Distinguished lecturers
Brendan Halleman
Expert in the field of road safety policy
Vice President of International Road Federation – IRF (Belgium)
Brendan Halleman is a French & Irish national with a background in transportation policy evaluation, stakeholder engagement, and program management gained through work experiences with the OECD’s International Transport Forum (Paris), the International Road Federation (Washington DC), and the World Bank. Since 2015, Brendan has been a regional IRF Vice President based in Brussels tasked with coordinating member services and the delivery of IRF programs throughout Europe and Central Asia in coordination with member-led technical and regional committees.
Asst. prof. Marko Ševrović, Ph.D.
Expert in the field of road safety and road safety inspection
Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences (Croatia)
Marko Ševrović works as an Assistant Professor on the position of Head of the Department of Transport Planning at the Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences, University of Zagreb (Croatia), where, besides teaching in the field of traffic flow theory, public transport planning, transport infrastructure design and CAD, he continued to do research on GNSS related applications in transport. In September 2018 he became a part-time employee of the European Institute of Road Assessment (EIRA) based in Slovenia, on the position of a road safety expert. In 2011 he became an associate of the Royal Institute of Navigation. He is a member of the Organizational Committee of the Baška GNSS Conference International. From 2012 he is a member of the Croatian chamber of Engineers of Transport and Traffic Technology, Chartered engineer (Road Transport). He is an expert member of EuroRAP (European Road Assessment Programme) and a Certified Road Safety Auditor. In the last fifteen years he conducted and participated in more than 120 national and international professional and scientific projects in the field of road safety (EuroRAP/iRAP projects, road safety audit), traffic planning and sustainable urban mobility planning.
Harald Mosböck
Expert in the field of road safety
Head of the RMS department for Europe, SWARCO AG and the vice-president of the European Union for Roads – ERF (Austria)
Harald Mosböck is the Head of the RMS department for Europe, SWARCO AG and the vice-president of the European Union for Roads – ERF. He holds a Master of Science degree in Traffic Telematics from Austrian Donau-Universität Krems and graduated in export trade at Vienna’s University of Economics. He has more than 25 years of experience in the road painting and marking system industry with employees in Rembrandtin, Herberts in Austria and Dupont Performance Coatings Austria. In 2000, Harald joined Manfred Swarovski‘s SWARCO Group and later became Managing Director of SWARCO road marking contracting companies in Austria and Germany. In November 2016 Harald Mosböck became SWARCO’s Head of the Road Marking Systems Division for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. He is a member of the Executive board of the European Road Federation and chair of the WG Road Marking.
Petr Zámečník, Ph.D
Expert in the human factor in transportation
Faculty of Arts, Palacký university in Olomouc (Czechia)
Mgr. et Mgr. Petr Zámečník, Ph.D. is a senior researcher at UPOL. His background is in traffic psychology and sociology. Petr worked at the transport research center from 2008 – 2021 in the field of human factors in transportation, with a specialization in traffic psychology and human mobility behavior particularly and since 2022 he moved to Palacký university. His current research activities cover applied traffic psychology and traffic safety and he has broad experience in road user behavior research, behavior change measures and automated driving. He is an accredited traffic psychologist, psychotherapist, and first aid mentor with a specialization in traffic accidents. He is currently working within a Traffic psychology working group led by Professor Ralf Risser. He is a member of international organizations focusing on human factors in transportation, for example, ICADTS and TPI.
Mirjana Sekicki, Ph.D
Expert in the field of psychology and eye tracking
TobiiPro
Mirjana Sekicki is a Global Product Manager at Tobii AB. Tobii is the global leader in providing eye-tracking solutions for various fields of application, from gaming and e-sports, XR, automotive, and diagnostic devices, to commercial and scientific behavioral research. Mirjana obtained her Ph.D. in 2019 in the field of psycholinguistics, combining eye tracking and pupillometry to quantify the impact of information density on visual attention and cognitive load during situated language comprehension. Over the past years at Tobii, Mirjana has broadened her personal research experience, by collaborating with scientists from a wide range of research fields who use eye-tracking technology in their work. Her mission at Tobii is to keep (re)identifying the needs of scientific researchers and informing the further development of Tobii´s technical solutions and supporting services to adequately address those needs.
