The impressive decrease in road fatality figures in Greece of the last decade paused this year (2019), according to recently published ELSTAT provisional data. Compared to 2018 figures, in 2019 there has been no improvement in fatalities. However, during the last decade, Greece presents the most impressive road safety improvement in the European Union, with a decrease of road fatalities of 44% and a decrease of serious injuries of 63%. The rate fatalities per million vehicles has decreased by 44% since 2010.  It is noted that 2019 and 2015, two election years in Greece, together with 2016, were the only years since 2004 without significant decrease of road fatalities. 

The International Road Traffic and Accident Database (IRTAD) of the International Transport Forum (ITF/OECD) published the full version of the Road Safety Annual Report 2019, which provides an overview of road safety performance for 41 countries. The report outlines the most recent road safety developments and provides comparative data for the main road safety indicators. It also offers detailed analysis by road user, age group and types of road. It describes the crash data collection process in IRTAD countries, the road safety strategies and targets in place and information on recent trends in speeding, drink-driving and other aspects of road user behaviour.  

Since 55 years, the  International Road Federation (IRF) World Road Statistics (WRS) continue to be the major comprehensive, universal source of statistical data on road networks, traffic and inland transport, including traffic accidents. This year the WRS 2019 (data 2012-2017) features more than 205 countries, with data on over 45 road related topics, with the active contribution of NTUA for the Greek data. There is highest response rate in years, covering more countries than ever before and a brand new design and layout. 

The EU-funded EuroMed Transport Support Project (EuroMed) and World Health Organisation (WHO) released a joint Report titled: “Understanding and bridging the differences between country-reported and WHO-estimated road traffic fatality data“. It focuses on the considerable challenges in collecting complete, accurate and reliable road traffic fatality data that some countries worldwide are facing. Moreover, it attempts to explain the disparity between WHO estimates and country-reported data on road traffic fatality and provide suggestions on what steps countries can take to strengthen their data systems. 

The European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) published the 13th edition of PIN Annual Report , with the active contribution of NTUA, presented at the 2019 Annual PIN Conference which took place with great success on 19 June, 2019 in Brussels. According to this PIN Report, the new European figures show that the number of persons killed last year fell by just 1% and the EU target to cut road deaths in half over the decade to 2020 looks well out of reach.

Ireland was the winner of this year’s ETSC Road Safety Performance Index (PIN) award, being the second safest EU Member State in 2018, in terms of road mortality (road deaths per million inhabitants) and having moved up five places in the ranking of EU countries since 2010 when it held the 7th place.  

A paper titled “Safety Culture among Private and Professional Drivers in Norway and Greece: Examining the Influence of National Road Safety Culture” authored by Tor-Olav Nævestad, Alexandra Laiou, Ross O. Phillips, Torkel Bjørnskau and George Yannis is now published in Safety Journal. This study investigates road safety culture (RSC) as an explanation for this discrepancy by: (1) Comparing the road safety behaviours among professional and private drivers in Norway and Greece, (2) Examining factors influencing road safety behaviours, focusing especially on national road safety culture, and (3) Examining the influence of road safety behaviours and other factors (e.g., demographic and work-related variables) on accident involvement. The results indicate that aggressive violations are more similar among private and professional drivers within the national samples, than across the national samples, while seat belt use seems to vary according to the professional versus private dimension.  

The European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) has published the 37th PIN Flash Report “How to improve urban road safety in the EU“, with the active contribution of NTUA. This Report analyses the latest data urban road safety across the EU and other countries that form part of the ETSC Road Safety Performance Index (PIN) programme, and it conclude with more than twenty main recommendations for action at EU. It is highlighted that the problems can be addressed with the right political leadership, resources and energy. But while the EU, national governments and other actors can help provide the knowledge, finance and guidelines to implement the necessary changes, it will often be up to local authorities to implement them effectively.  A comprehensive infographic depicts current urban road safety in Europe, with Pedestrians, Motorcyclists and Cyclists accounting for 70% of all urban road fatalities. 

The International Transport Forum (ITF/OECD) published recently a new Report: “New Directions for Data-Driven Transport Safety”, with the active contribution of NTUA. This Report explores how seamless data collection, analysis and sharing can unlock innovations in transport safety. Very often most interventions to improve transport safety are reactions to incidents. However lately, connected vehicles, smartphone apps, ubiquitous sensors, data sharing and machine learning make proactive transport safety interventions possible and prevent crashes before they happen. Drawing on the Safe System approach, this Report examines how transport stakeholders can make better decisions by using more relevant and timely new safety data.  

Make Roads Safe Hellas in collaboration with the National Technical University of Athens, the University of Macedonia, the University of the Aegean, the Hellenic Open University and EASST, released a report titled: “International Tourism and Road Safety in Greece, Country Report 2019”. Make Roads Safe Hellas is a Non-Profit Organisation promoting road safety in Greece which hopes to gain momentum from their study and build support for the establishment of a Safe Tourism Network to ensure that road safety for tourists and travellers is given adequate attention, not just in Greece but across the globe. The Report is based on a survey of almost 1,500 international tourists visiting Athens, Chania, and Thessaloniki in 2018, as well on recent accident statistics from ELSTAT. 

