Today there is too much imbalance between urban mobility and safety policies, with mobility and efficient travelling dominating the mind of the citizens and subsequently the choices of the politicians, even if everybody agrees and talks about safety as a theoretical priority. This imbalance in favour of mobility is also reflected at the effort put
An interview at the inSCIght on-line magazine of Hasselt University How did it all start? Everything started with my studies in civil and transportation engineering back in Athens, and later on in Paris. There I developed my passion for applied transportation science and the great social as well as economic value it holds to our society. It’s
Driver distraction is lately becoming a key critical road accident risk factor, equivalent or even more important than the well-known "four big road killers": speed, drink-and-drive, non-use of seat belt and helmet. Some argue that mobile phone use (talking, texting and browsing) is a key reason why road fatalities do not decrease anymore in developed
Recent technological advances are bringing closer the introduction of flying vehicles (Vertically Taking off and Landing Vehicles -VTOLs) into the transport systems of the near future. Technology pioneers announce massive introduction of flying vehicles within the coming five years. Managing this new air traffic is a certainly great challenge and respective research and technological development
The connected and automated vehicles will have to cope with other automated or not vehicles and connected or not road users (drivers, riders, pedestrians) and a priority negotiation will always be necessary, especially at junctions. The behaviour of both the drivers and of the autonomous vehicles is inevitably dependent to all the other road users.
At the digitalisation era more and more life activities are supported by digital systems and services, in which data and information are collected, processed, organised and re-directed through dedicated services to the end user but also to all parties involved in the planning, execution and management of these activities. All traffic and transport activities are
Autonomous vehicles are bringing a very different new reality in road traffic. However, human factors will remain present both in the near future and in the long term, because of the: - mixed traffic of autonomous and non-autonomous vehicles during the long transition phases (different at the different places of the world), - the interaction
Today the driver makes choices, tomorrow the choices will be made by the autonomous vehicles, by the autonomous traffic and by the people managing them. So there is need to "train" the vehicles, the traffic and the people managing them on how to handle a number of fundamental choices. Firstly, a number of real time
The main difference between roads and the other transport modes, is that most road vehicle drivers are not professionals, not having received heavy training and not following the very high and strict behaviour standards of the professional drivers and pilots of all the other transport modes. Furthermore, the road environment, especially in urban areas, is
The high complexity of the urban environment requires the joint consideration of several societal needs such as the environmental and energy performance, the transport and safety effectiveness, the functional urban structure and the overall quality of life, which inevitably involve difficult and often conflicting choices to be made. Furthermore, the continuous transformation of the urban