Dario Babić, Ph.D.
Expert in the field of traffic signaling and road safety
Dario Babic is a postdoctoral research assistant at the Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences, University of Zagreb (Croatia) with extensive experience in the field of road safety, road infrastructure management as well as road markings and signs. In 2018 he obtained his Ph.D. with the thesis entitled: “Road markings service life prediction model”. Currently, he is the Head of the accredited Testing Laboratory at the Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences focused on the quality control of road markings and signs. In 2019, he completed postdoctoral research at the Transportation Research Institute, Hasselt University (Belgium). He was a member of the team that won the IRF GRAA 2018 (International Road Federation) award in the category “Quality Management” for the project: “Implementation of RFID Technology in Traffic Signs Database Inventory”. He is a member of the Croatian Chamber of Transport Engineers and several EU standardization working groups: Croatian Committee for Standardization – Technical Committee DZNM/TO 509: Road equipment and CEN/TC226 WG2 (Road Markings), CEN/TC226 WG3 (Traffic Signs), CEN/T226 WG12 (Road Interaction – ADAS). He is the author of several scientific and professional papers.
Chiara Gruden
Expert in the field of vulnerable road users and road safety
Faculty of Civil Engineering, Transportation Engineering and Architecture, University of Maribor
Chiara Gruden is a research assistant at the Faculty of Civil Eng., Transportation Eng. and Architecture, University of Maribor (Slovenia). She has experience in the field of road safety and vulnerable road users, specifically pedestrians. She is completing her Ph.D., which focuses on the real and simulated behavior of pedestrians and is entitled: “Development of a methodology to calibrate a pedestrian microsimulation model”. She gained her competencies from several international realities: after completing her studies at the University of Trieste (Italy), she enrolled for her Ph.D. in Maribor (Slovenia), during which she was a guest researcher at the Transportation Research Institute IMOB in Hasselt (Belgium), at the University KORE in Enna (Italy) and at the University of Osijek (Croatia). Currently, she is a member of the Chair of Traffic Engineering and Safety at the Faculty of Civil Eng., Transportation Eng., and Architecture in Maribor. Together with the other members of the Chair, she is actively involved in research, being (co-)author of many scientific publications, and in several national projects for the Slovenian Ministry and for the Slovenian Motorway Company, as well as in international, H2020 and bilateral projects.
Assoc. prof. Darko Babić, Ph.D
Expert in the field of traffic signaling and road safety
Darko Babić is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences, University of Zagreb (Croatia) at the Department for Traffic Signalling where he actively participates in the teaching process and works on scientific and professional projects. From 2012 to 2015, he was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Pardubice (Czech Republic), where he participated in a scientific project called “Enhancement of R&D Pools of Excellence at the University of Pardubice”. As a member of the team from the Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences, University of Zagreb, he won the IRF GRAA 2018 (International Road Federation) annual award in the category “Quality Management” for the project: “Implementation of RFID Technology in Traffic Signs Database Inventory”. He is the president of the Croatian Committee for Standardization – Technical Committee DZNM / TO 509: Road Equipment. Also, he is a member of several EU standardization working groups: Road equipment and CEN/TC226 WG2 (Road Markings), CEN/TC226 WG3 (Traffic Signs), CEN/T226 WG12 (Road Interaction – ADAS) and the leader of the EC Sub-Group Road Markings and Road Signs. Also, he is a member of the Croatian Chamber of Engineers of Transport and Transportation Technology and president of the Croatian Association of Engineers (Alumni) from the Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences, University of Zagreb. He has worked on a number od projects related to quality control of traffic signaling, and road safety, and currently he is the leader of the project „Road marking and signs for the future –Study on common specifications for road markings and signs“. He is the author of several scientific and professional papers.
