The World Road Association – PIARC, within its knowledge sharing year-long campaign for “boosting Road Safety in LMICs”, made public a comprehensive synthesis on Speed Safety, as presented by the Member of the Technical Committee 3.1 “Road Safety”, John Barrell, with the active contribution of NTUA. This synthesis contains the key speed safety fundamentals and issues together with the corresponding measures and recommendations for road safety Authorities and decision makers.   

The European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) published a new LEARN! Flash Report titled Linking Education on Sustainable Mobility with Traffic Safety. The Report focuses on how education on traffic safety and sustainable mobility can be linked and supported to ensure that children receive high-quality education that teaches them to move around safely and sustainably. The Report also examines how schools, parents and municipalities can promote safe and sustainable mobility outside of formal education.   

SuM4All together with the International Road Federation published a new Report titled Enhancing Policy and Action for Safe Mobility that provides practical guidance, case studies, and resources to help countries implement the Safe System approach. It advocates for several key steps towards safer roads: managing speeds more effectively, rethinking the design of streets and highways, leveraging vehicle technology, improving post-crash care, strengthening traffic law enforcement, reforming licensing systems, and promoting alternatives to private car use.   

The Global Road Safety Partnership has published a guide to the use of penalties to improve road safety. This guide provided direction on how a suite of penalties can be used to deter road users from behaviours that either cause or worsen road trauma. It will serve as reference for governments wanting to improve their penalty systems to maximise their impact on improving road safety. Penalties for traffic offences are a critical component of behaviour change techniques that have been used extensively with the aim of encouraging road users to comply with traffic laws and to use the road system safely. 

The Global Road Safety Partnership has published a Guide to Assist the Implementation of Child Restraint Systems in Low- and Middle-Income Countries.  This Technical Guide is intended to assist the introduction of child restraint into a country once the political commitment has been made to create the necessary regulations. It has been developed to complement an international programme of work undertaken by the Global Road Safety Partnership to improve the safety of children when using the road. 

The Global Road Safety Partnership  has developed a number of practical “how-to-guides” around advocacy campaign planning. There are four main sets: the general advocacy campaign toolkit, policy implementation campaign toolkit, media advocacy toolkit and the  GRSP Positin Papers.  The latter are designed to create an understanding of the scale of road traffic deaths and injuries and their linkages to other humanitarian and development issues.

The European Commission has published the results of the Baseline project on  8 key performance indicators that influence road safety in Europe, with the active contribution of  NTUA. This study aimed to give a clearer understanding of road safety performance in the participating Member States. The key performance indicators addressed in this project were on speeding, distraction; use of seatbelts and child restraint systems; use of helmets; vehicle safety; infrastructure safety and quality of post-crash care. This project is the biggest effort ever undertaken in Europe (and beyond) in the field of data collection and analysis for road safety performance indicator a road safety strategies and monitorings at national and European level.   

The World Health Organization has released a Road Safety Manual for decision-makers and practitioners concerning Powered Two- and Three-Wheeler (PTW) Safety. This second edition of the Powered  Two – and Three -Wheeler Safety Manual help to put the laws, frameworks and actions in place to reduce deaths and injuries involving PTWs. Rooted in successful actions and new evidence, this updated manual examines the extent of PTW-related fatalities and injuries, and the importance of addressing the key risk factors.  

The World Health Organization has released a Road Safety Manual for decision-makers and practitioners concerning the occupant restraints. This second edition of a road safety manual for decision – makers and practinioners provide evidence, advice and examples that will lead to increased use of occupant restraints as safety devices at the national level. The evidence and the good practices are in particular from low- and middle-income countries and the adoption of the United Nations Decade of Action for Road Safety 2021–2030 and the need to implement a Safe SystemApproach.

The International Transport Forum (ITF) has recently published a new Report titled ‘‘Measuring New Mobility: definitions, indicators, and data collection”. This report proposes a comprehensive classification of “New Mobility” services and vehicles that are changing the way people travel. It also identifies performance indicators to help set the right policies as New Mobility evolves. It sets out a framework to systematically collect and compare New Mobility-related data.  

The World Health Organization has released a Road Safety Manual for decision-makers and practitioners concerning helmets. This second edition of a road safety manual for decision – makers and partitioners help to put the laws, frameworks and actions in place to boost the availability and uptake of quality, life-saving helmets. Rooted in successful actions and evidence, this updated manual includes helmet law, helmet standards, enforcement and education.  

