A paper titled “Structural equation model analysis for the evaluation of overall driving performance: A driving simulator study focusing on driver distraction” authored by Panagiotis Papantoniou is now published in Traffic Injury Prevention, Volume 19, 2018 – Issue 3, pp. 317-325. 95 participants from all age groups were asked to drive under different types of distraction (conversation with passenger, cell phone use) in urban and rural road environments with low and high traffic volume in a driving simulator experiment. Then, a structural equation model is developed in which overall driving performance is estimated as a latent variable based on several individual driving simulator measures. The implementation of the structural equation model allows for the assessment of driving behaviour in terms of overall performance and not through individual performance measures, which allows an important scientific step forward from piecemeal analyses to a sound combined analysis of the interrelationship between several risk factors and overall driving performance.. 

Basic characteristics of road fatalities in Greece for the period 1991-2016 are summarised in a comprehensive Table prepared by the NTUA Road Safety Observatory (data source: ELSTAT). Since 2005, there are approximately 1.000 less road fatalities per year in Greece. According to these time series data a spectacular decrease in road fatalities for young people (70%) and in junctions outside built up areas (72%) is observed during the last decade. On the contrary, fatalities decrease during the last decade is quite limited for cyclists, older drivers, and women drivers. 

The Overseas Development Institute (ODI) launched a publication titled “Securing safe roads: the politics of change” which is an output of the project: The politics of road safety. Over the past 10 years, road safety has been escalated to an issue of international concern. Together with the World Resources Institute Ross Center for Sustainable Cities, ODI undertook research in three middle-income cities: Nairobi, Kenya; Mumbai, India; and Bogotá, Colombia. In this report, ODI synthesizes the findings from these case studies concluding with a series of strategies to improve road safety.  

POLIS, the European cities and regions network for innovative transport solutions released a discussion paper entitled: “Road Vehicle Automation and Cities and Regions”. Polis promotes the discussion about vehicle automation, focusing on the car as opposed to lorries and buses and on ‘personal mobility’ rather than logistics. The aims of this paper are among others: a) to raise awareness of AV developments and their potential mobility and safety impact among city and regional administrations and to assist them in setting transport policies and plans to deal with them and b) to raise awareness of city and regional transport policies among vehicle manufacturers and other automated vehicle players.  

The European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) has published a Position Paper titled “EU Funds for Road Safety in the Multiannual Financial Framework 2021-2027“. In this paper, ETSC presents recommendations for funding for road safety initiatives within the next long-term EU budget, known as the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF). These recommendations should support work towards meeting the EU’s current target to reduce road deaths by 50% by 2020 and the new targets for 2030 as well as the long-term Vision Zero.  

Road fatalities in Greece in 2017 presented a significant decrease (10%) compared to 2016 figures, according to recently published ELSTAT data. This significant decrease could be attributed not only to the fact that Greece is still under economic crisis but also and mainly due to the fact that in the first semester of 2017, more than 500 km on new or upgraded motorways have been opened, replacing national roads with high road fatalities rates. 

During the last decade, Greece presents one of the most significant road safety performances in the European Union, with a decrease of road fatalities of 54% and a decrease of serious injuries of 62%. The rate fatalities per million vehicles has decreased by 59% since 2007.

The European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) has published the 34th PIN Flash Report “New EU vehicle safety standards essential to reducing child road deaths“. More than 8,000 children aged 0-14 years have been killed in road traffic collisions over the last ten years in the European Union, new data show. Half of the children killed were travelling in cars, a third were walking and 13% were cycling. ETSC says that measures that can reduce speeding are critical to preventing the deaths of more children and is calling for the EU to require vehicle safety technologies such as Intelligent Speed Assistance (ISA) and Automated Emergency Braking (AEB) that can detect pedestrians and cyclists to be fitted as standard on all new cars. 

Jean Todt, United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Road Safety stated that: SafeFITS provides a tool to help Member States review their current road safety situation and priorities, assisting them to determine the most appropriate and beneficial policy options for their national context, under the framework of the Decade of Action for Road Safety.

World Health Organisation (WHO) Regional Office for Europe released Facts Sheets with key facts and figures, ongoing commitments, guidance on action, and indicators to monitor progress of the Sustainable Development Goals health targets, regarding Road Safety  :

• SDG target 3.6: by 2020, halve the number of global deaths and injuries from road traffic accidents and
• SDG target 11.2: by 2030, provide access to safe, affordable, accessible and sustainable transport systems for all, improving road safety, notably by expanding public transport, with special attention to the needs of those in vulnerable situations, women, children, people with disabilities and older people.