Salvatore Cafiso, Full professor
Safety expert in the field of road design and maintenance
University of Catania (Italy)
Salvatore Damiano Cafiso is a full professor of “Road, Railways and Airport” at the Department of Civil Engineering and Architecture of the University of Catania.
He has been involved in teaching and research in the field of transportation engineering since 1987. His expertise includes highway geometric design, traffic safety, pavement engineering and road asset management. Road safety research in these years involved highway design and maintenance while addressing the needs and behavior of different users (heavy vehicles, passenger cars, motorcycles, bicycles, and e-scooters) and recently also Connected and Automated vehicles in a mix traffic environment. He has been successful in securing several research funds in these areas from national and international agencies. He is the handling editor of the Transportation Research Record and a member of the editorial board of international journals, member of committees at TRB and PIARC. The research dissemination includes 95 papers in international journals with more than 1300 citations in Scopus.
Dr. Wendy Weijermars
Expert in the field of road safety developments and safe system approach
SWOV institute for road safety research (Netherlands)
Wendy Weijermars is a senior researcher and research manager at SWOV Institute for road safety research (www.swov.nl) in the Netherlands. She joined SWOV in 2007 and has been involved in a wide variety of road safety research projects, for example related to road safety monitoring and road safety forecasting, Sustainable Safety/Safe system approach, serious injuries, and road safety performance indicators. In July 2019 she became head of the department focusing on research related to safe infrastructure. Internationally, Wendy has been involved in several EU projects, for example SafetyCube (safetycube-project.eu/) and Levitate (levitate-project.eu/). Moreover, she was involved in several OECD/ITF working groups and was part of the editorial group of the OECD report ‘Zero Road Deaths and Serious Injuries; Leading a Paradigm Shift to a Safe System’.
Slaviša Babić, eng.
Expert in the field of road safety
Darko Babić is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences, University of Zagreb (Croatia) at the Department for Traffic Signalling where he actively participates in the teaching process and works on scientific and professional projects. From 2012 to 2015, he was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Pardubice (Czech Republic), where he participated in a scientific project called “Enhancement of R&D Pools of Excellence at the University of Pardubice”. As a member of the team from the Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences, University of Zagreb, he won the IRF GRAA 2018 (International Road Federation) annual award in the category “Quality Management” for the project: “Implementation of RFID Technology in Traffic Signs Database Inventory”. He is the president of the Croatian Committee for Standardization – Technical Committee DZNM / TO 509: Road Equipment. Also, he is a member of several EU standardization working groups: Road equipment and CEN/TC226 WG2 (Road Markings), CEN/TC226 WG3 (Traffic Signs), CEN/T226 WG12 (Road Interaction – ADAS) and the leader of the EC Sub-Group Road Markings and Road Signs. Also, he is a member of the Croatian Chamber of Engineers of Transport and Transportation Technology and president of the Croatian Association of Engineers (Alumni) from the Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences, University of Zagreb. He has worked on a number of projects related to quality control of traffic signaling, and road safety, and currently he is the leader of the project „Road marking and signs for the future – Study on common specifications for road markings and signs“. He is the author of several scientific and professional papers.
Tomasz Mackun, M.Sc.Eng.
Expert in the field of road safety
Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Gdańsk University of Technology (Poland)
Certified road safety auditor, and authorized road designer. Trainer of auditors and road safety inspectors. Participation in international didactic projects and national research projects. A member of the Nordic Traffic Safety Academy and a founding member of the Association of Road Safety Auditors in Poland. From 2016-2018, he participated in the national research project RID3D for The National Center for Research and Development and was one of the main authors of the Guidelines for assessing the impact of outdoor advertising on road safety. In the years 2017 – 2021, he was one of the main authors of the national guidelines: Guidelines for lighting pedestrian crossings, Guidelines for designing pedestrian crossings, and Guidelines for designing devices for lighting rural roads and streets. Tomasz is the main author of the methodology for conducting a road safety inspection at pedestrian crossings without traffic lights and then he was the team leader who conducted an inspection of over four thousand pedestrian crossings in Warsaw. The European Commission qualified Warsaw for the detailed methodology and its implementation to the finals of the EU Urban Road Safety Award 2021.