The World Road Association – PIARC recently published a literature review with an overview of numerous big data sources and the data-processing methods that can be used to analyse data for road condition monitoring. This review focuses on solutions that allow data to be collected quickly, in real time and repeatedly, e.g. via CAN bus, smartphones, digital imagery, open data, crowdsourced data, satellites etc. Also, a summary of several completed or ongoing projects that have utilised many of the big data sources is included in this document. 

The World Road Association – PIARC recently published a Report titled “Good Practices in Maintenance and Traffic Operation of Heavily Trafficked Urban Road Tunnels“. This report makes amends in detailing the topic of maintenance and operation from traffic management, to design and renovation. Maintenance and operation of heavily trafficked urban road tunnels is one of, if not the most outstanding challenge for authorities, owners, operators and designers of tunnels. Challenges and good practices on traffic management, maintenance, incident management, communication management, the reduction of nuisance and initial design of heavily trafficked urban road tunnels can be found in this report.

The World Health Oganisation (WHΟ) and the Global Alliance of NGOs for Road Safety have recently published a Guide for Non-Govermental Organizations on Advocating for Emergency Care. The Guide defines the role that Non-Governmental organizations can have in advocating on behalf of people who need emergency care, including those injured in road traffic crashes. From reviewing the current state of emergency care services in a country to using social media to share information, encourage debate and create a community of supporters, the guide offers step-by-step actions for more effective and impactful advocacy.  

Τhe European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) is calling for the European Union and European national governments to make Anti-lock Braking Systems (ABS) mandatory on all new motorcycles in a new report, titled Reducing Road Deaths among Powered Two Wheeler Users. This Report examines the state of motorcycling safety in Europe and revealed that 3,891 people died while riding a motorcycle or moped in the EU in 2021. That figure is 25% lower than a decade earlier but, over the same period, other road deaths fell by a third.   

Τhe European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) has published the 44th PIN Flash Report titled Reducing Road Deaths among Powered Two Wheeler Users. This Report examines the latest data on PTW user road deaths from across the EU and other countries that form part of ETSC’s Road Safety Performance Index (PIN) programme. It also looks at the at the main measures for reducing the risks to PTW users including training, licensing, infrastructure, technical inspections, the use of protective equipment and new technologies.  

An NTUA Diploma Thesis called “Analysis of the acceptance and cost benefit analysis of reducing the speed limit to 80 km/h on the interurban road network in Greece” was recently presented by Stylianos Peithis. For the purpose of this Diploma Thesis,  a special questionnaire was developed and answered by 408 travellers, from different parts of Greece, based on the stated preference method for 10 hypothetical scenarios with variations of the variables travel time, fuel consumption and probability of road accident with serious injury. The analysis calculated the investment costs and the impacts on traffic, road safety and the environment expressed in monetary units and showed that the reduction of the speed limit to 80 km/h on the interurban road network in Greece is considered to be economically very positive for society, with a positive economic Net Present Value (ENPV=€170.7 million) and a high ERR (ERR=39.1%).   

An NTUA Diploma Thesis called “Investigating the influence of mobile phone use on driving behavior with Machine Learning analysis of imbalanced data” was recently presented by Konstantinos-Eirinaios Kaselouris. For classification and regression of mobile phone usage, telematics data from the OSeven telematics company, collected from naturalistic measurements, were used. Mobile phone use was defined as an indicator of risky behaviour and classification was performed on two levels of driving behaviour (risky and not risky). Variables related to travel speed were found to be the most significant independent variables, while according to the classification evaluation metrics, the most appropriate model was considered to be that of ‘Linear Discriminant Analysis’.  

An NTUA Diploma Thesis called “Analysis of seatbelt and helmet use characteristics in Greece” was recently presented by Nikolaos Lagonikakos. For the purpose of this Diploma Thesis, data were collected from field observations during November-December 2021 in Greece and are related to seatbelt and helmet use, driver’s age and gender, the type of vehicle, the weather conditions, the time period and the road type in three areas (Athens, Thessaloniki and Larisa). Regarding the statistical models of seatbelt and helmet use by drivers, the results demonstrated that female drivers are more likely to use their seatbelt compared to male drivers. With regard to age, middle-aged and elderly drivers present lower probabilities of using a seatbelt while driving, compared to young drivers. Moreover, in adverse weather conditions the probability of using a helmet is lower in comparison with good weather conditions.  

