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Since its creation in 2011 the Pre-Crash-Matrix (PCM) offers the possibility to observe the pre-crash phase until five seconds before crash for a wide range of accidents. Currently the PCM contains more than 8.000 reconstructed accidents out of the GIDAS (German In-Depth Accident Study) database and is enlarged continuously by more than 1.000 cases per year. Hence, a detailed investigation of active safety systems in real accident situations has been made feasible. The PCM contains all relevant data in database format to simulate the pre-crash phase until the first collision of the accident for a maximum of two participants. This includes the definition of the participants and their characteristics, the dynamic behavior of the participants as time-dependent course for five seconds before crash as well as the geometry of the traffic infrastructure. The digital sketch of the accident and information from GIDAS as well as from supplementary databases represent the main input for the simulation of the pre-crash phase of an accident with the VUFO simulation model VAST (Vufo Accident Simulation Tool). This simulation in turn embodies the foundation of the PCM. The PCM underlies continual improvements and enhancements in consultation with its users. In addition to collisions of cars with other cars, pedestrians, bicycles and motorcycles the PCM now also covers car to object and car to truck collisions. The paper illustrates car to truck collisions as a showcase and explains perspectives for further developments. In 2016 a more detailed definition of the contour of the vehicle was added. Furthermore, the geometrical surroundings of the accident site will be provided in a new structure with a higher level of detail. Thus, a precise classification of road marks and objects is possible to further improve the support of developing and evaluating ADAS. This paper gives an overview about the latest developments of the PCM with its innovations and provides an outlook to upcoming enhancements. Besides potential areas of application for the development of ADAS are shown.
This work describes the results of the experimental activity, illustrating the driving behavior observed in different conditions, relating them to the different methods of ADAS intervention and comparing the driver behavior without ADAS. In the present study, driver behavior was studied in road accidents involving elderly pedestrians, with different ADAS HMIs, as a base to develop a driver model in near missing pedestrian accidents. A literature research was conducted with the aim of finding out the main influencing factors, including environment, boundary conditions, configuration of impact, pedestrian and driver information, when pedestrian fatalities occur and an analysis of frequent road accidents was conducted to get more detailed information about the driver- behavior. In order to obtain more detailed information about pedestrian accidents, real road accidents were reconstructed with multibody simulations on PC-Crash and, by the comparison between literature findings and reconstructions, a generic accident scenario was defined. The generic accident scenario was implemented on the full scale dynamic driving simulator in use at the Laboratory for Safety and Traffic Accident Analysis (LaSIS, University of Florence, Italy) in order to analyse the driving behaviors of volunteers, also considering the influence of ADAS devices. Forty-five young volunteers were enrolled for this study, resulting in forty valid tests on different testing scenarios. Two different scenarios consisted in driving with or without ADAS in the vehicle. Different kinds of ADAS, acoustic and optical, with different time of intervention were tested in order to study the different reactions of the driver. The tests showed some interesting differences between driver's behavior when approaching the critical situation. Drivers with ADAS reacted earlier, but more slowly, depending also on the type of alarm, and often with double reaction when braking. In fact, the results of the activity showed that with ADAS intervention the time to collision (TTC) increases, but the reaction time and braking modality change: a) there is a sort of "latency" time between the accelerator pedal release and the brake pressure; b) the brake pressure is initially less intense. So the driver only partially takes advance from the TTC increase. These differences were valued not only qualitatively, but quantitatively as well. This work revealed to be useful to improve the knowledge of drivers" behavior, in order to realize a driver model that can be implemented to help attaining and assessing higher levels of automation through new technology.
The advent of active safety systems calls for the development of appropriate testing methods. These methods aim to assess the effectivity of active safety systems based on criteria such as their capability to avoid accidents or lower impact speeds and thus mitigate the injury severity. For prospective effectivity studies, simulation becomes an important tool that needs valid models not only to simulate driving dynamics and safety systems, but also to resolve the collision mechanics. This paper presents an impact model which is based on solving momentum conservation equations and uses it in an effectivity study of a generic collision mitigation system in reconstructed real accidents at junctions. The model assumes an infinitely short crash duration and computes output parameters such as post-crash velocities, delta-v, force directions, etc. and is applicable for all impact collision configurations such as oblique, excentric collisions. Requiring only very little computational effort, the model is especially useful for effectivity studies where large numbers of simulations are necessary. Validation of the model is done by comparison with results from the widely used reconstruction software PC-Crash. Vehicles involved in the accidents are virtually equipped with a collision mitigation system for junctions using the software X-RATE, and the simulations (referred to as system simulations) are started sufficiently early before the collision occurred. In order to assess the effectivity, the real accident (referred to as baseline) is compared with the system simulations by computing the reduction of the impact speeds and delta-v.