Prof. Marco Bassani, Ph.D
Expert in the field of road geometrics and road safety
Laboratory of Road Safety and Driving Simulation, Politecnico di Torino
Full professor at the Department of Environment, Land and Infrastructure Engineering, Politecnico di Torino (Italy). In 1998 he obtained his Ph.D. in Road, Railway and Airport Construction. He teaches the Design of Transportation Infrastructures and Road Safety at the MS and PhD programs in Civil and Environmental Engineering programs. Since 2012, he is a member of the AKD10 Standing Committee on Performance Effects of Geometric Design. In 2013, he was visiting professor at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering of the University of Maryland in College Park (MD, US). Currently, he is the Head of the Laboratory of Road Safety and Driving Simulation. He is the author of scientific articles related to alternative and innovative road materials and operational and behavioral effects of road geometrics (Scopus H-index = 16). He is a member of the Editorial Board of Transportation Letters – The International Journal of Transportation Research since 2016, and Academic Editor of the journal PloSONE since 2018.
Assoc. prof. Ali Pirdavani, Ph.D
Expert in the field of road design and safety
Faculty of Engineering Technology, University of Hasselt (Belgium)
Ali Pirdavani works as an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Engineering Technology, University of Hasselt (Belgium). Ali became a Civil Engineer in 2004 and in 2007 he obtained his Master’s degree in Road & Transportation Engineering. He obtained his Ph.D. in Transportation Sciences in 2012. He became a post-doctoral fellow of the Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO) in 2013 and is appointed as a professor at the Faculty of Engineering Technology of Hasselt University since 2016. He managed and participated in various projects (both applied and fundamental scientific research) in the field of road safety. During his career, conducted various reviews for leading international scientific journals and conferences.
Asst. Prof. Luka Novačko, Ph.D
Expert in the field of road design and road safety
Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences, University of Zagreb
Traffic Engineer with 15 years of experience in the field of road traffic planning and design of road traffic infrastructure. He was involved in more than 15 projects and some of them were financed by EU funds. His Ph.D. thesis was focused on the estimation of OD matrices in cities. He is the Head of the Department for Road Transport and Head of the Laboratory for planning and modeling in road and urban traffic at the Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences, University of Zagreb, Croatia.
Prof. Tomaž Tollazi, Ph.D
Expert in the field of road design and road safety
Faculty of Civil Engineering, Transportation Engineering and Architecture, University of Maribor, Slovenia
Tomaž Tollazi is a Full Professor in Civil Engineering at the Faculty of Civil Engineering, Transportation Engineering, and Architecture at the University of Maribor in Slovenia. He has a thorough and broad understanding of sustainable safe road infrastructure design, through his active involvement for more than 25 years as an engineer, academic, and advisor in all areas of road infrastructure design, road safety and engineering at national and international levels. His specialization area is sustainable safe road infrastructure design, with a particular focus on intersections, interchanges, roundabouts and vulnerable road users. He has participated in more than 190 research and engineering projects and studies, published 49 scientific papers widely cited worldwide, five patents and patent applications, two scientific monographs, two professional monographs, as well as four textbooks. Recently, he published a book specially focused on motorcyclist safety entitled „Key Components of Motorcyclists’ Safety. Motorcycle – Rider – Environment“. He was a mentor to six Ph.D. students at different European universities.
Darko Žvan
Expert in the field of intelligent sensors
MICRO-LINK ltd., Croatia
Darko Žvan graduated in 1997 from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing, University of Zagreb, in the field of radiocommunications. Since February 2010, he has been working as a sales director where he is managing all company sales activities, participating in the development of the company’s strategic plan, and supervising and controlling the professional staff and complete costs of the sales sector. Some of the most prominent projects in which he participated: Hot Spot Croatia 2014, a project to implement Wi-Fi coverage of select cities in Croatia for the Ministry of Tourism, Wireless Implementation Project for Croatian Parliament, the project of building a UHF radio communication network based on digital radio modems designed to monitor NAV devices in the Pula region, Upgrade of transmission and VHF network, VHF radio planning and prediction. Currently, he is a Sales Director at MICRO-LINK Ltd., a company that designs and integrates complex ICT solutions.