The International Transport Forum (ITF) has recently published a new Report titled “Shaping Post-Covid Mobility in Cities“. This Report explores how urban mobility changed during the pandemic, focusing on changes in how people work, examining also implications on safety. Based on a review of international best practices, the report provides recommendations for better urban mobility in a post-Covid world.  

Τhe European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) together with the UK Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety (PACTS) recently published a new Report titled “Recommendations on Safety of E-scooters“. The Report is in response to the rapid growth of e-scooter usage over the last five years and an associated increase in deaths and serious injuries. It takes into account a wide body of available data, hospital studies, vehicle safety testing and research from across Europe and beyond. 

iRAP with the suport of FIA Foundation and the Transport Accident Commission (TAC) has created the iRAP Safety insights Explorer, which can shine a light on the true scale road crashes, the safety of the world’s roads, and the positive impact that can be made with investment. With the iRAP Safety Insights Explorer you can explore: Estimates of the numbers and types of injuries that occur for every country by age and sex, star Ratings and key design attributes for more than 502,000km of roads in 84 countries, the business case for investing in safer roads, including the life-saving impact of ensuring that most travel occurs on roads rated 3-stars or better for everyone for every country. 

The World Road Association – PIARC recently published a Report titled  “Well-Prepared Projects, A PIARC Collection of Case Studies“. This collection of case studies includes 17 cases from 10 different countries participating in this task force, plus one case dedicated to the use of the SOURCE platform in the preparation of transportation projects. The objective of this collection is to provide a variety of highly relevant examples from the real life. Each case outlines good practices in place in a country with a focus on a particular aspect of the project preparation.

The World Road Association – PIARC recently published a Report titled “Documents Relevant to Road Infrastracture and Transportation Security“. This Literature Review is the first step in the development of a full technical Report on road infrastructure and transport security. The document contains a review of literature on road infrastructure and transport security. The review focuses on the following topics: Legislations and policies, Standards, Studies and researches, PIARC reports, Other reports, Manuals and books, Case studies and best practices, Events and situations. It is also completed with conclusions and recommendations, a glossary and appendices.

The World Road Association – PIARC recently published a Report titled “Good Practices in Maintenance and Traffic Operation of Heavily Trafficked Urban Road Tunnels“. This Report makes amends in detailing the challenges and inherent good practices for maintenance and operation from traffic management, to design and renovation. It was cowritten by a panel of designers, owners, operators, policy makers in the field of tunnels, from around the world taking inspiration from previous PIARC Case Studies.

A new publication titled EU Road Safety: Towards “Vision Zero” has been recently published by the European Commission. This publication presents a comprehensive overview of projects managed by CINEA and funded under Horizon 2020-the EU’s R&I programme that develop, test and exploit innovative solutions for a safer road transport. This document calls for a new approach to safe mobility to be achieved by 2030: one rooted in safety as a core value, and not one in which safety may come second to factors such as cost, speed, aesthetics, or profits. It draws on work done in the past few years by the H2020 funded projects.   

The International Transport Forum (ITF) has recently published a new Policy Brief titled Improving motorcyclist safety: Priority actions for Safe System integration. This Brief summarizes the current extent of PTW usage worldwide, highlights pressing safety issues for motorcyclists and presents priority actions for improving motorcycling safety. It results from a series of virtual workshops on motorcyclist safety held in 2021 and co-hosted by the ITF and key roadsafety partners.    

The International Road Traffic and Accident Database (IRTAD) of the International Transport Forum(ITF/OECD) published the Road Safety Annual Report 2022 focusing on the development of road safety in the year 2021, the first year of the Second Decade of Action. The analysis draws on road safety data from 34 IRTAD member countries. It outlines short‑term trends for the year 2021 and long‑term trends for the period 2010‑19. The Report also presents provisional data on road deaths for the first semester of 2022 (January to June).  

Τhe European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) has recently published a new Report titled “Progress in Reducing Drink-driving and other Alcohol-related Road Deaths in Europe“. This Report aims to provide an updated overview of the drink-driving situation in Europe, covering 30 countries: 25 Member States of the European Union together with the United Kingdom, Israel, Norway, the Republic of Serbia and Switzerland. It looks at country-by-country progress in reducing road deaths attributed to drink-driving over the past decade.  A range of recommendations for further tackling drink-driving are included for national governments and the EU institutions throughout this Report.