Global Road Safety Partnership launched its new publication “Advocating for Road Safety: A Guidance Manual for National Societies“. The purpose of this document is to guide Red Cross Red Crescent National Societies through the process of planning and implementing a road safety advocacy initiative. The document outlines the role advocacy plays in improving road safety, and highlights the added value of Red Cross Red Crescent National Societies’ involvement in road safety advocacy. Moreover, it defines the steps required to design and implement an advocacy initiativearound a road safety issue and provides examples, resources and tools to support National Societies throughout the design process. 

The Hellenic Ministry of Infrastructure, Transport and Networks, as a part of the effort to reduce road accidents in Greece, emerges as a top priority the Road Safety Education Development. Particular emphasis is given on informing and educating children about road safety and traffic behaviour and prepare them to become responsible future drivers. For this reason, a series of electronic traffic education books for students of Primary and Secondary Schools, prepared by CERTH/HIT and with the contribution of NTUA, are now availble online. 

A paper titled ‘Effect of GDP changes on road traffic fatalities‘ co-authored by George Yannis, Eleonora Papadimitriou and Katerina Folla is now published in the Journal of Safety Science. This research aims to associate annual Gross Domestic Product (GDP) changes with the related annual changes in road traffic mortality rates. Mortality rates and GDP per capita data for the period 1975–2011 are used from 27 European countries, for the development of mixed linear models. The results suggest that an annual increase of GDP per capita leads to an annual increase of mortality rates, whereas an annual decrease of GDP per capita leads to an annual decrease of mortality rates. These effects are statistically significant overall, and in different groups of countries (Northern/Western, Central/Eastern and Southern). A one-year lagged effect of annual GDP decrease was found to be significant in Northern/Western countries.  

A paper titled ‘Exposure data and risk indicators for safety performance assessment in Europe‘ co-authored by Eleonora Papadimitriou, George Yannis, Frits Bijleveld and João Cardoso is now published in the Journal of Accident Analysis and Prevention. The objective of this paper is theanalysis of the state-of-the-art in risk indicators and exposure data for safety performance assessment in Europe, in terms of data availability, collection methodologies and use. More specifically, the concepts of exposure and risk are explored, as well as the theoretical properties of various exposure measures used in road safety research (e.g. vehicle- and person-kilometres of travel, vehicle fleet, road length, driver population, time spent in traffic, etc.). Moreover, the existing methods for collecting disaggregate exposure data for risk estimates at national level are presented and assessed, including survey methods (e.g. travel surveys, traffic counts) and databases (e.g. national registers). A detailed analysis of the availability and quality of existing risk exposure data is also carried out. Finally, the potential of international risk comparisons is investigated, mainly through the International Data Files with exposure data (e.g. Eurostat, IRTAD, ECMT, UNECE, IRF, etc.). The results of this review confirm that comparing risk rates at international level may be a complex task, as the availability and quality of exposure estimates in European countries varies significantly. The lack of a common framework for the collection and exploitation of exposure data limits significantly the comparability of the national data. On the other hand, the International Data Files containing exposure data provide useful statistics and estimates in a systematic way and are currently the only sources allowing international comparisons of road safety performance under certain conditions.  

A paper titled ‘Multilevel analysis in road safety research‘ co-authored by Emmanuelle Dupont, Eleonora Papadimitriou, Heike Martensen and George Yannis is now published in the Journal of Accident Analysis and Prevention. This paper summarizes the statistical and conceptual background and motivations for multilevel analyses in road safety research. It then provides a review of several ML analyses applied to aggregate and disaggregate (accident) data. In each case, the relevance of ML modelling techniques is assessed by examining whether ML model formulations (i) allow improving the fit of the model to the data, (ii) allow identifying and explaining random variation at specific levels of the hierarchy considered, and (iii) yield different (more correct) conclusions than single-level model formulations with respect to the significance of the parameter estimates. The evidence reviewed offers different conclusions depending on whether the analysis concerns aggregate data or disaggregate data. In the first case, the application of ML analysis techniques appears straightforward and relevant. The studies based on disaggregate accident data, on the other hand, offer mixed findings: computational problems can be encountered, and ML applications are not systematically necessary. The general recommendation concerning disaggregate accident data is to proceed to a preliminary investigation of the necessity of ML analyses and of the additional information to be expected from their application.  