Assoc. prof. Željko Šarić, Ph.D
Expert in the field of road safety and accidents analysis
Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences (Croatia)
Željko Šarić is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences, University of Zagreb (Croatia) at the Department of Traffic Accident Expertise where he actively participates in the teaching process and works on scientific and professional projects. He defended his doctoral dissertation in 2014 at the Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences, entitled: “Model of identification of dangerous places in the road traffic network”. Since 2012, he has been the Head of the Laboratory for Traffic Technical Expertise at the Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences. He has published several scientific and professional papers and is one of the organizers of the PC Crash workshop at the Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences, which conducts scientific research and simulations of all types of traffic accidents (Crash tests). He is a permanent forensic expert for traffic and vehicles and an active member of the international association of forensic experts European Association for Accident Research and Analysis.
Fernando Ribeiro
Expert in the field of road safety systems
Lindsay
Fernando is the Sales Director at Lindsay Corporation, where Fernando leads the commercial activities in the EMEA region, including Lindsay Infrastructure’s main product lines, Road Zipper, Barrier System, and Snoline. With over 12 years of experience in the highway industry, Fernando managed the South American market, helping different countries create, implement, and enforce Road Safety Standards (NCHRP350, Mash, and EN1317). After an experience in the United States at Lindsay headquarters in 2020, Fernando moved to The Netherlands to manage Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
Prof. Dalibor Pešić, Ph.D.
Expert in the field of road safety and accidents investigation
Faculty of Transport and Traffic Engineering, University of Belgrade, Serbia
Professor and Vice Dean for Scientific research at the Faculty of Transport and Traffic Engineering (Republic of Serbia). His specialization areas are road safety, methods and analyses, road accident expertise, damage assessment, preventive, quantitative methods and analyses in road safety, road safety measurement, benchmarking, behavioral analyses, etc. He has participated in more than 100 national and international studies and projects and published more than 200 papers at national and international conferences and in national and published more than 30 papers in SCI journals.
Prof. Goran Zovak, Ph.D
Expert in the field of road safety and accidents analysis
Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences / Head of Vehicle testing department in Center for vehicles of Croatia (Croatia)
Goran Zovak is a Full professor at the Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences, University of Zagreb (Croatia) in the position of Head of the Department of Traffic Accident Expertise. He is also the Head of the Vehicle testing department in the Center for vehicles of Croatia. He obtained his Ph. D. in Transport Sciences in the scientific field of Traffic and Transportation technology in 2007. He participated in different projects in the field of road safety and conducted various reviews for international scientific journals and conferences. He is a member of the European Association for Accident Research and Analysis; President of EVU Croatia; permanent Court expert of Mechanical Engineering, Transportation and vehicles, Zagreb Country Court; member of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Scientific Council for Traffic.
Asst. Prof. Marko Šoštarić, Ph.D
Expert in the field of road safety and road safety inspection
Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences, University of Zagreb, Croatia
Marko Šoštarić is charted road transport engineer and certified road safety auditor with Ph.D. in traffic and transport technology and 17 years of experience in transport planning and engineering. As a transport expert or project team leader, he has participated in more than 100 traffic studies, transport plans, transport-related projects, and models. During the last ten years, he was the team leader of many Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans for Croatian cities, co-financed by EU funds. He also worked on cost-benefit analyses, feasibility studies, and strategic environmental assessment projects for the transport system and road safety projects. He participated in the implementation of Directive 2008/96/EC and road safety audit in the transport system of the Republic of Croatia. He is an associate professor at the University of Zagreb, Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences. He is a Vice-dean for Science and External Cooperation and professor on the Faculty courses – Traffic Technology Designing, Transport Infrastructure, Parking and Garages, Traffic Engineering, and Urban Traffic Management.
Tomislav Kučinić, mag. ing. traff.
