A review and comparison of road safety in Greece in recent years

Abstract

Greece ranks between the EU countries with the highest number of road fatalities per million inhabitants for the last two decades. Although the number of road fatalities hasbeen significantlyreduced over the last 15 years, it is still considerably higher than the EU average. This paper reviews the transport and economic status in Greece for the last 15 years and outlines the most significant changes in road safety levels for different categories.To support its aim, this paper is divided in three sections; a review, a comparison and a discussion. The review presents the economic and road safety status in Greece in recent years (2000-2014). An analysis of road safety data, which focuses on and compares periods “before” (2005-2009) and “after” (2010-2014) the economic recession, highlights trends with significant changeson road safety that coincide with the period of the economic recession. The results show that although there is a significant decrease of road fatalities during the period of the economic recession in Greece, these changes may not occur uniformly for all road users. A discussion summarizes findings, highlight cases that did not present significant changes in terms of safety levels and provides future research directions for formulating road safety policy. © 2019 Institute for Transport Studies Within the European Economic Integration (ISTIEE) and Italian Association for Traffic and Transport Engineering (AIIT). All rights reserved.