The European Road Transport Research Advisory Council (ERTRAC) has published the “Safe Road Transport Roadmap – Towards Vision Zero: Roads without Victims”, with the active contribution of NTUA. The main objective of this ERTRAC roadmap is to provide a joint stakeholder view on the road safety research needs in Europe. The roadmap is based on the current state of the art and the identified challenges to reach the ambitious goals set for the EU. In this roadmap, ERTRAC proposes a set of eleven high priority road safety research and innovation needs, which should be implemented by providing ample room for citizens and road users themselves to engage.

The European Commission’s Directorate General for Mobility and Transport (DG Move) published a Report titled: “Transport in the European Union: Current Trends and Issues“. The Report sets out the key trends and issues for the single European transport area, the development of a safe transport infrastructure network across EU countries, and the external costs of transport, accompanied with the respective country analyses. Special emphasis is given to the consequences of road accidents.  

According to the EU road fatalities infographic of the NTUA Road Safety Observatory, thirteen countries have a better performance than the EU average, namely UK, Denmark, Ireland, Netherlands, Sweden, Malta, Germany, Spain, Finland, Slovenia, Austria, Slovakia, and France. Greece has been ranked 22nd in 2018 but has demonstrated the highest road fatalities rate reduction (51%) in the last decade, followed by Slovenia (48%), whereas the EU average 10-year reduction is 31%. 

The International Transport Forum (ITF/OECD) published recently a new Report: “Road Safety in European Cities – Performance Indicators and Governance Solutions”. This reports benchmarks road safety performance for 72 urban areas, mostly in Europe, and illustrates governance solutions to improve urban road safety with case studies conducted in Lisbon (Portugal) and Riga (Latvia). The report proposes new road safety indicators to assess the level of risk for each mode of transport. It finds that a modal shift away from private motor vehicles could significantly enhance road safety in dense urban areas and deliver public health benefits associated with increased physical activity and improved air quality.  

According to the European Commission preliminary statistics, fewer people died on European roads in 2018 but more efforts are needed to make a big leap forward. In 2018, there were around 25.100 fatalities in road accidents in the EU 28. This is a decrease of 21% compared to 2010, and 1% compared to 2017. The EU countries with the best road safety results in 2018 were the United Kingdom (28 deaths/million inhabitants), Denmark (30/million), Ireland (31/million), and Sweden (32/million), whereas the best improvement since 2010 was demonstrated by Greece (-45%) and Lithuania (-43%). With an average of 49 road deaths per one million inhabitants, this confirms that European roads are by far the safest in the world, but it also shows that we are off track to reach our target of halving the number of road deaths by 2020. 

According to Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT) data, 731 persons were killed in Greece in 2017: 507 drivers, 106 passengers and 118 pedestrians. Male drivers account for 66% of all road fatalities in Greece. Young male drivers aged 15-24 years old account for 16% of all male driver fatalities and older people account for more than 59% of all pedestrian fatalities. The higher accident severity was found in accidents involving older persons (6.4 fatalities per 100 accidents) and young people 15-24 years old (3.7 fatalities per 100 accidents). 

Road fatalities in Greece in 2018 presented, for second year in a row, a significant decrease (5.6%) compared to 2017 figures, according to recently published ELSTAT data. This significant decrease could be attributed not only to the fact that Greece is still under the effect of the economic crisis but also due to the fact that over the past two years, more than 500 km of new or upgraded motorways have replaced national roads with high road fatalities rates. 

During the last decade, Greece presents the most impressive road safety improvement in the European Union, with a decrease of road fatalities of 56% and a decrease of serious injuries of 60%. The rate fatalities per million vehicles has decreased by 59% since 2008.

The Global Road Safety Facility (GRSF), launched the GRSF 2018 Annual Report, highlighting its excellent record of delivery and long term funding for road safety. GRSF is a global partnership program administered by the World Bank, which was established in 2006 with a mission to help address the growing crisis of road traffic deaths and injuries in low and middle-income countries (LMICs).  

The European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) has published the 36th PIN Flash Report “Reducing Speeding in Europe“, with the active contribution of NTUA. The EU has the exclusive authority to set minimum safety standards for all new vehicles sold on the EU market. One of the main goals of this PIN Flash Report is to highlight the proposed standards which include mandatory fitment of overridable Intelligent Speed Assistance (ISA) on all cars, vans, buses and heavy goods vehicles. Research shows that this single technology could help to achieve a high level of compliance with speed limits and eventually cut road deaths by 20%.  

