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The goal of the project FIMCAR (Frontal Impact and Compatibility Assessment Research) was to define an integrated set of test procedures and associated metrics to assess a vehicle's frontal impact protection, which includes self- and partner-protection. For the development of the set, two different full-width tests (full-width deformable barrier [FWDB] test, full-width rigid barrier test) and three different offset tests (offset deformable barrier [ODB] test, progressive deformable barrier [PDB] test, moveable deformable barrier with the PDB barrier face [MPDB] test) have been investigated. Different compatibility assessment procedures were analysed and metrics for assessing structural interaction (structural alignment, vertical and horizontal load spreading) as well as several promising metrics for the PDB/MPDB barrier were developed. The final assessment approach consists of a combination of the most suitable full-width and offset tests. For the full-width test (FWDB), a metric was developed to address structural alignment based on load cell wall information in the first 40 ms of the test. For the offset test (ODB), the existing ECE R94 was chosen. Within the paper, an overview of the final assessment approach for the frontal impact test procedures and their development is given.
In 2011 399 cyclists died in road accidents in Germany and another 76.351 cyclists have been injured. Since 2000 the number of injured or fatally injured cyclists remained on the same high level. Cyclists form 19% of all casualties in German road traffic, although the modal split rate of this transport mode in 2008 was only 10% of trips and resp. 3% of kilometres per day. The high proportion of fatally and seriously injured shows the high vulnerability of cyclists. The demographic shift towards an older population in Germany and the governmental recommendation of increased bicycle use as an ecological, economical and healthy alternative to other modes of transport lead to the assumption that bicycle use especially of elderly people will increase. Based on these facts about the German cyclists' situation a representative survey of 2.000 cyclists was conducted. Results display use patterns and accident involvement on a descriptive level. Overall 7.7% of cyclists report to have been involved in at least one road traffic accident within the last three years. The performed path model analysis reveals an acceptable model fit. Though the explained variance of accident involvement of the applied psychological factors was low, significant relations between several of these factors and especially risky behaviour could be found.
The market introduction and penetration of electric vehicles can be seen as a milestone in order to reduce the environmental burden imposed by the transport sector. The wide-spread use of electric vehicles powered by electricity from renewable sources promises a substantial reduction of local emissions in urban areas as well as greenhouse gas emissions. To be a successful mobility alternative several obstacles and challenges have to be overcome first. Especially the customers' purchase decision determines finally whether an innovation like electromobility will be successful. Therefore, this paper concentrates on demand-related obstacles and barriers for a broad market deployment of electric cars. Within the Electromobility+ project eMAP these issues are investigated via a consumer survey. It was designed to identify the awareness of potential consumers of electric cars as well as give an estimate of the attitude towards this new technology. In addition to the picture of potential demand-related obstacles the consumers were asked to evaluate the suitability of various promotion measures.
In the project SECMAN " SECurity MANual " a simple four-step procedure for the identification of critical road infrastructures, assessment of these infrastructures regarding various man-made threats and the determination of effective protection measures was developed. These methodologies are summarized and combined into a comprehensive best-practice manual which allows for a trans-national structured and holistic security-risk-management approach for owners and operators of road infrastructures in Europe. This paper presents the developed methodology starting from the assessment procedures of a network's criticality over an object's attractiveness and vulnerability to the selection process of appropriate protection measures.
In Germany road tunnels on major roads which are longer than 400 m have to be monitored permanently. For that purpose the tunnels are equipped with a multitude of monitoring and detection systems whose data and messages are transmitted to tunnel control centres. Due to the higher traffic density, the increasing number of tunnels to be monitored and road users" demand of higher safety and security levels, the strains on operating staff of tunnel control centres have continuously been growing. Therefore, innovative approaches have been developed in two recent German research projects: RETISS " Real Time Security Management System, and ESIMAS " Real-time Safety Management System for road Tunnels. Both systems are designed to allow faster and more efficient reaction of tunnel operators in order to maintain the capacity and availability of transport infrastructures but also to improve the safety and security of road users.
