10th Road Safety and Simulation Conference

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Invited Speakers

Within the framework of the Conference, two keynote presentations will take place as stated in the Conference program:

Prof. Dr. Mohamed Abdel-Aty
Editor of Accident Analysis and Prevention
Trustee Chair of the Department of Civil Engineering and Construction Engineering, University of Central Florida (UCF)
http://www.cece.ucf.edu/aty/

Mohamed A. Abdel-Aty, Ph.D., P.E., F.ASCE, F.ITE, ASEM FL

https://smartsafe.ucf.edu/

Dr. Mohamed Abdel-Aty, PE is a Trustee Endowed Chair at the University of Central Florida (UCF). He is a Pegasus Distinguished Professor and former Chair (2013-2023) of the Civil, Environmental and Construction Engineering Department. He is the recipient of the UCF medal of Societal Impact, 2025. He has a joint appointment with the department of Computer Science. He is the founder and leading the Future City initiative at UCF. As part of the initiative, he introduced in 2019 the first MS degree in Smart Cities in Engineering in the US. He is also the founder and director of the Smart and Safe Transportation Lab, the Winner of the USDOT Solving for Safety Visualization Challenge, Real-time crash risk visualization using integrated tools for traffic safety evaluation and management, November 2019. His main expertise and interests are in the areas of traffic safety, computer vision, AI, transportation technology, simulation, big data and data analytics, ITS and CAV. He is a pioneer and well recognized nationally and internationally in work and research in real-time safety, transportation technology, Proactive traffic management, and Connected Vehicles. Dr. Abdel-Aty has managed more than 90 research projects of about $33 million. Dr. Abdel-Aty has published 950 papers, more than 500 in journals (Google Scholar citations 40,500 H-Index 106.  He has supervised to completion 53 PhD and 65 MS students. He is a member of the Academy of Science, Engineering and Medicine of Florida (ASEMFL). Dr. Aty is the Editor Emeritus of Accident Analysis and Prevention, the premier journal in safety. He is the former Chair of the ASCE Transportation Safety Committee. Dr. Aty has received numerous top national and international awards including the 2020 Roy W. Crum Distinguished Service Award from the Transportation Research Board of the National Academies. He has delivered more than 30 Keynote speeches in conferences around the world.

Tom Brijs

Prof. Dr. Tom Brijs
Full Professor in Traffic Safety and Simulation
Chairman of the Internal School Council for Mobility Sciences
Transportation Research Institute, Hasselt University, Belgium
https://www.uhasselt.be/en/who-is-who/detail/tom-brijs

Prof. dr. Tom Brijs is a full professor at Hasselt University, where he is affiliated with the School of Transportation Sciences and the Transportation Research Institute (IMOB). As vice director of IMOB and head of the Traffic Safety research group, he plays a leading role in advancing research and policy development in the field of road safety.

His research is structured around three core themes. The first focuses on human factors in traffic safety, examining the interaction between drivers, vehicle technology, and road infrastructure. This includes innovative approaches to driver training and assessment, such as e-learning and gamification, with special attention to groups like novice drivers, older adults, and individuals with autism. The second theme revolves around risk analysis and policy evaluation, using accident prediction models, video observations, and advanced data analytics to evaluate infrastructure and road safety interventions. The third theme explores geometric road design, applying tools such as virtual reality and microsimulation to assess the safety impacts of road layouts and prepare for future developments like autonomous driving.

Prof. Brijs is an internationally recognized scholar with a H-index of 36 and nearly 4,000 citations. He ranks among the top experts globally in domains such as transport engineering, simulation, human factors, and data mining. His publications have made significant contributions to crash pattern analysis, accident profiling, and predictive modeling using machine learning.

He has supervised numerous PhD projects addressing diverse traffic safety challenges, including pedestrian crash hotspots, age-related driving behavior, and the use of gamification and simulation in road user education. Under his guidance, several research projects have been launched in recent years, such as the European Horizon 2020 i-DREAMS project, which developed smart driver and road environment assessment and monitoring system, and the MSCA Industrial Doctoral Network ‘IVORY’ aimed at contributing to the Vision Zero ambition.

Beyond research, Prof. Brijs is actively involved in promoting sustainable mobility. As a transition manager at Hasselt University, he leads initiatives to encourage students and staff to adopt more sustainable commuting options—such as cycling, public transport, and walking—to reduce congestion and environmental impact around the campuses.

With a career at Hasselt University spanning over two decades, Prof. Brijs has established himself as a leading figure in the field of traffic safety, combining scientific rigor with a strong societal orientation. His work exemplifies a multidisciplinary approach that integrates data science, behavioral research, and technology to improve road safety and mobility systems.

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