Magdalini Pitsiava-Latinopoulou

The application of Smeed's equation for road accidents in Greece

A statistical analysis of data from a 14-year record concerning the relationship between fatal road accidents and number of registered vehicles in Greece showed that such a relation could be described at a fairly good degree of accuracy by Smeeds equation. It is apparent that if the above equation would be used to estimate future road accidents in Greece an increased value for the constant coefficient should be used.

MOTORIZED ROAD TRANSPORT: ECONOMIC AND ENVIRONMENTAL COSTS– A POLICY ASSESSMENT FRAMEWORK

Transport plays an essential role in economic and social development and in the creation of wealth for the societies. at the same time, transport contributes considerably to many environmental problems, e.g. air pollution and noise. according to european commission’s statistics, in the year 2000, the transport sector contributed 29% of all cO 2 emissions in the eU, of which road transport was responsible for 83%. another serious problem, with environmental and economic impacts, is congestion. Building new transport infrastructure is unlikely to give a reliable solution to any problem and thus the need for new approaches in transport policy has been recognized. In this paper, a policy assessment framework is presented, in order to assist the responsible bodies and policy makers to draw up a strategy for sustainable transport and mobility and to propose some simple measures for tackling the adverse effects of road transport.

The use of environment friendly public transport system in historical urban areas

Traffic management measures in urban areas with high density of historical and cultural land uses were recently designed and implemented at major Greek cities. Among these measures, special attention was given to measures which led to improvement of the level of accessibility of the land use system by using the public transportation system. This paper examines the introduction of environment friendly public transportation system, and more specifically of minibuses. The specific measure was designed for two of the most historical urban areas in Greece: the area of the old city of Thessaloniki and the old city of Rhodes. Minibuses were proposed to replace the conventional fleet in order to use the full street network in these areas in a satisfactory way, and successfully meet the spatial demand for public transportation. The proposed measure is expected to result in a considerable improvement of the traffic conditions in the examined areas and a remarkable reduction of air pollutant emissions attributed to buses.

External costs due to congestion, accidents, energy consumption and emissions before and into the economic crisis:

Prior to the economic crisis, forecasts indicated a continuous increase of traffic in European cities, highlighting the need of a policy to alleviate the external impacts of transport. The crisis, however, generated pressures on all sectors of activity, with transport being an indicative example. The reduction of income and employment, the increased vehicle maintenance and renewal costs and the transport related taxation seem to affect the transport system and its external impacts. Thus, taking for granted that Europe will eventually achieve “sustainable recovery” from the crisis, the current period presents an opportunity for promoting sustainable mobility policies and interventions in the most affected by the crisis European cities. Towards this goal, it is essential to capitalise on contemporary techniques for the monitoring of changes in transport external costs. The purpose of the paper is the development of a methodology for the estimation of external costs due to congestion, air pollution, climate change and accidents, based on road traffic data. The methodology is applied along road arteries in Thessaloniki for the period “before and after” the emergence of the crisis. As a result, an overall decrease in external costs is observed, creating an unforeseen “surplus” for the society during the crisis.

Sustainable Transport Systems: Trends and Policies

Sustainable transport systems meet all the main principles of sustainable development: protection of public health and environmental quality, respect of the ecosystems, limitation of emissions, sustainable use of renewable resources and minimum use of non-renewable resources. In the framework of this paper, the international trends and policies concerning sustainable transport systems are presented and discussed. The international organisations, which set these policies, are also presented. More specifically, the O.E.C.D. (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) guidelines towards environmentally sustainable transport are considered to be very important. In addition, the European Community moves towards the implementation of a common transport policy facing two basic issues: breaking the link between economic growth and transport growth and achieving equal growth of all transport modes. Moreover, the E.C.M.T. (European Conference of Ministers of Transport) tries to create an integrated transport system through member countries and the rest of the continent by analysing environmental, social and traffic policy issues. Furthermore, the role of World Bank is considered to be very important in obtaining transport social sustainability, as it contributes to the creation of essential transport infrastructure in developing countries. Finally, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (W.B.C.S.D.) started in 2002 the Sustainable Mobility Project, in order to set the goals of a sustainable transport system.

Technology foresight in the transport sector: a Delphi survey

The predominant characteristic of the last decades is the continuous increase of the vehicular traffic and the increased need for more and better transport infrastructure, requiring space and continuous investments. Despite the initial growth of transport infrastructure in order to meet the demand, nowadays such approaches are strengthened. Within an era of continuous technological progress, the possible solutions should be hunted from this direction, i.e. the technological developments and applications in the transport sector. Thus new transport policy objectives have been settled and the researchers have taken a step further: they have started to investigate the possibilities of applying or using the most promising technological perspectives in the future, according to the dynamics of the territory under investigation. The aim of this paper is to present the technological perspectives and their applications in the transport sector for the next fifteen years within the Region of Central Macedonia, Greece. For the covering abstract see ITRD E129315.

Trip generation rates and land use-transport planning in urban environment

In order to assess the land use policy implications, trip generation rates are essential knowledge for both planners and engineers working in the field. Within the framework of this paper trip generation rates are presented for the Thessaloniki Metropolitan Area (T.M.A.). The structure of the land use system in T.M.A. produces numerous problems the transportation system. The results of research activities of the Laboratory of Transportation Engineering of A.U.Th concerning trip generation rates regarding different land uses (education, administration, banks, cultural, hotel industry, hospitals) in T.M.A. are presented. These results are in the form of mathematical equations that have been derived with regression analysis and take into account data resulting from properly designed questionnaire surveys.

THE IMPACT OF PEDESTRIANIZATION SCHEMES ON THE ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY AT CENTRAL AREAS

It is well known that pedestrianization schemes are quite often implemented at central areas which are characterized by significant traffic and environmental problems. The impact of such schemes includes, among others, the improvement of the accessibility level of the land use system in the area for the pedestrians, the separation of traffic from pedestrians flows, the overall improvement of air pollution emissions due to traffic, the resolvement of the visual intrusion problem, and finally, the provision of a safe environment for the vulnerable road users. Such a pedestrianization scheme was properly designed within the framework of two research projects which were carried out by the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki for the city of Katerini which is located in northern Greece, and for the city of Rhodes which is located on the island of Rhodes. The majority of traffic and environmental problems are concentrated in both cases in the city center where all main activities are located, and also through traffic was recorded. More specifically, there are high pedestrian flows, poor geometrical characteristics, improper structure of the road network (a mixture of grid and radial system) and also need to bypass the city center. All the above reasons led to the implementation of the pedestrianization scheme in the central area in Katerini (1993) and the design of a similar scheme in Rhodes (1994). Within the framework of this paper an attempt is made to present the impact evaluation of the pedestrianization schemes on the environmental aspects.

The impact of demand management on public transport use in relation to socio-economic characteristics

The paper presents a study on the impact of various demand management policies (i.e. restriction of traffic, improvement of public transport services, road pricing etc.) on public transport use, taking into consideration the socioeconomic characteristics of the population. The applied methodology is based on behavioural response and was materialized by asking people to indicate their opinion and attitudes to different demand management implementations. For the purpose of the study the data collection was made through a questionnaire survey using face-to-face method at 500 randomly selected households in the greater area of Thessaloniki, Greece. The analysis and interprentation of the results of the study concern: (i) the public transport use in relation to socio-economic characteristics , (ii) the impact of various demand management policies on public transport use by socio-economic group and (iii) the public attitudes and opinions to the different demand management implementations.