The off-set assessment procedure potentially contributes to the FIMCAR objectives to maintain the compartment strength and to assess load spreading in frontal collisions. Furthermore it provides the opportunity to assess the restraint system performance with different pulses if combined with a full-width assessment procedure in the frontal assessment approach. Originally it was expected that the PDB assessment procedure would be selected for the FIMCAR assessment approach. However, it was not possible to deliver a compatibility metric in time so that the current off-set procedure (ODB as used in UNECE R94) with some minor modifications was proposed for the FIMCAR Assessment Approach. Nevertheless the potential to assess load spreading, which appears not to be possible with any other assessed frontal impact assessment procedure was considered to be still high. Therefore the development work for the PDB assessment procedure did not stop with the decision not to select the PDB procedure. As a result of the decisions to use the current ODB and to further develop the PDB procedure, both are covered within this deliverable. The deliverable describes the off-set test procedure that will be recommended by FIMCAR consortium, this corresponds to the ODB test as it is specified in UN-ECE Regulation 94 (R94), i.e. EEVC deformable element with 40% overlap at a test speed of 56 km/h. In addition to the current R94 requirements, FIMCAR will recommend to introduce some structural requirements which will guarantee sufficiently strong occupant compartments by enforcing the stability of the forward occupant cell. With respect to the PDB assessment procedure a new metric, Digital Derivative in Y direction - DDY, was developed, described, analysed, and compared with other metrics. The DDY metric analyses the deformation gradients laterally across the PDB face. The more even the deformation, the lower the DDY values and the better the metric- result. In order analyse the different metrics, analysis of the existing PDB test results and the results of the performed simulation studies was performed. In addition, an assessment of artificial deformation profiles with the metrics took place. This analysis shows that there are still issues with the DDY metric but it appears that it is possible to solve them with future optimisations. For example the current metric assesses only the area within 60% of the half vehicle width. For vehicles that have the longitudinals further outboard, the metric is not effective. In addition to the metric development, practical issues of the PDB tests such as the definition of a scan procedure for the analysis of the deformation pattern including the validation of the scanning procedure by the analysis of 3 different scans at different locations of the same barrier were addressed. Furthermore the repeatability and reproducibility of the PDB was analysed. The barrier deformation readings seem to be sensitive with respect to the impact accuracy. In total, the deliverable is meant to define the FIMCAR off-set assessment procedure and to be a starting point for further development of the PDB assessment procedure.
The objective of this deliverable is to describe the expected influence of the candidate test procedures developed in FIMCAR for frontal impact on other impact types. The other impact types of primary interest are front-to-side impacts, collisions with road restraint systems (e.g. guardrails), and heavy goods vehicle impacts. These collision types were chosen as they involve structures that can be adapted to improve safety. Collisions with vulnerable road users (VRU) were not explicitly investigated in FIMCAR. It is expected that the vehicle structures of interest in FIMCAR can be designed into a VRU friendly shell. Information used for this deliverable comes from simulations and car-to-car crash tests conducted in FIMCAR or review of previous research. Three test configurations (full width, offset, and moving deformable barriers) were the input to the FIMCAR selection process. There are three different types of offset tests and two different full width tests. During the project test procedures could be divided into three groups that provide different influences or outcomes on vehicle designs: 1. The ODB barrier provides a method to assess part of the vehicles energy absorption capabilities and compartment test in one test. 2. The FWRB and FWDB have similar capabilities to control structural alignment, further assess energy absorption capabilities, and promote the improvements in the occupant restraint system for high deceleration impacts. 3. The PDB and MPDB can be used to promote better load spreading in the vehicle structures, in addition to assessing energy absorption and occupant compartment strength in an offset configuration. The consortium selected the ODB and FWDB as the two best candidates for short term application in international rulemaking. The review of how all candidates would affect vehicle performance in other impacts (beside front-to-front vehicle or frontal impacts with fixed obstacles) however is reported in this deliverable to support the benefit analysis reported in FIMCAR. The grouping presented above is used to discuss all five test candidates using similarities between certain tests and thereby simplify the discussion.
According to an investigation in March 2008 by the Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Urban Affairs (BMVBS) about 14,000 truck parking spaces are missing in the near of motorways in Germany. Beside constructional enlargement of rest areas, intelligent traffic systems ought to be used to detect automatically the occupancy rate of rest areas and to provide better demand management and also to achieve an increase of capacity of truck parking spaces. The essay describes the newly developed control procedure "Compact parking", which is currently under development by German Federal Highway Research Institute (BASt). The method achieves that a number of trucks are parking in a compact way, side by side and without a driving lane between them. With the help of dynamic displays above the parking rows, the drivers receive the needful information to park their vehicle in a parking row, in which other trucks have the same or an earlier departure time. This system is able to increase the rest area capacity in short-term, more quickly than constructional enlargement of rest areas.
Due to the publication of guidelines in Germany the possibility exists to offer analytical designed construction works within an alternative proposal. But the extent to which the test specimen production influences the design relevant properties (for the same asphalt mixture) is not sufficiently investigated at present. Objective of this research project was to determine the design relevant asphalt properties by tests and do comparative considerations on two selected locations within the renewal of a federal trunk road (Germany). For the comparative consideration of the design relevant asphalt properties mixture samples were taken during paving and afterwards drill cores were taken at the same locations. Fatigue tests and tests to determine the stiffness were conducted with the Indirect Tensile Test (ITT). Then design calculations having regard to the test results were performed. At this different bearing conditions of the asphalt package were considered. The calculated fatigue conditions were comparative evaluated and they are presented and discussed in this paper.
Improving the security of critical road infrastructure is a major task for owners and operators of tunnels and bridges in the European TEN-T Network (Trans-European Networks of Transport) (European Parliament and Council 1996). Up to now, there has not been a systematic procedure for identifying and assessing critical infrastructure objects and selecting appropriate protection measures. The EC FP7 project SeRoN for the first time presents an innovative methodology in order to support road owners and operators in handling this complex task. This paper describes the methodology and project results in detail by giving an introduction into its practical application.