Executive board

Luca Persia (CTL, Italy)

Luca Persia is Professor of “Sustainable Transport Planning” and “Sustainability Sciences” at DICEA of Sapienza University of Rome. He also covers the role of Director at Research Centre for Transport and Logistics (CTL) and Chairman at Sapienza Startup Company CTLup. He took part in more than 35 international research projects, in some cases as general Coordinator, in others as Scientific Director for Sapienza. He achieved the “The Prince Michael International Road Safety Award”, as coordinator of SaferAfrica Project (2019), and “TRAVISION 2020 – EU Champions of Transport Research” for road transport sector with the motivation: “Exporting the results of EU research to low and medium income countries”.

Jindřich Frič (CDV, Czechia)

Jindřich Frič started his professional career at Technical University and Ministry of Transport Road Safety unit: since 2008 he was a director of Safety Division and Transport Engineering of the Transport Research Centre. From 2016, he continues as Director of CDV, representing it especially in organizations and associations like FERSI, ECTRI, PIARC, ETSC, CSSP, etc. He has been a member of editorial board of ToTS and Traffic engineering paper, also steering committee member of YRS, Czech national Road conference, and others. He worked as a national expert in the EC working group for the preparation of the “Infrastructure” Directive 96/2008. From 2009 to 2019, he was an expert advisor to a Member of the European Parliament in the field of road safety.

Evangelia (Lila) Gaitanidou (HIT/CERTH, Greece)

Evangelia (Lila) Gaitanidou is a civil engineer, MSc Transportation systems, working in road safety since 2004. She is Head of the Road Safety and Security laboratory in the Hellenic Institute of Transport of the Centre for Research and Technology Hellas (HIT/CERTH). She has participated in more than 30 national and EU funded research projects, including IN-SAFETY, RIPCORD-ISEREST, SUPREME, BESTPOINT, DRUID, and coordinated the H2020 Drive2theFuture project. In the past, she acted as Assistant Editor in European Transport Research Review and as vice-president of the Hellenic Association of Transportation Engineers. She is participating in several road safety groups of European associations (ECTRI, ERTRAC, ETSC).

Jean-François Gaillet (VIAS, Belgium)

Jean-François Gaillet is a graduate engineer from the Institut Supérieur Industriel de Mons (Belgium), the Institut Polytechnique de Toulouse (France) and the Solvay Management School in Brussels. After a career spanning 20 years of international experience in ITS and the automotive industry, he joined in 2011 the Vias Institute, the Belgium’s national institute for road safety and mobility. He is currently director of the institute’s research center. He is active in research and innovation projects, business development, homologation and product certification. He represents the institute on various Belgian platforms with authorities and international associations, including FERSI, PIARC, CORTE and CITA.

João Cardoso (LNEC, Portugal)

João Cardoso, civil engineer and professor, heads the Planning, Traffic and Safety Division at LNEC. He has been involved in research and development activities on road safety, road traffic and transportation, developed under several projects (e.g., SAFESTAR, SAFETY-NET, RIPCORD-ISEREST, SAFERAFRICA, PROGRESS), and took part in Twinning project with Algeria. He was responsible for the technical manuals supporting the implementation of the road infrastructure safety management directive in Portugal. He was correspondent member of PIARC’s road safety technical committees, Portuguese expert in ETSC PIN-Panel. He is member of the Executive Committee of the Portuguese Road Safety Strategy.

Sevket Oguz Kagan Capkin (CTL, Italy)

Sevket Oguz Kagan Capkin is a Research Fellow at Sapienza University of Rome’s DICEA department and a Junior Partner at CTLup. He specializes in mobility and logistics planning, transport and logistics modeling, automated and sustainable transportation, road safety, and city logistics. His roles include junior project management in European-funded projects such as ADMIRAL, AUGMENTED CCAM, SHOW, and PANACEA, focusing on emissions reduction, CCAM deployment, and monitoring driving ability. He has contributed to creating Italy’s first Regional Road Safety Observatory and national projects like CEREMSS and CeMoSS, developing road safety analytics, crash prediction models, and Big Data-powered risk evaluations.