSA) together with several Serbian and international road safety Governmental, Academic and other organisations organised with great success the 10th Jubilee International Conference on Road Safety in Local Communities, in Kragujevac, Serbia, on 22-25 April 2015. More than 150 national and international road safety decision makers, experts and stakeholders contributed to very fruitful discussion focussing all five pillars of the Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011-2020. 

NTUA presentation concerned: ‘Integrated speed management strategies in local communities in South East Europe‘ 

An International Symposium on Road Safety Behaviour Measurements and Indicators, organised by the Belgian Road Safety Institute, took place with great success in Brussels, on 23 April 2015. The event featured presentations by international experts on behaviour monitoring, exchange of experiences in implementing behaviour measurements and discussions about methodologies used to build representative indicators. 

All the presentations of the conference are now available. 

NTUA presentation concerned: ‘Star rating driver traffic and safety behaviour through OBD and smartphone data collection‘ 

The Forum of European National Highway Research Laboratories (FEHRL) organised the FEHRL Infrastructure Research Meeting (FIRM15), which took place in Brussels, on 22-23 April 2015. This key event, gathered some 120 transport infrastructure innovation and research experts, including European and national policy makers, leading industry, standardisation agencies, SME’s and the media. 

With the theme of “Innovative maintenance of Transport Infrastructure. Faster, cheaper, more reliable, safer, greener”, FIRM15 featured multiple information sessions on the following themes:

• Infrastructure level: Engineering and technical solutions

• System level: operations including monitoring inspections

• Governance level: management and financial issues

All the presentations of the event are now available. 

More than 200 road infrastructure safety experts and stakeholders have attended the 2-day Technical Conference on ‘Current Advances in Road Infrastructure Safety Equipment’ organised by the European Union Road Federation (ERF), in cooperation with the Hellenic Institute of Transportation Engineers (HITE) and the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), that took place on 12-13 February 2015, in the Acropolis Museum, Athens.

The first day of the Technical Conference was dedicated to European and Greek policies and legislation with respect to road infrastructure safety, with the second focusing more on European standards and their implementation in Greece, together with good practices for road infrastructure safety equipment. Technical sessions focused on road restraint systems, horizontal and vertical signage, work-zones, passive support and maintenance. All presentations are now available. 

NTUA presentation concerned ‘Management of Road Infrastructure Safety‘ 

The FAST-zero Symposium organised by SAFER – Vehicle and Traffic Safety Centre and Chalmers University of Technology in co-operation with Swedish Vehicular Engineering Association will take place in Gothenburg, Sweden, on 9-11 September 2015. The symposium will be held outside Japan for the first time. Sweden is a natural choice for a FAST-zero symposium since the Swedish parliament was the first to announce a Vision Zero policy. The main idea is simple: No loss of life in traffic is acceptable. But the approach is innovative; since humans make mistakes, instead of making the driver responsible, vehicles and traffic system solutions must be designed so that accidents are avoided. 

The 24th International Technical Conference on the Enhanced Safety of Vehicles (ESV) organised by the Swedish Transport Administration and the SAFER Vehicle and Traffic Safety Centre will take place in Gothenburg, Sweden, on June 8-11, 2015. The ESV conference is internationally focused on vehicle safety and is supported by the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), and many other participating Governments across North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific regions. 

The Transportation Research Board (TRB) 94th Annual Meeting was held in Washington, D.C., in  11-15 January 2015. The TRB Annual Meeting program covered all transportation modes, with more than 4,500 presentations in nearly 800 sessions and workshops addressing topics of interest to all attendees-policy makers, administrators, practitioners, researchers, and representatives of government, industry, and academic institutions. The spotlight theme for the 2015 TRB Annual Meeting was Corridors to the Future: Transportation and Technology. 

NTUA presentations concerned:

  Multilevel comparative analysis of road safety in european capital cities

  Introducing human factors in pedestrian crossing behavior models

  Driving behaviour of drivers with mild cognitive impairment and alzheimer’s disease: a driving simulator study

  Do simulator measures improve identification of older drivers with MCI?

  Localization and driving behavior classification using smartphone sensors in the direct absence of GNSS

  Controlling crest vertical curvature rates based on variable grade stopping sight distance calculation

 Management of Road Infrastructure Safety

The International Symposium on Communication Technologies and Road Safety was organised by the Emirates Traffic Safety Society (ETSS), the Arab Road Safety Organization (AROSO), La Prévention Routiére Internationale (PRI) and the Traffic Injury Research Foundation (TIRF) and took place in Abu Dhabi, on 26-27 November 2014. The symposium objective among others was to highlight the solutions offered by modern technology to ensure positive impact on the behaviour of drivers while driving. 

NTUA presentation concerned: ‘Distracted driving and mobile phone use: overview of impacts and countermeasures‘