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Technical progress in automotive engineering focuses at the moment on two competing branches: improving safety and reducing energy consumption. Recent consideration has been given to a third factor, cost to the consumer. Challenges are presented by demographic changes, especially with increasing participation of elderly people in road traffic. The report considers the recent history of road accidents in Germany and statistics relating to vehicle population and road performance. There is a general trend towards decreasing numbers of accidents and their severity. Transport is responsible for roughly 20% of CO2 emissions and approximately 70% of total petroleum consumption. The Federal Government has responded to these challenges by publishing the Freight Transport and Logistics Masterplan in the summer of 2008. It describes the strategic transport policy direction and the key elements of the future course of action which are to be used to ensure the provision of efficient infrastructure and, at the same time, to reduce the amount of energy consumed by vehicles and make transport more efficient, cleaner and quieter. This document contains a number of concrete measures subsumed under the following six objectives: Making optimum use of transport infrastructure - shaping transport to make it more efficient; Reducing the number of journeys - ensuring mobility; Transferring more traffic to the railways and inland waterways; Upgrading more transport arteries and hubs; Environmentally friendly, climate friendly, quiet and safe transport, and Good working conditions and good training in the freight transport industry. Progress in research is outlined in the following areas: Daytime Running Lights for Motorcycles; Safety of hydrogen vehicles - addressing safety and environmental issues by development of a Global Technical Regulation for hydrogen vehicles; Elements of active vehicle safety for elderly drivers; Periodical Technical Inspection of electronically controlled systems in road vehicles - Electronic Stability Control; Pedestrian protection; Crash Compatibility - role of collision partner in passive safety tests; Child safety; Euro NCAP - Child Restraint Systems, and German Field Operational Test on Car-to-Car and Car-to-Infrastructure Systems (SIM-TD). The research project AKTIV - "Adaptive and Cooperative Technologies for Intelligent Traffic" encompasses the design, development, and evaluation of novel driver assistance systems, knowledge and information technologies and is set up to find solutions for efficient traffic management and Car-to-Car and Car-to-Infrastructure communication for future cooperative vehicle applications. The European Statement of Principles on the Human Machine Interface (HMI), presented at the eSafety Conference, which was held in Berlin on 5/6 June 2007, addresses issues such as Real Time Traffic Information (RTTI), Legal issues of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) and e-security.
Within the process of integrating passenger airbags in the vehicle fleet a problem of compatibility between the passenger airbag and rear-facing child restraint systems was recognised. Especially in the US several accidents with children killed by the passenger airbag were recorded. Taking into account these accidents the deactivation of a present passenger airbag is mandatory if a child is carried in a rear-facing child restraint system at the front passenger seat in all member states of the European Union. This rule is in force since the deadline of 2003/20/EC at the latest. In the past a passenger airbag either could not be disabled or could only be disabled by a garage. Today there are a lot of different possibilities for the car driver himself to disable the airbag. Solutions like an on/off-switch or the automatic detection of a child restraint system are mentioned as an example. Taking into account the need for the deactivation of front passenger airbags two types of misuse can occur: transportation of an infant while the airbag is (still) enabled and transportation of an adult, while the airbag is disabled, respectively. Within a research project funded by BASt both options of misuse were analysed utilising two different types of surveys amongst users (field observations and interviews, Internet-questionnaires). In addition both analysis of accident data and crash tests for an updated assessment of the injury risk caused by the front passenger airbag were conducted. Both surveys indicate a low risk of misuse. Most of the misuse cases were observed in older cars, which offer no easy way to disable the airbag. For systems, which detect a child seat automatically, no misuse could be found. The majority of misuses in cars equipped with a manual switch were caused by reasons of oblivion. Also the accident analysis indicates a minor risk of misuse. From more than 300 cases of the GIDAS accident sample that were analysed, only 24 children were using the front passenger seat in cars equipped with a front passenger airbag. In most of these cases the airbag was deactivated. When misuse occurred the injury severity was low. However, when analysing German single accidents the fatality risk caused by the front passenger airbag became obvious. From the technical point of view, there were important changes in the design of passenger airbags in recent years. Not only volume and shape were modified, but also the mounting position of the entire airbag module was changed fundamentally. Even if these findings do not allow obtaining general conclusions, a clear tendency of less danger by airbags could be identified. For future vehicle development a safe combination of airbags and rear faced baby seats seems to be possible in the long term. This would mean that both types of misuse could be eliminated. For parents an easier use of child seat and car would be the result.