European Commission’s Directorate General for Mobility and Transport (DG-MOVE) released the sixth and final Research Theme Analysis Report, covering the Transport Safety research theme, produced under the Transport Research & Innovation Portal (TRIP) continuation project, with the active contribution of NTUA. This Research Theme Analysis Report provides a robust and thorough assessment of the results from several European road safety projects and highlights the perspectives from scientific and policy points of view. 

According to the ELSTAT final road accidents data for 2015 in Greece, 40% of road fatalities are passenger car occupants, whereas almost 30% of road fatalities are power two wheelers (the highest percentage in the European Union). Most car occupant fatalities occur outside built-up areas while most motorcycle and pedestrian fatalities occur inside built-up areas. Accident severity is five times higher outside built-up areas for all transport modes. 

The European Union Road Federation (ERF) has released the Road Statistics Yearbook 2017” with the active contribution of NTUA. As for many years, this publication provides the road community with important updated information on road transport sector and road infrastructure in Europe and beyond as an essential key element of the global mobility with one section focusing on road safety.  

The International Transport Forum (ITF) released the updated version of the Transport Database including the Road Injury Accidents Database with the latest data (2016). The database includes data on road injury accidents and road casualties in 53 countries, covering years from 2000 to 2016. The interactive design of the database gives the opportunity to export data, draw charts, and make dynamic queries. 

Sustainable Mobility for All (SuM4All) released the Global Mobility Report: the first-ever study to assess the global performance of the transport sector and the progress made toward four main objectives: universal access, efficiency, road safety, and green mobility. The publication covers all modes of transport, including road, air, waterborne, and rail transport. According to the report, the world is not on track to achieving sustainable mobility. Apart from being inaccessible to many of the world’s most vulnerable, the transport sector today is plagued by high fossil fuel use, rising greenhouse gas emissions, air and noise pollution, an alarming number of road fatalities, and a reluctance to embrace digitalization.  

The Directorate General for Mobility and Transport (DG Move) of the European Commission released the Statistical Pocketbook 2017 ‘EU Transport in figures‘. In this Statistical Pocketbook, key road safety Tables are contained, together with several other Tables on transport statistics, providing a complete picture of current trends in transport in Europe. Data on road fatalities for the EU member states and associate countries allow for time series comparisons and country rankings. 

The International Road Traffic and Accident Database (IRTAD) of the International Transport Forum (ITF/OECD) published the full version of the Annual Report 2017, which provides an overview of road safety performance for 2015 in 40 countries, with preliminary data for 2016, and detailed reports for each country. It includes tables with cross country comparisons on key safety indicators and puts special emphasis on road safety for an ageing population, which represents a growing concern in many countries. The positive trend over the last few years of reduced road fatalities did not continue in 2015 and 2016. The 31 IRTAD member countries registered a 3.3% increase in road fatalities in 2015 compared to 2014. Finally, in 2016, the number of fatalities increased in 14 countries. 

The SafetyCube European Road Safety Decision Support System (DSS) was recently launched, developed within EU Horizons 2020 research project SafetyCube with the active contribution of NTUA. SafetyCube DSS is a long waited powerful tool offering for the first time worldwide, scientific evidence on the effects of a large number of road safety risks and related countermeasures on behaviour, infrastructure, vehicle and post-crash care, providing a wealth of scientific evidence to support road safety decision making.  

NTUA presentation in the launch event concerned:  SafetyCube – the European Road Safety Decision Support System

The Global Alliance of NGOs for Road Safety, launched its new publication “Walking the Talk“, which describes the response of the Global Alliance of NGOs for Road Safety and its member NGOs to the call for action represented by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with focus on SDG 3.6 (“By 2020, halve the number of global deaths and injuries from road traffic accidents.”) and 11.2 (“By 2030, provide access to safe, affordable, accessible, and sustainable transport systems for all.”).  

EuroNCAP launched its Road Map 2025, setting out for the first time the programme’s priorities for the mobility and technological revolution the auto industry is just beginning to experience. The objective is to offer clarity and confidence to motoring consumers, highlighting new automated driving technologies and raising awareness of their benefits whilst also helping to ensure their safety potential is fully realised.   

