Research & Scientific Staff:M. Panou, K. Kalogirou, I. Simeonidis, M. Morfoulaki, A. Tsioutras, E. Gaitanidou, A. Christodoulou, A. Manukyan

The "Horizontal" Sector D is involved in horizontal supporting functions for the whole Institute. It includes three Laboratories, whose activities are directed towards all the other Sectors of HIT and the totality of its personnel.

These basic activities of Sector D include:

• The representation of HIT and the monitoring of the work of the international Organisations in the field of Transport, which are of interest to HIT and the cooperation with the relevant sectors on issues of specific vertical interest;
• The development, maintenance and interconnection of software for the various IT applications of the research projects of the various Laboratories and Sectors,
• The development and maintenance of the internet site of HIT as well as all knowledge management that is necessary in order to make sure that the knowledge produced is properly preserved and disseminated,
• The interaction and cooperation of HIT with the society and the dissemination of its research results to the outside world, and finally
• The production of innovation through the systematic and focused transfer of the research results to the market and the transport related industry in Greece and abroad.

Responsible: M. Panou

The international Organisations to which HIT/CERTH has an interest to follow, are divided in two “types”:

A.      Those to which HIT/CERTH is represented and is active in a regular way through a representative (they will be referred to in the following as “Type A”), and

B.      Those that due to lack of adequate funding or due to non-eligibility, HIT/CERTH cannot participate in an active way or be represented (they will be referred to in the following as “Type B”).

 The Laboratory D1 is responsible to follow the activities of all international Organisations of interest to HIT/CERTH (of both types) and supports the HIT Director and / or the person responsible for the corresponding Organisation (for Type A Organisations), so that they respond properly to any obligations and or requests. 

The International Organisations of type A are the following:

• ERTICO – ITS EUROPE
• European Conference of Transport Research Institutes (ECTRI)
• AVERE,
• EGVIA
• ERTRAC,
• Federation of European Road Safety Institutes (FERSI), and
• US/TRB

The Organisations of Type B are:

• United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE)
• International Transport Forum (ITF)
• International Freight Forwarders Association (FIATA)
• International Maritime Organisation (IMO)
• International Road Union (IRU)
• International Railways Union (UIC)
• Federation of highway research laboratories (FEHRL)
• International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO)
• International Air Transport Association (IATA)
• European Railway Network of Excellence (EURNEX)
• HUMANIST Association and Network
• European Transport Research Alliance (ETRA)

To the above lists, the management of HIT can add or remove Organisations according to the needs of the Institute.

 The Laboratory D1 is responsible for transferring any relevant and important information or communication by the type B international Organisations to the entire HIT or to the relevant Laboratories.   In this respect, it is also responsible for the provision of information or data or completed questionnaires to these Organisations as the case may be.

 The representation of HIT to the type A international Organisations is done through the relevant Sectors or Laboratories. The representatives are appointed by  the management of HIT.

Laboratory D2: Software Engineering – Maintenance of IT Infrastructure

Responsible: K. Kalogirou

This Laboratory performs software development as a highly specialized task collectively for all Sectors of HIT. It is also responsible for the maintenance of all IT hardware of the Institute, the planning and programming of the purchase of new hardware and systems.

For the best possible coordination of the work as regards the needs of the various Sectors, this Laboratory is divided in two sections:

• Section D2-1, which focuses on the software development and hardware needs of Sector B and
• Section D2-2, which focuses on the needs of Sectors A and C.

 Both sections are well integrated into the structure of this Laboratory and may well undertake – if necessary – work in other sectors (different from the ones designated here) as coordinated by its responsible person.

Responsible: M. Morfoulaki

The Laboratory D3 deals with all the knowledge management and training actions that are necessary in order to keep the personnel of HIT up to date with advanced developments in the transport science and also to fully exploit the knowledge generated within HIT through its various projects.

Furthermore, the Lab D3 is responsible for the dissemination campaigns of HIT to the outside world on issues of social concern (e.g. road safety) as well as for the maintenance of the internet site of HIT.

More specifically, the relevant work falls into three sections as follows:

• Publicity and promotion of the work of HIT, in order to become known to the general public and other social actors (D3-1). It does so through well-organized campaigns and partnerships with other Organisations such as the traffic police or municipalities. 
• Commercial exploitation of the research results and IPRs (D3-2). This section is responsible for producing innovation and assisting, by all appropriate means, the scientific personnel of the Institute to submit requests for patents and other intellectual property rights acquisition.
• Knowledge management of the knowledge – publications – internet site (D3-3). This section is responsible for the collection, classification, maintenance and easy internal dissemination of the knowledge produced by the various projects and research results within HIT. It also deals with the coordination and the necessary logistics work necessary for the publications of HIT and maintains the internet site of HIT with information and up to date material that comes from all Sectors and Laboratories. The section does not produce the information that goes to the internet site but primarily coordinates and oversees the implementation of this work by all the sectors and Labs of the Institute.

Responsible: A. Dimou

 Institute data analysis, impact factors and success indicators assessment laboratory was created with a purpose of maintaining and analyzing the data of the Hellenic Institute of Transport.The Laboratory D4 gathers data through PMS tool that has been specifically designed for the lab, keeping all the features of HIT researchers’ academic activities.A vast amount of data that is generated through the operations of the institute is constantly uploaded in the tool, by that reflecting upon overall progress of the scientific actions and keeping the data available for any further statistical analyses.

• Measuring the impact factor of the journals and publications of HIT researchers

• Gathering and analyzing data about HIT researchers participation in conferences and workshops

• Maintaining the archive of all the academic presentations of HIT researchers

• Analyzing the features and impacts of the projects the Institute participates in

• Assessing the overall success indicators of the Institute

Responsible: S. Nikolaou

The Hellenic Institute of Transport puts an emphasis on making scientific knowledge and technologies developed by the institute available to wider society, which will allow successfully transferring the research results and trigger their further exploitation.

The Laboratory D5 deals with the commercial exploitation of research results, exploring sound solutions for implementing the research findings and IPRs-Patents.

Patent commercialization allows their further implementation in businesses, by that contributing to the overall improvement of economic performance, while commercial exploitation of research results facilitates transfer of knowledge and tangible societal, educational, environmental technical and commercial benefits for both the creators, state and possible commercial partners. 

Laboratory D5 undertakes the following activities:

• Focusing on high potential projects with potential of becoming a commercial success
• Planning exploitation activities
• Supporting activities of patent valuation and information gathering
• Aiming at development of spin off companies