In the last years there has been a decline in accident figures in Germany especially for four wheeled vehicles. At the same time, accident figures for motorcycles remained nearly constant. About 17 % of road traffic fatalities in the year 2006 were motorcyclists. 33 % of these riders were killed in single vehicle crashes. This leads to the conclusion that improving driving dynamics and driving stability of powered two wheelers would yield considerable safety gains. However, the well-known measures for cars and trucks with their proven effectiveness cannot be transferred easily to motorcycles. Therefore studies were carried out to examine the safety potential of Anti Lock Braking Systems (ABS) and Vehicle Stability Control (VSC) for motorcycles by means of accident analysis, driving tests and economical as well as technical assessment of the systems. With regard to ABS, test persons were assigned braking tasks (straight and in-curve) with five different brake systems with and without ABS. Stopping distances as well as stress and strain on the riders were measured for 9 test riders who completed 105 braking manoeuvres each. Knowing the ability of ABS to avoid falls during braking in advance of a crash and taking into account the system costs, a cost benefit analysis for ABS for motorcycles was carried out for different market penetration of ABS, i.e. equipment rates, and different time horizons. The potential of VSC for motorcycles was estimated in two steps. First the kinds of accidents that could be prevented by such a system at all have been analysed. For these accident configurations, simulations and driving tests were then performed to determine if a VSC was able to detect the critical driving situation and if it was technically possible to implement an actuator which would help to stabilise the critical situation.
In 2012 the fifth ESAR conference (Expert Symposium on Accident Research) was held in Hannover. ESAR is an international convention of experts, who analyze traffic accidents all over the world and discuss their results in this context, conducted at the Medizinische Hochschule Hannover every 2 years. It connected representatives of public authorities, engineers in automotive development and scientists and offers a forum with particular emphasis on In-Depth-Analyses of accident statistics and accident analyses. Special focus is placed on research on the basis of so-called "In-Depth-Accident-Investigations" [data collections at the sites of the accidents], which are characterized by extensive documentations of the sites of the accidents, of the vehicles as well as of the injuries, encompassing several scientific fields. ESAR aims at a multi-disciplinary compilation of scientific results and at discussing them on an international, scientific level. It is thus a scientific colloquium and a platform for exchanging information for all accident researchers. Experiences in accident prevention as well as in the complex field of accident reconstruction are stated and new research fields are added. Existing results of long-term research work in Europe, the US, Australia and Japan include different infrastructural correlations and give findings on population, vehicle population and driver characteristics, which offer a basis for recommendations to be derived and measures for increasing road safety.
The technology involved in traffic control in Germany has undergone significant changes. This paper describes how a group of German manufacturers have worked with operators to produce Open Communications Interface for Road Traffic Control Systems (OCIT). At the beginning of 2010, twenty-one different European manufacturers had bought licences for OCIT outstations.
The Joint Transport Research Centre of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the International Transport Forum recently conducted a benchmarking study of the safety and productivity of typical highway transport trucks from various countries. This paper focuses on vehicle productivity and efficiency in regard to the movement of freight. Forty vehicles from 10 countries were examined. The vehicles were designed for longer-haul applications and were classified in three separate categories: workhorse vehicles, which are the most common and can travel on most roads; high-capacity vehicles, which may be restricted to a certain class of road; and very high-capacity vehicles, which may be restricted to specific highways or routes. The metrics used in the analysis include maximum cargo mass and volume capacity, optimum cargo density, fuel consumption, and carbon dioxide output as a function of the freight task. The study found that size and weight regulations have a significant effect on the productivity and efficiency of heavy vehicles, including fuel consumption and vehicle emissions per unit of cargo transported. Significant variations were found among the vehicles from participating countries as well as within vehicle classes. It was also apparent that, in general, higher-productivity vehicles are correlated more strongly with increased cargo volume than with increased cargo mass and that larger trucks are better suited to lower-density freight than are workhorse vehicles. The study also found that it is important to consider the freight task when evaluating vehicle fuel consumption and emissions.