European Commission launched a report following the C-ITS Platform Phase I report from January 2016 and addresses the common technical and legal framework necessary for the deployment of C-ITS and also takes the needs and possibilities of higher levels of automation into consideration. Following an invitation of the European Commission, industry representatives and public authorities have agreed on a further developed shared vision on the inter-operable deployment of Cooperative Intelligent Transport Systems (C-ITS) towards cooperative, connected and automated mobility (CCAM) in the European Union.  

A paper titled “Comparative assessment of the behaviour of drivers with Mild Cognitive Impairment or Alzheimer’s disease in different road and traffic conditions” authored by Dimosthenis Pavlou, Eleonora Papadimitriou, Costas Antoniou, Panagiotis Papantoniou, George Yannis, John Golias and Sokratis G. Papageorgiou, is now published in Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour, Volume 47, May 2017, pp. 122-131. The objective of this research was the analysis of the driving performance of drivers with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) or Alzheimer’s disease (AD), in different road and traffic conditions, on the basis of a driving simulator experiment. The results of this research suggest that compensatory behaviours developed by impaired drivers are not adequate to counterbalance the direct effects of these cerebral diseases on driving skills. They also demonstrate that driving impairments increase as cognitive impairments become more severe (from MCI to AD). 

United Nations launched the 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. This Report provides an account of activities undertaken and achievements attained by the global road safety community in pursuance of the objectives of the Decade of Action for Road Safety (2011 -2020) and of target 6 of Sustainable Development Goal 3 (halving road traffic deaths and injuries by 2020). A number of notable high-level events were held in the intervening period, including the activities of the EU Horizons 2020 Research project SaferAfrica – African-European Dialogue Platform on Road Safety with the active contribution of NTUA. The Report concludes with a number of recommendations to the Assembly for achieving the goals of the Decade of Action and Sustainable Development Goal target 3.6. 

According to ELSTAT data, the majority of road accidents and fatalities in Greece occur during clear sky, both inside and outside built-up area. However, both road accidents and fatalities share outside built-up areas is much higher during rainy conditions than normal conditions of clear sky. Furthermore, accident severity is increased by 50% during raining especially inside built-up areas.

A Diploma Thesis titled “Analysis of the effect of economic recession on road safety in Greece” was presented by Christos Batsos in September 2017. For this analysis, suitably processed road accident data during the period 2003-2014 have been exploited. It appears that the economic recession has led to a significant reduction in fatalities and serious injuries. The principal mechanisms bringing this decline about are the reduction of accidents with involvement of passenger cars, of young drivers and outside traffic junctions. These results indicate that apart from the decline of vehicle kilometers of travel, changes in road user behaviour might have contributed significantly to the overall improvement of road safety during the economic crisis.  

A Diploma Thesis titled “Modelling mobile phone use impact on driver behaviour through the exploitation of data from smartphone sensors” was presented by Anastasia Argyropoulou in July 2017. The aim of this Diploma Thesis was to examine and model the impact of mobile phone use on driver behaviour through the exploitation of data from smartphone sensors. To achieve this objective, data collected from 100 drivers who participated at a naturalistic driving experiment for four months were analysed through statistical modelling. The application of the models revealed that the factors affecting the harsh events are five, with the average driving speed being the main one, while the factors affecting the possibility of using the mobile phone while driving are six, with the average angular speed being the main one.  

A paper titled “Meta-analysis of the effect of road work zones on crash occurrence” authored by Athanasios Theofilatos, Apostolos Ziakopoulos, Eleonora Papadimitriou, George Yannis, and  Konstandinos Diamandouros is now published in Accident Analysis and Prevention. This paper presents formal meta-analyses of studies that have estimated the relationship between the number of crashes and work zone duration and length, in order to provide overall estimates of those effects on crash frequencies. All studies presented in this paper are crash prediction models with similar specifications. Meta-regression findings indicate that the main factors influencing the overall estimates of the beta coefficients are study year and region for work zone duration and study year and model specification for work zone length. 

According to the latest ELSTAT data for 2015, most road fatalities in Greece occur at daytime and at night with good street lighting inside built-up area, or with no street lighting outside built-up area. Accident severity is increased 3 to 7 times more at night with no street lighting or no street lighting, but also at night accidents outside built-up areas. 

The Road Safety Unit of DG Move of the European Commission published recently the 2016 Edition of the EU Annual Road Accidents Report  and the respective Infographics  with the active contribution of NTUA, KFV and ERF. The EU Annual Road Accidents Report is based on most recent disaggregate data for all EU countries from the CARE Database of the European Commission and consist of summary and cross-country comparative tables, figures and maps on key road safety topics for which data comparable across the EU counties are available.