Expert in the field of road safety and accidents analysis
Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences (Croatia)
Tomislav Kučinić is an Assistant at the Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences, University of Zagreb (Croatia) and the Department of Traffic Accident Expertise where he is in the preparation and performance of laboratory exercises in the Laboratory for Traffic Accidents Expertise and the preparation of traffic expertise. He has participated in several projects relative to road safety and he is one of the PC Crash workshops at the Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences, which conducts scientific research and simulations of all types of traffic accidents (Crash tests). He is a permanent forensic expert for traffic and vehicles and an active member of the international association of forensic experts European Association for Accident Research and Analysis.
Mario Fiolić, mag. eng. traff.
Expert in the field of traffic signaling and road safety
Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences (Croatia)
Mario Fiolić is an Assistant at the Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences, University of Zagreb (Croatia) and the Department for Traffic Signalling. He is an expert in the quality control of road markings and signs, road asset management and overall road safety. He actively participates in the teaching process and works on scientific and professional projects with an emphasis on road safety, road markings and signs, driving simulator research, eye tracking, etc. Currently, he is writing his doctoral thesis “Determining the correlation between the driver’s psychophysical load and the quality of the traffic signaling during night-time conditions”. He was a member of the team that won the IRF GRAA 2018 (International Road Federation) award in the category “Quality Management” for the project: “Implementation of RFID Technology in Traffic Signs Database Inventory”. His research interests include the influence of road markings and signs on driver behavior, driving simulator research, eye tracking, road safety, etc. Also, he is the author of several scientific and professional papers as well as a member of the Croatian Chamber of Transport Engineers.
Marijan Jakovljević, Ph.D
Expert in the field of road safety and road safety inspection
Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences (Croatia)
Marijan Jakovljević was born in 1988 in Požega. He graduated from the Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences of the University of Zagreb in 2013 where he also successfully defended his doctoral thesis in 2020. From 2014 to 2015, he worked as a researcher on a project on Faculty and was engaged in scientific research and expert work in the field of transport planning and design and road safety. Since 2015, he works as an assistant at the Department of Transport Planning of the Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences where he is involved in undergraduate and graduate programs. Results of his scientific and research work were published in 16 scientific and professional papers and he participated in numerous national and international conferences. As a team leader, researcher, author or associate, he partook in over 120 scientific, development and expert projects.
Dr. Roland Spies
Expert in the field of Behavioral research and human vehicle interaction
Ergoneers Group (Germany)
Roland Spies is the CEO and Co-Founder of the Ergoneers Group. He studied Mechanical Engineering with a focus on Automotive Engineering and Ergonomics at the Technical University of Munich. In his first position, Roland worked as a research assistant at the Institute of Ergonomics at the Technical University of Munich and conducted several projects for Audi and Volkswagen in Ingolstadt and Palo Alto, California USA concerning the Development of Driver Assistant Systems and In-Vehicle Infotainment Systems. He graduated from University with his Ph.D. The topic of the Thesis was “Development of a Haptic Touchpad for Vehicle Infotainment Systems”.
Oscar Oviedo-Trespalacios, Ph.D.
Expert in the field of Human Factors Engineering
Faculty of Technology, Policy, and Management (The Netherlands)
Dr. Oscar Oviedo-Trespalacios, an Assistant Professor at the Delft University of Technology, is a recognized specialist in Responsible Risk Management & Human Factors Engineering. He has built an extensive body of research work that encompasses key areas such as human factors, misuse of technology, sustainable development, and transport safety and security. One of his notable areas of research is distracted driving, with a focus that extends to issues such as mobile phone use while driving, roadside advertising, smartwatch usage, sexual activities, chronic pain, and the impact of infotainment systems. His studies on risk compensation and behavioral adaptation in mobile phone use while driving have facilitated changes in policy globally, solidifying his international reputation in this crucial domain. As a skilled mixed-methods researcher, Dr. Oviedo-Trespalacios leverages both qualitative and quantitative methodologies to delve into these critical areas. His work has earned him the Australasian College of Road Safety’s Inaugural Young Leaders Oration Award and his research findings have been widely reported in major media outlets.