Road transport networks are of major importance for the economy and equally for the mobility of the citizens in the European countries. In order to improve the protection of transport infrastructures and the robustness of the European road network research projects are currently in process on national and European level. A main focus of these investigations is to analyze the specific vulnerabilities of bridges and tunnels concerning structural, operational and organizational aspects and to identify critical objects. But also infrastructures, which are critical due to their location and function in a road network, must be identified. For this the resulting regional and supra-regional impacts due to the failure of certain infrastructures have to be investigated on network level. In order to increase the security of road transport infrastructures and whole road networks the most effective security measures have to be determined. This paper gives an overview about the content and first results of current European and German research projects on road transport security.
As the data for road weather stations is used for online traffic control within section control systems, it is very important for the efficiency of the traffic control systems to be based on reliable data of a high quality. Therefore, a Test Site for checking the quality of road weather stations was established near Munich in Germany in 2003 and has been operational since then. In close co-operation with all participants (sensor manufacturers, road authorities, German Federal Research Institute, research and consultancy bodies), the overall goal was to improve the sensors" quality as well as to establish methods to detect failures in measurements. Furthermore, several improvements were carried out within the scope of the Test Site using the expertise of all participants and the infrastructure of the Test Site. The developments, reports and results obtained are both significant and helpful for manufacturers, road authorities, practitioners, research and consultancy.
Abstract: The number of accidents that can be attributed to driving under the influence of psychoactive substances (alcohol, drugs, and certain medicines) is constantly on a high level with drugs and medicines proportionally increasing over the years. The overall objective of the EU 6th Framework Programme project DRUID is to gain better knowledge of the various aspects of driving under the influence of drugs, alcohol and medicines. DRUID wants to offer scientific support to EU transport policy makers by suggesting guidelines and measures to combat impaired driving. To reach this ambitious aim a wide range of studies is conducted. The various studies are divided into seven work packages with complex interdependencies. There are experimental studies assessing the effects of single and combined psychoactive substances on driving performance (WP1) as well as epidemiological studies aiming to assess the situation in Europe regarding prevalence of alcohol and other psychoactive substances in drivers (WP2).The principal objective of these studies is to gain relative risk estimates for traffic accident involvement of drivers impaired by psychoactive substances and to recommend substance concentration thresholds. A theoretical framework which allows the integration of the experimental and epidemiological findings serves as a fundament for developing these recommendations. WP3 aims at improving the possibilities of detecting drug driving in Europe. Police forces evaluate practically (under realistic enforcement conditions) oral fluid screening devices. A scientific evaluation of oral fluid screening devices and other methods (i.e. roadside checklists of signs of impairment) is done as well. The outcome of the practical and scientific evaluations serves as input to cost-benefit analyses of enforcement.
This paper describes the methodology for the assessment of the socio-economic impact of SAFESPOT applications. The applications selected for the assessment cover vehicle to vehicle (v2v) as well as vehicle to infrastructure (v2i) communication systems. The applications address main problem areas of road safety: accidents at intersections, accidents due to hazardous road and weather conditions and accidents due to over speeding and inappropriate distance. The assessment methodology relies in its core on cost-benefit analysis (CBA) as the most widespread tool to assess the profitability of applications form the society point of view. The assessment is however not limited to CBA but also considers the economic effects for particular stakeholder groups such as users, public authorities and the like. Their individual cost and benefits can be investigated in stakeholder analyses. Both elements, CBA and stakeholder analysis, form an integrated assessment approach which is applied here. The assessment makes use of the sound methodological base which was provided by projects such as SEiSS and eIMPACT. Some characteristics of co-operative systems however call for special attention within the assessment. Most prominently, the assessment will concentrate on a bundle of applications. The impact of this bundle will be assessed under the conditions of different business and service models. These issues will be addressed in the paper. Moreover, this paper also provides insight in likely patterns of results and first results of socio-economic impact assessment itself.