A new book on Green Urban Mobility  has been presented on September 26th, 2013 in Athens, highlighting theEuropean approach on current policies for sustainable urban mobility. This book was edited by urban planner Stavros Tsetsis and was presented by the European Parliament Deputies Daniel Cohn Bendit and Marietta Giannakou.

NTUA Associate Professor George Yannis has contributed a chapter on transportation choices in the modern city, highlighting not only the fundamental road safety choices of the modern city but also the need for integrating road safety choices in the urban mobility plans.  

SWOV Senior Researcher Henk Stipdonk defended recently his PhD Thesis at Delft University of Technology, exploiting also findings from the EC co-funded research projects SafetyNet and Dacota. This Thesis, titled ‘Road safety bits and pieces: for a better understanding of the development of the number of road fatalities‘, focuses on the subdivision (stratification) of the crash data and the data of distance travelled. Different subgroups with different risks (like different travel modes, different age groups and combinations of both) are modelled separately. It is shown that these groups often have different risks and different trends in distance travelled. These different subgroups – the ‘bits’ and ‘pieces’ – and their different developments can give rise to a substantial change in the total risk – the ‘road safety’. It is concluded that the present manner of analyzing road safety developments – i.e. based on the total number of road fatalities and the total fatality rate – is insufficient to achieve a thorough understanding of these developments. It is better to divide the total number of road fatalities into subgroups and to investigate for each individual subgroup which factors influenced road safety. 

The European Commission has launched a new special section at the DG Move road safety website containg a comprehensive inventory of the traffic rules in force in the various EU countries aiming to assist those travelling abroad. This section provides on overview of the most important traffic rules applied by category and by EU country. The user can choose the country of their preference and get informed on the speed limits, seat belt use, alcohol limits and other road safety data of the specific country. 

A paper titled ‘Is road safety management linked to road safety performance?‘ co-authored by Eleonora Papadimitriou and George Yannis is now published in the Journal of Accident Analysis and Prevention. Quasi-Poisson models and Beta regression models are developed for linking road safety management indicators (estimated on the basis of Categorical Principal Component Analysis ) and other indicators (i.e. background characteristics, etc.) with road safety performance (mortality and fatality rates, SPIs, composite indicators, etc.).

The results of the analyses suggest that road safety management can be described on the basis of three composite indicators: “vision and strategy”, “budget, evaluation and reporting”, and “measurement of road user attitudes and behaviours”. More-over, no direct statistical relationship could be established between road safety management indicators and final outcomes. However, a statistical relationship was found between road safety management and SPIs, which were in turn found to affect ‘final’ outcomes, confirming the SUNflower approach on the consecutive effect of each layer.  

ETSC published recently a PIN Flash concerning the rate of collisions between men and women. Just under 30.400 people were killed in 2011 in the EU27 in road collisions, approximately 7.200 females and 23.200 males. Females account for 51% of the total EU population but only 24% of road deaths. This percentage has changed by only one percentage point since 2001, but the reduction in female deaths since then has been four percentage points greater than the reduction in male deaths. Males account for 76% of people killed on the roads in the EU in 2011. Males have more than three times the death rate of females on the roads in the EU. 

Make Roads Safe, the campaign for global road safety issued the Report Safe Roads for All, a post-2015 agenda for health and development. This is the new report from the Commission for Global Road Safety, urging a road safety target to be included in the new UN Sustainable Development Goals. 

A new special issue on road safety of the Journal of Transport and Shipping has recently been published, coordinated by Co-Editors John Karkazis & Amalia Polydoropoulou, Professors at the Department of Shipping, Trade and Transport of the University of the Aegean. 

