Road Safety Knowledge
Road Safety Knowledge concerns published scientific papers, conference presentations, research results, technical reports, as well as syntheses, manuals and guidelines attempting to shed light into several contemporary road safety issues.
Road Design
Road interventions
Signing
Lighting
Equipment
Workzones
Junctions
Urban safety
Rural roads
Motorways
Traffic
Weather
Impact assessment
Audit & inspection
High risk sites
Safety assessment
e-safety
Safety equipment
Vehicle Inspection
Culture
Strategy
Measures
International comparisons
Data analysis
Accident severity
Driving Simulator
Naturalistic Driving
Measures Assessment
Social cost
Post impact care
Work related safety
A paper titled “Which factors lead to driving errors? A structural equation model analysis through a driving simulator experiment” authored by Panagiotis Papantoniou, George Yannis and Eleni Christofa is published in Journal of IATSS. Data were obtained from a driving simulation experiment in which 95 participants covering all ages were asked to drive under different types of distraction (no distraction, conversation with passenger, cell phone use) in rural and urban road environment, as well as in both low and high traffic conditions. Structural Equation Models were developed and the driving error was modeled as a latent variable based on several individual driving simulator parameters. The results of this complex model reveal that the impact of driver characteristics and area type are the only statistically significant factors affecting the probability of driving errors. Interestingly, neither conversing with a passenger nor talking on the cell phone have a statistically significant impact on driving error behaviour which highlights the importance of the present analysis and more specifically the development of a measure that represents overall driving error behaviour instead of individual driving errors variables. 
The Sustainable Mobility for All Initiative (SuM4All), World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), and the International Road Federation (IRF) have launched a Report titled Sustainable Mobility: Policy Making for Data Sharing. The Report draws attention to the need for policy guidance for data sharing between public and private sector stakeholders in the transportation sector. Increasing digitalization of mobility can accelerate the transition toward sustainable urban mobility. 
The World Bank Global Road Safety Facility (GRSF) has published a Report titled: Road Crash Trauma, Climate Change, Pollution and the Total Costs of Speed: Six graphs that tell the story. The purpose of this Report is to provide information on the relationships relevant to fundamental road transport policies, design, and operation. Well-established evidence shows the importance of managing travel speeds for road safety, for efficiency, for improved inclusion, and for greenhouse gas and other emissions.
The World Bank Global Road Safety Facility (GRSF), under the new BIGRS Program 2020-2025, hosts the Speed Management Hub. In this platform, the GRSF team provides evidence-based road safety knowledge to help manage speed through infrastructure interventions, effective enforcement, targeted awareness measures, and vehicle technology. Key engagements from this focus area include the provision of technical expertise to program partners, countries and cities on speed management and the preparation and publication of Global Speed Management Guidelines.
The World Bank Global Road Safety Facility (GRSF) announced the launch of their newly redesigned website: roadsafetyfacility.org. This project provides better access to the use of GRSF research and products will improve guidance and advocacy actions to address the global road safety crisis. Some of the new features of this site are Interactive Road Safety Country Profiles, Speed Management Hub and DRIVER platform.
The European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) has recently published the PIN Flash Report 40 titled: Are Medical Fitness to Drive Procedures Fit for Purpose? with the active contribution of NTUA. This Report examines the current state of play in PIN countries regarding the assessment of medical fitness to drive, with reference to the 2006 EU Directive on Driving Licence and recommends that a standardised screening process be considered across all Member States when assessing a driver’s fitness to drive. The process should be based on international best practice and ideally, consistent across all jurisdictions.
An NTUA Diploma Thesis titled “Impact of pandemic to mobility behavior in the European Union using time-series analysis” was recently presented by Marianthi Kallidoni. This Diploma Thesis revealed that school closing is the most important exogenous factor for describing driving or walking, while the effect of “Stay at home” orders was not a significant factor for the evolution of people movements. In addition, countries which suffered the most due to the pandemic showed a strong correlation with the restrictive measures. Furthermore, no time-series models were found to describe the countries which implemented weak countermeasures. 
An NTUA Diploma Thesis titled “Investigation of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mobility in Greece using time series analysis” was recently presented by Eleni Blatsouka. This Diploma Thesis shows that the closing of educational institutions and lockdown are the most important exogenous factors for describing mobility, while the curfew and the mandatory use of mask in all public areas are not significant factors. In addition, seasonal models appear to produce better forecasts than the non-seasonal ones.
