The situation in Thessaloniki’s traffic load has eased due to the construction of the flyover, notes the deputy regional governor for Infrastructure and Networks of the Central Macedonia Region, Paris Billias, who today presented data from the Transport Institute at the regional authority’s accountability meeting.

Answering a question from the head of the faction “Change in the Region of Central Macedonia”, Yannis Mylopoulos, and the head of the faction “Co-Labour”, Vassilis Rokou, Mr. Billias pointed out that “already the measure of policing successfully applied by the Thessaloniki Traffic Authority on the main roads of the city such as Tsimiski, V.Olgas, Karamanli and Egnatia, contributed significantly to the reduction of the traffic impacts caused by the start of the construction works flyover».

He further stated that “the prohibition of stopping and parking on the specific streets through policing also supports the more efficient operation of the integrated traffic management system of the Region which already operates from 2023 with new technological means and intelligent transport systems, modifying the signaling at selected junctions according to the real-time traffic composition».

In this context, he announced that “it has been established from the analyzes of the traffic data carried out by the Institute of Sustainable Mobility and Transport Networks that the travel times on the aforementioned road axes have not only been maintained at the same levels as in the period before the start of construction of the flyover since the implementation of the policing measure and after but also show less variation, which makes them more reliable».

At the same time, he emphasized that the combined application of the 15 measures proposed by the Region can contribute to the further mitigation of the traffic impacts directly and also during the tourist season, where traffic is expected to be even higher.

In particular, he announced that a road has already been constructed and will be handed over to traffic that will serve the Papageorgiou hospital through the Karatassiou camp and will be used by emergency vehicles such as those of the EKAB and the Fire Service.

Furthermore, an EKAV station has been placed in Eptapyrgio in order to be able to intervene more quickly and the tender has been completed for the placement of seven crane vehicles along the ring road so that in the event of an accident they can intervene quickly to remove the vehicles so as not to create a problem.

Also, as he said, the Municipality of Thessaloniki is going to start the evening collection in the next few days which will significantly reduce the traffic loads during peak hours after the funding from the government. According to the Municipality, a dialogue has also been started on loading and unloading, so that at the end of the summer what will be agreed with the social partners can be implemented.

With regard to Egnatia Odos, he said that he undertook to draw up an emergency plan for any incident.

“Obviously, with these measures that we proposed, the situation has been alleviated. The problem has not been resolved in any way» pointed out Mr. Billias.

Regarding the burden on the ring road, he said that during peak hours it is 70 to 80% higher than in the pre-flyover period.

He clarified, finally, that according to the figures of the Transport Institute, the greatest inconvenience is in the direction east from the Papageorgiou hospital to Kalamaria, which is of the order of 15 minutes late, from 4 to 6 in the afternoon. In the opposite direction in the same period of time the delay is an additional 15 minutes.