NTUA contributions to this special issue concerned: ‘Driver distraction and road safety in Greece and internationally‘ and ‘Macroscopic traffic safety data analysis and prediction‘.

The Road Safety Webtexts are available at the DaCoTA Road Safety Knowledge System and were developed through a peer review process by the EU co-funded research projects DaCoTA and SafetyNet, within the framework of developing and enhancing the European Road Safety Observatory. These road safety webtexts consist of comprehensive and high quality syntheses on important road safety issues, scientifically founded, easy to read and ready to use. For each subject, the information consists of an overview of the magnitude of the problem, prevalence and countermeasures followed by key bibliography references.

They cover most contemporary road safety issues:

• Age groups: Children, Novice drivers, Older drivers

• Road users: Pedestrians and cyclists, Powered two wheelers

• Hazardous behavior: Driver distraction, Cell phone use while driving, Fatigue, Alcohol/drugs, Speed and speed management, Work-related road safety

• Post-crash: Post impact care, E-safety

• Road safety measures: Roads, Speed enforcement, Vehicle safety

• Policy issues: Quantitative targets, Cost-benefit analysis, Safety ratings, Road safety management,Integration of Road Safety in other policy areas

The European Commission published a Report on the first steps taken towards achieving reduction of serious road traffic injuries, which is one of the seven strategic objectives set by the Commission in 2010 in its road safety policy orientations for the period 2011-2020.

The document looks at what has been done so far and describes the problem of serious road traffic accidents and the challenges of the current framework. It considers the situation regarding a common definition of serious injuries, data collection methods and a possible future EU-level target. The use of an established medical classification standard is seen as preferable and the existing trauma scale ‘Maximum Abbreviated Injury Score’ (MAIS) was put forward, with serious injuries defined as those with an MAIS score of 3 or higher, as proposed by the EC research project SafetyNet and the ITF. 

The World Health Organization (WHO) released the European Facts and Global Status Report on Road Safety 2013, prepared by Francesco Mitis and Dinesh Sethi. This European Facts Report provides a baseline assessment to what extent countries in the 51 countries of the WHO European Region are implementing effective road safety measures to address the five key risk factors: drinking and driving, speeding, helmets, seat-belts and child restraints.

Though death rates are down, the Report shows that 55% of the European population live in countries that do not provide the protection of comprehensive road safety laws. It also highlights the importance of issues such as vehicle safety standards, road infrastructure inspections and policies on walking and cycling. In charts, maps and tables, the brief report presents information from 51 countries, covering most of the population of the Region, and providing a baseline assessment to measure progress towards the goals of the Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011–2020.

The Transportation Research Board (TRB) 92nd Annual Meeting  was held in Washington, D.C., in January 2013, with more than 4.000 presentations in a nearly 750 scientific sessions and workshops. Spotlight theme for 2013 was deploying transportation research – doing things smarter, better, faster. NTUA road safety presentations concerned:

Road safety forecasts in five european countries using structural time-series models

Assessment of exposure proxies for macroscopic road safety prediction

Driving simulator experiment design for the assessment of driving performance and the effects of driver distraction

Experiences and future challenges for reliable and transferable estimates of safety countermeasures in Europe

The Road Injuries Consultation Report of the European Commission is now available. The public consultation was launched as part of an initiative to reduce the number and the severity of road traffic injuries. This initiative is one of the strategic objectives outlined in the Policy Orientations on Road Safety 2011-2020, and a priority for EU action. Accordingly, the European Commission is developing a comprehensive strategy of action concerning road traffic injuries, with the assistance of relevant actors. The findings of the public consultation clearly indicate that road safety is regarded as a priority on the political agenda. Target setting and support of exchange of best practises are seen as the two areas with the highest EU added value, while research and project funding, legislation and data analysis are following slightly behind. 