Basic characteristics of road fatalities in Greece for the period 1991-2017 are summarised in a comprehensive Table prepared by the NTUA Road Safety Observatory (data source: ELSTAT). Since 2007, there are approximately 900 less road fatalities per year in Greece. According to these time series data a spectacular decrease in road fatalities for children 0-14 years old (-71%), young drivers (-61%) and on motorways (-61%) is observed during the last decade. On the contrary, fatalities decrease during the last decade is quite limited for moped riders (-26%), older drivers (-28%) and at rural (36%) and urban (37%) junctions. 

Since 54 years, the  International Road Federation (IRF) World Road Statistics (WRS) continue to be the major comprehensive, universal source of statistical data on road networks, traffic and inland transport. This year the WRS 2018 (data 2011-2016) features more than 205 countries, with data on over 45 road related topics, with the active contribution of NTUA for the Greek data. What is highlighted this year is that freight transport is almost evenly split between road and rail in both Europe/ Central Asia region and North America. Passenger transport in these regions is essentially by road with 88% of passengers travelling by roads in Europe/Central Asia and 99% in North America. These statistics allow governments and urban planners to pinpoint where in the transport sector to focus their time and resources to ensure passenger safety and maximum economic benefits.  

According to Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT) data, 824 persons were killed in Greece in 2016: 548 drivers, 127 passengers and 149 pedestrians. Male drivers account for 62% of all road fatalities in Greece. Young male drivers aged 15-24 years old account for 14% of all male driver fatalities and older people account for more than 58% of all pedestrian fatalities. The higher accident severity was found in accidents involving older persons (7.9 fatalities per 100 accidents) and 0-4 years old children (6.1 fatalities per 100 accidents). 

The World Health Organisation (WHO) published an Interactive Map on Global Road Safety, based on the recently published Global Status Report on Road Safety 2018. This Interactive Map is a highly useful tool allowing to visualize a wealth of information and several road safety parameters per country as well as to highlight the shocking fact that every 23 seconds a road user looses their life. 

The World Health Organization (WHO) has published the 10 key facts on global road safety as derived from the recent Global health estimates and the Global status report on road safety, published in 2018. The first fact is that “Road traffic injuries are a global public health problem“. To reduce the number of road traffic deaths and injuries, a holistic framework such as the Safe System Approach needs to be adopted to ensure a safe transport system for all road users. 

The Global Status Report on Road safety 2018 has been published by World Health Organisation (WHO) with the active contribution of NTUA, in December 2018, highlighting insufficient progress as the number of annual road traffic deaths has reached 1.35 million. Road traffic injuries are now the leading killer of people aged 5-29 years. The report suggests that the price paid for mobility is too high, especially because proven measures exist. These include strategies to address speed and drinking and driving, among other behaviours; safer infrastructure like dedicated lanes for cyclists and motorcyclists; improved vehicle standards such as those that mandate electronic stability control; and enhanced post-crash care. Drastic action is needed to put these measures in place to meet any future global target that might be set and save lives.  

• Infographic – Road traffic injuries; the facts 
• Data visualization – Death on the roads 
• Press release 

A paper titled “Identification of patterns of driver speeding behaviour and safety margins from tangent to curve” authored by Eleonora Papadimitriou, Stergios Mavromatis, Dimosthenis Pavlou and George Yannis is now published in Advances in Transportation Studies. This paper presents a novel definition of drivers’ safety margins reflected in speed profiles on a tangent to curved road design. These safety margins are based on a vehicle dynamics model, which is implemented to assess the speed variation at impending skid conditions from tangent to curve on the basis of several parameters. Data from a driving simulator experiment are used to test the proposed methodology, explore driver’s speed profiles and the parameters affecting drivers’ safety margins. The results suggest that drivers’ safety margins towards the examined curve are considerable, with the majority of the drivers using less than 55% of the available vehicle engine power. 

On the occasion of the World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims, the European Commission presented the final Road Safety Figures for 2017, which show for the second year in a row a decrease by 2% of road fatalities in the EU compared to the previous year. European Coordinator for Road Safety Matthew Baldwin said: “Whilst European roads are the safest in the world, the downward curve has flattened out in past years. We still have many challenges ahead of us: I especially think of vulnerable road users, who– as the figures show- are making up a larger share of the casualties, especially in urban areas. We need an active, cooperative, holistic approach amongst all stakeholders to implement what we know needs to be done – the Safe System“.  

The European Commission’s Directorate-General for Research and Innovation published a Report titled “Analysis of the state of the art, barriers, needs and opportunities for setting up a Transport Research Cloud”, with the active contribution of NTUA Professor George Yannis. This Report focuses on the requirements for data sharing within the transport research community. In particular, the Report examines the potential of a Transport Research Cloud (TRC) as a subset of the European Union’s European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) initiative. Six domain experts collected data based on their personal experiences, contacts, prior research and a survey sent out to other researchers in the transport domain to enable a preliminary analysis concerning the needs, barriers and potential benefits for the domain should a TRC be realized. Road Safety constitutes a major component of this Transport Research Cloud.