An NTUA Diploma Thesis titled “Time Series Analysis of Vehicle and Pedestrian Traffic in Athens” was recently presented by Nick Economou. The result of this Diploma Thesis is that from summer onwards the forecasted mobility evolution of drivers and pedestrians in Athens Great Area is lower than the observed one, which may be due to summer holidays and high temperatures during summer months in which the prediction was based. Considering the modal split on the examined roads in the center of Athens, it is observed a reduction in the use of passenger vehicles with a simultaneous increase in the use of taxis, which may be due to the adaptation of drivers to the new traffic conditions of the Panepistimiou street brought about by the Athens Great Walk pilot operation.
An NTUA Diploma Thesis titled “Impact of weather conditions and rush on road safety” was recently presented by Giota Spanou. This Diploma Thesis shows that snow and rain lead to a significant increase in the probability of an accident. Fog increases the accident probability only in the event of a dangerous event. Also, time pressure seems to have the same effects as snow, a fact that should concern drivers.
An NTUA Diploma Thesis titled “Correlation of declared and revealed driver behaviour using smartphone sensors” was recently presented by Nadia Kokkali. The result of this study is that driving experience, driver age, number of injury accidents in which the driver was involved, vehicle age, fines received by the driver during the last 3 years are all variables associated with increased harsh events. In most of the cases, a convergence between stated and revealed behaviour was observed.
The European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) has recently published a Report titled: Road Safety Priorities for the EU: Briefing to Members of the European Parliament. In this briefing, ETSC outlines its recommendations to MEPs on what can be done to reach the new 2030 road safety targets, as input to the European Parliament’s Own Initiative Report on Road Safety. The Road Safety Framework proposes eight new Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) against which EU Member State performance will be analysed to set outcome targets based on the indicators.
The Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) partnership with iRAP’s award-winning Star Rating for Schools (SR4S) programme, delivered the FIA School Assessment Toolkit to identify high-risk schools, establish and conduct safety assessments, communicate results and scale-up outcomes.The Toolkit provides over 30 knowledge documents, guidelines and templates to plan, resource, apply and advocate for school zone improvements that will save children’s lives by delivering a 3-star or better journey to school.
A new book titled ‘Highway Safety Analytics and Modeling‘ authored by Dominique Lord, Xiao Qin, Srinivas R. Geedipally, has been recently published. This book covers the key elements needed for making effective transportation engineering and policy decisions based on highway crash data analysis. It covers all aspects of the decision-making process, from collecting and assembling data to making decisions based on the results of the analyses. The book discusses the challenges with crash and naturalistic data, identifying problems and proposing best methods to solving them. It examines the nuances associated with crash data analysis, showing how to develop countermeasures, policies, and programs to reduce the frequency and severity of traffic crashes
A new book titled “Road safety. Technical solutions to a behavioural and technological problem with a scientific approach” authored by Pasquale Colonna, Vittorio Ranieri, Nicola Berloco and Paolo Intini was published on December 2020. This book is aimed to provide both the scientific background and an operational framework for safety enhancement of existing roads, applicable regardless of the specific country and to prioritise the human value thanks to the benefits from reduced severe crashes.
The European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) has recently published a Report titled: The Impact of COVID-19 on Traffic Safety and Mobility Education. The Report focuses on the effect of the restrictions imposed by most European Governments in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In particular the closure of schools, affected the provision of traffic safety and mobility education in their country, their work related to it, and how they adapted to it. The potential for Traffic Safety and Mobility Education improvement during and after the pandemic is discussed.
Together for Safer Roads (TSR), together with presenting sponsors UPS foundation and CalAmp, announced a vision zero technology fund to support fleet safety in essential services and purpose-based organizations. The fund will underwrite the adoption of lifesaving vehicle technologies and will assist in its implementation among essential service organizations’ fleet operations.
The Horizon 2020 project HADRIAN (Holistic Approach for Driver Role Integration and Automation Allocation for European Mobility Needs) published recently the 1st HADRIAN Newsletter. One-year technical work is presented, highlighting the HADRIAN operational concept for improved driver role for automated driving and the respective driver state monitoring capability and HMI approach, together with related safety and impact assessment and the elaboration of ethical and legal implications for automated driving.
The Forum of European Road Safety Research Institutes (FERSI) published a Paper titled “E-scooters in Europe: legal status, usage and safety“, which presents the legal status, usage and safety of e-scooters in 18 European countries. Many countries are working on more targeted or more elaborate legislation. Οbjective information about numbers, safety, users and their behaviour is scarce and needs to be strengthened.