A paper titled ‘Road safety performance indicators for the interurban road network‘ co-authored by G.Yannis, W.Weijermars, V.Gitelman, M.Vis, A.Chaziris, E.Papadimitriou and Azevedo C. is published in the Accident Analysis and Prevention Journal. This paper presents a theoretical concept for the determination of this SPI as well as a translation of this theory into a practical method. Also, the method is applied in a number of pilot countries namely the Netherlands, Portugal, Greece and Israel. The results show that the SPI could be efficiently calculated in all countries, despite some differences in the data sources. In general, the calculated overall SPI scores were realistic and ranged from 81 to 94%, with the exception of Greece where the SPI was relatively lower (67%).  

A new book of Professor Anastasios K. Apostoleris , titled “Highway Engineering I – Design: Theory and Practice” has been just published by Papasotirou Editions, Greece. 

A paper titled ‘On statistical inference in time series analysis of the evolution of road safety co-authored by J.Commandeur, F.Bijleveld, R.Bergel-Hayat, C.Antoniou, G.Yannis and E.Papadimitriou is published in the Accident Analysis and Prevention Journal. Some commonly used statistical techniques imply assumptions that are often violated by the special properties of time series data, namely serial dependency among disturbances associated with the observations. The objective if this paper is to demonstrate the impact of such violations to the applicability of standard methods of statistical inference, which leads to an under or overestimation of the standard error and consequently may produce erroneous inferences. Moreover, having established the adverse consequences of ignoring serial dependency issues, the paper aims to describe rigorous statistical techniques used to overcome them.  

Road Safety Country Forecasts are available at the DaCoTA Road Safety Knowledge System, developed by the EU co-financed project DaCoTA. For 30 European countries (all 27 EU members States, Iceland, Norway and Switzerland), a specially developed common forecasting methodology was adopted, using risk exposure as the most important explaining variable. These country forecasts can be proved useful for road safety policy, as it is important to know in what direction the annual casualties are developing, and how fast this development is expected to go. At the road safety forecasts for Greece prepared by NTUA, the 50 year trend is analysed and road fatalities forecasts scenaria up to 2020 are proposed. 

Road Safety Country Overviews are available at the DaCoTA Road Safety Knowledge System, developed by the EU co-financed project DaCoTA. For 30 European countries (all 27 EU members States, Iceland, Norway and Switzerland) a comprehensive picture on road safety is provided, using a common analysis methodology: the SunFlower footprint. Information is provided on road safety structure and culture, programs and measures, road safety performance indicators and outcomes and the social cost, followed by an overall synthesis and the related literature.

At the country overview for Greece prepared by NTUA, the current road safety strengths and weaknesses are highlighted, based on a thorough analysis of all available data and information. 

A paper titled ‘Modelling the spatial variation of road accidents and fatalities in Greece’ co-authored by E.Papadimitriou, V.Ekshler , G.Yannis, S.Lassarre is just published in the Proceedings of ICE – Transport. The paper focuses on the modelling of the spatial variation of road accidents and fatalities in Greece. For that purpose, NUTS-3 road accident and fatalities risk rates are used for the development of CAR and CAR-convolution spatial models. Moreover, two types of neighbourhood structures of the regional road safety data are tested: a basic structure defined according to the road connections between counties and an extended structure defined on the basis of both road and ferry connections between counties. The results suggest that the basic spatial structure accounts for an important part of the variation in road accident rates in the Greek counties, revealing a pattern of risk increase from northern to southern Greece. Spatial effects are also identifiable when considering the extended spatial structure, however without explaining a larger part of the overall variation compared to the basic structure. 

The Department of Transportation Planning and Engineering of the School of Civil Engineering of the National Technical University of Athens, the Hellenic Institute of Transportation Engineers and the Road Safety Observatory of the Technical Chamber of Greece organised a Lecture by M. Mohamed Abdel-Aty, Professor of Transportation Engineering at the University of Central Florida on ‘Changing the way we think about Traffic Safety: Current Traffic Safety Research Initiatives’.  The Lecture took place on Monday, November 12th, 2012 at the Amphitheater of Railways and Transport at the NTUA Campus.  

The Road Accidents Annual Statistical Report 2012 is now available at the DaCoTA Road Safety Knowledge System.  This Annual Report was developed by the EU co-financed project DaCoTA, within the framework of developing and enhancing the European Road Safety Observatory. This Annual Statistical Report provides the basic characteristics of road accidents in 25 member states of the European Union (no data for Bulgaria and Lithuania yet) and Switzerland for the period 2001-2010, on the basis of data collected and processed within the CARE database, the Community Road Accident Database with disaggregate data. 

A Diploma Thesis titled ‘Effect of GDP change on road accidents‘  was presented by Katerina Folla in October 2012. For this analysis a database containing GDP per capita, road fatalities and population data for the EU member states for the period 1975-2011 was developed. Linear Mixed Models were developed and applied for all European countries tested and also for the different groups of countries that were selected (Northwestern, Northern, Eastern countries). It was demonstrated that an annual increase of GDP per capita leads to an annual increase in fatality rates, whereas an annual decrease of GDP per capita leads to an annual decrease in fatality rates. 

A presentation titled “Effects of GDP changes on road traffic fatalities” was given by NTUA Associate Professor George Yannis at the 15th Meeting of the International Road Traffic and Accident Database (IRTAD) of theInternational Transport Forum (ITF/OECD), which took place on 18-19 October 2012, in Amsterdam.  A statistically significant relationship between annual GDP increase and fatality rate increase was demonstrated, as well as a statistically significant relationship between annual GDP decrease and fatality rate decrease.  Behind these correlations, the causal explanations of the impact of economic recession to the recent impressive reductions in fatalities might include: a. less vehicle-kilometers (increased fuel prices, decrease of recreation mobility, less heavy goods vehicle traffic), b. less speeding (increased fuel prices, more economical and environment friendly driving, low drivers’ morale) and c. less risky driving (fewer young, inexperienced or elderly drivers who may afford vehicle ownership and travel).  

The new international standard ISO 39001:2012specifies requirements for a road traffic safety (RTS) management system to enable an organization that interacts with the road traffic system to reduce death and serious injuries related to road traffic crashes which it can influence. The requirements in ISO 39001:2012 include development and implementation of an appropriate RTS policy, development of RTS objectives and action plans, which take into account legal and other requirements to which the organization subscribes, and information about elements and criteria related to RTS that the organization identifies as those which it can control and those which it can influence. 

The International Transport Forum (ITF/OECD) published the Research Report on Sharing Road Safety. This Report is the result of a three-year co-operative effort by an international group of experts representing 17 countries, with contribution from NTUA Associate Professor George Yannis. The purpose of this report is to emphasize the importance of sharing knowledge on the effectiveness of interventions and transferring of results internationally. Road safety policy is increasingly dependent on sound indicators of the effectiveness of interventions. Policy makers need not only to justify expenditure on safety in terms of effectiveness but to argue convincingly for measures in the face of sceptical and sometimes hostile lobbies. Monitoring and analysis of effectiveness is not without cost, and indicators that relate safety improvements to interventions, “Crash Modification Functions”, that are transferable from one situation to another are a valuable tool in spreading effective safety policies. 

A review of “Road safety research in Greece through 31 NTUA Diploma Theses” has been published at the honorary Edition for Professor G.Giannopoulos of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. These Diploma Theses were carried out at the Department of Transportation Planning and Engineering of the School of Civil Engineering of the National Technical University of Athens during the period 2000 – 2011 under the supervision of Associate Professor George Yannis and concern seven road safety disciplines:infrastructure, driver behaviour, driver distraction, pedestrians, weather conditions, economic valuation of road accidents and international comparisons. The important potential for road safety research at the Greek Technical Universities has been demonstrated. 

Vehicle checks are fundamental to road safety. Technical defects contribute heavily to accidents, they are responsible for 6% of all car accidents, translating into 2,000 fatalities and many more injuries yearly. 8 % of all motorcycle accidents are linked to technical defects. More than five people die on Europe’s roads every day in accidents linked to technical failure. For this reason, the European Commission has adopted new rules to toughen up the testing regime and widen its scope. 