The Forum of European Road Safety Research Institutes (FERSI) published a Position Paper titled “Towards an evidence-based national road safety programme“. The paper intends to offer guidance to Member States on developing a national road safety programme. Its main message is that a road safety programme must be based on scientifically sound evidence in order to ensure that it focuses on the most relevant issues and implements the most appropriate treatments.
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), recently released a Report titled “Global Trade in Used Vehicles“, which looks at 146 countries that import used vehicles, and calls for action to regulate the trade through the adoption of a set of harmonized minimum quality standards. These would ensure used vehicles contribute to cleaner and safer fleets in recipient countries. UNEP and partners will address these issues, initially with a project focused on Africa.
The Road Safety GB organised with great success the 6th conference titled “Joining the Dots“, held online on March 2021. This conference focused on pressing topics facing the profession in this exceptional year and beyond including; changes in travel choice, the impact on roads casualties, shifting road user behaviour and predicting modal shift towards active travel. The recordings of the presentations are now available: NTUA actively contributed with the following presentation: Impact of COVID-19 on driver behaviour in Greece and selected countries
The recordings of the presentations are now available: NTUA actively contributed with the following presentation: Impact of COVID-19 on driver behaviour in Greece and selected countries
The fourth Newsletter of the Horizon 2020 project BeOpen (European forum and observatory for open science in transport) was recently released with all the past 6 months achievements, including activities and deliverables. The project’s goal is to progress beyond the state-of-the-art, developing an appropriate regulatory framework and policies to support innovation and deployment.
The Horizon 2020 project i-DREAMS (smart Driver and Road Environment Assessment and Monitoring System) recently released its 3rd Newsletter, presenting the main accomplishments of the project, through creative solutions and risk mitigation strategies. The newsletter overviews the progress of the project during 2020, and highlights the technical results of project deliverables, spanning from the theoretical modelling of the Safety Tolerance Zone and the active and post-trip intervention strategies to the practical organization of the 6-month field trial experiment and the corresponding hardware and software developed from the consortium.
The 4th ESRA2 Webinar took place with great success on 16 December 2020 including the NTUA presentation titled: “Moped drivers and Motorcyclists”. This presentation was based on the results of the ESRA2 Thematic Report titled “Moped drivers and motorcyclists” focusing on key PTW attitudes from a survey that collected data from more than 35,000 road users across 32 countries worldwide. Speeding, drink and drive, helmet use and mobile phone distraction as well as self-declared safety perception of using mopeds and motorcycles, were among the key issues highlighted.
The European Commission (DG Move) has recently developed the Sustainable Urban Mobility Indicators, which is a set of practical and reliable indicators that support cities to perform a standardised evaluation of their mobility system and to measure improvements that result from new mobility practices or policies. Two out of the 18 mobility indicators concern key urban road safety indicators to be jointly considered within the new urban sustainable mobility policies. The complete set of indicators is now available
The complete set of indicators is now available 
The European Commission (DG Move) recently presented the EU Sustainable and Smart Mobility Strategy together with an Action Plan of 82 initiatives (several of which aim to promote and enhance road safety), which lay the foundation for how the EU transport system can achieve its green and digital transformation .
Commissioner for Transport Adina Vălean said: “As the backbone that connects European citizens and business, transport matters to us all. Digital technologies have the potential to revolutionise the way we move, making our mobility smarter, more efficient, and also greener”.
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Commissioner for Transport Adina Vălean said: “As the backbone that connects European citizens and business, transport matters to us all. Digital technologies have the potential to revolutionise the way we move, making our mobility smarter, more efficient, and also greener”.
The European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) has recently published a Report titled: Alcohol Interlocks in Europe: An Overview of Current and Forthcoming Programmes. This new Report aims at providing a more practical approach showing how each country has implemented their national scheme or intend to implement it in the future. It also identifies strengths and weaknesses to advocate for more effective measures and to inspire other Member States to deliver successful programmes.
The IRF Data Warehouse is a web-based global road data platform and warehouse that can complement and support national and regional efforts to collect and manage data. The IRF Data Warehouse also contributes to capacity-building and advocacy activities on a number of topics and in particular, road safety. The entire time series of the IRF World Road Statistics enables immediate and effective data analysis and is complemented by a series of dashboards and interactive data visualisation tools.
The World Road Association – PIARC published a Report titled “Prevention and Mitigation of Tunnel-Related Collisions”. This report presents and recommends possible organizational and technical measures one can implement to lower the probability or the mechanical consequences of tunnel related collisions, that is, collisions in which the specific characteristics of a tunnel play a role in either the cause or the effect.