The World Health Organization (WHO) and the Global Alliance of NGO’s for Road Safety have recently published a Guide for Nongovernmental Organizations. This guide is an attempt to define more clearly the role of nongovernmental organizations in the advocacy arena. It is especially targeted towards organizations which operate with limited resources. Moreover, it offers ideas for the types of initiatives nongovernmental organizations might conduct, with a series of related checklists, and case studies from around the world, as well as guiding principles and strategic approaches for more targeted advocacy. 

The Transport Division of the United Nations has recently published a report summarising road safety activities. This document presents the UNECE’s Action Plan for the UN Decade of Action for Road Safety (2011–2020). This Plan is directly aligned with the UN Global Plan for the Decade of Action for Road Safety. It aims to achieve the UNECE’s overall road safety goals by addressing priority areas of work as well as by implementing the ongoing and future initiatives in the UNECE region and beyond. 

The Transportation Research Board (TRB) 91th Annual Meeting was held in Washington, D.C., in January 2012.

NTUA road safety presentations concerned:

Effects of alcohol on speeding and road positioning among young drivers: a driving simulator study

Analysis of pedestrian risk exposure in relation to crossing behaviour

Modelling the effects of weather and traffic on the risk of secondary incidents

Identifying Outlying Power Two Wheeler Riding Behaviors at the Emergence of an Incident

Promoting safe driving at an older age

Towards a global set of injury crash data

The International Road Traffic and Accident Database (IRTAD) of the International Transport Forum (ITF/OECD) published a Special Report on Serious Road Traffic Casualties aiming to identify and assess methodologies for linking different sources of accident data in order to develop better estimates of the real number of road traffic casualties. The report provides a number of recommendations on the use of police and hospital data, and makes suggestions for an internationally agreed definition of serious injury. 

The European Transport Safety Council together with the Road Safety Institute Panos Mylonas organised the 13^thEuropean Transport Safety Lecture, on “Distracted Driving“, which took place in Athens, in November 7th, 2011. The lecture was delivered by Associate Professor George Yannis, NTUA, with a response by Prof. Oliver Carsten of the Institute for Transport Studies at the University of Leeds. Driver distraction is an important factor driving up the risk of road collisions worldwide. Researchers claim that some source of driver distraction is reported in up to 30% of road accidents.

The United Nations Secretary-General issued a report on improving global road safety, prepared by the World Health Organization in consultation with the United Nations regional commissions and other partners of the United Nations Road Safety Collaboration. The report describes efforts undertaken around the world to address the major risk factors for road traffic crashes with the goal of reducing resultant deaths and injuries. 

The European Council adopted a directive on cross-border exchange of information on road traffic offences. The objective of this directive is to combat road traffic offences that considerably jeopardise road safety, by facilitating cross-border exchange of information. The directive covers the four traffic offences which cause the most road casualties in Europe, namely speeding, driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, non-use of a seat belt and failing to stop at a red light. 

The European Parliament passed a resolution proposing up to one hundred measures to improve road safety in the European Union with key aim to better protect vulnerable road users (pedestrians, cyclists, children and the elderly). The resolution sets out recommendations on infrastructure, road signs, driver training, checks and vehicle equipment. It also calls for the rapid introduction of “intelligent” electronic safety equipment. Finally, it calls on the European Commission to draw up a 4th road safety action plan. 

ASECAP in cooperation with the Greek national road association TEO, organised a Road Safety Event in Athens. Road safety is the top priority in relation to the high-quality service delivered by the tolled motorways to their users. The high safety levels of motorways are commonly recognised and this fact was underlined by representatives from the European Parliament, the European Commission and the Greek authorities present at the event.

NTUA Prof. D.Tsamboulas presented ‘Deploying Road Safety In Europe A New Approach for managing Road Safety’. 

The Transportation Research Board (TRB) 90th Annual Meeting was held in Washington, D.C., in January 2011.  NTUA presented ‘Modeling traffic fatalities in Europe’. The objective of this paper is to provide a parsimonious model for linking motorization level with the decreasing fatality rates observed across EU countries during the last three decades.