For more than a decade, ADAC accident researchers have analysed road accidents with severe injuries, recording some 20,000 accidents. An important task in accident research is to determine the causative factors of road accidents. Apart from vehicle engineering and human factors, accident research also focuses on infrastructural and environmental aspects. To find out what accident scenarios are the most common in ADAC accident research and what driver assistance systems can prevent them, our first task was to conduct a detailed accident analysis. Using CarMaker, we performed a realistic simulation of accident scenarios, including crashes, with varying parameters. To begin with, we made an initial selection of driver assistance systems in order to determine those with the greatest accident prevention potential. One important finding of this study is that the safety potential of the individual driver assistance systems can actually be examined. It also turned out that active safety offers even much more potential for development and innovation than passive safety. At the same time, testing becomes more demanding, too, as new systems keep entering the market, many of them differing in functional details. ADAC will continue to test all driver assistance systems as realistically as possible so as to be able to provide advice to car buyers. Therefore, it will be essential to develop and improve test conditions and criteria.
Twenty-eight percent of traffic accidents in Japan are rear-end collisions, and of these, 13% are multiple collisions (three or more vehicles and/or roadside objects). A post-crash braking system enables the driver to stop the vehicle in a short distance after a rear-end collision to prevent secondary collisions. In this study, the effectiveness of a post-crash braking system was examined using a drive recorder database. In 64% of rear-end collisions, the driver's braking was interrupted after the collision. The stopping distance was estimated with time data from the drive recorder. We predict that the brake assist would be effective in preventing secondary collisions in 21% of cases.
Injury probability functions for pedestrians and bicyclists based on real-world accident data
(2017)
The paper is focusing on the modelling of injury severity probabilities, often called as Injury Risk Functions (IRF). These are mathematical functions describing the probability for a defined population and for possible explanatory factors (variables) to sustain a certain injury severity. Injury risk functions are becoming more and more important as basis for the assessment of automotive safety systems. They contribute to the understanding of injury mechanisms, (prospective) evaluation of safety systems and definition of protection criteria or are used within regulation and/or consumer ratings. In all cases, knowledge about the correlation between mechanical behavior and injury severity is needed. IRFs are often based on biomechanical data. This paper is focusing on the derivation of injury probability models from real world accident data of the GIDAS database (German In-depth Accident Study). In contrast to most academic terms there is no explicit term definition or definition of creation processes existing for injury probability models based on empirical data. Different approaches are existing for such kind of models in the field of accident research. There is a need for harmonization in terms of the used methods and data as well as the handling with the existing challenges. These are preparation of the dataset, model assumptions, censored/unknown data, evaluation of model accuracy, definition of dependent and independent variable, and others. In the presented study, several empirical, statistical and phenomenological approaches were analyzed regarding their advantages and disadvantages and also their applicability. Furthermore, the identification of appropriate prediction parameters for the injury severity of pedestrians has been considered. Due to its main effect on injuries of pedestrians and bicyclists, the importance of the secondary impact has also been analyzed. Finally, the model accuracy, evaluated by several criteria, is the rating factor that gives the quality and reliability for application of the resulting models. After the investigation and evaluation of statistical approaches one method was chosen and appropriate prediction variables were examined. Finally, all findings were summarized and injury risk functions for pedestrians in real world accidents were created. Additionally, the paper gives instructions for the interpretation and usage of such functions. The presented results include IRFs for several injury severity levels and age groups. The presented models are based on a high amount of real world accidents and describe very well the injury severity probability of pedestrians and bicyclists in frontal collisions with current vehicles. The functions can serve as basis for the evaluation of effectiveness of systems like Pedestrian-AEB or Bicycle-AEB.
In most of developed countries, the progress made in passive safety during the last three decades allowed to drastically reduce the number of killed and severely injured especially for occupants of passenger cars. This reduction is mainly observed for frontal impacts for which the AIS3+ injuries has been reduced about 52% for drivers and 38% for front passengers. The stiffening of the cars' structure coupled with the generalization of airbags and the improvement of the seatbelt restraint (load limiter, pretension, etc.) allowed to protect vital body regions such as head, neck and thorax. However, the abdomen did not take advantage with so much success of this progress. The objective of this study is to draw up an inventory on the abdominal injuries of the belted car occupants involved in frontal impact, to present adapted counter-measures and to assess their potential effectiveness. In the first part the stakes corresponding to the abdominal injuries will be defined according to types of impact, seat location, occupants' age and type of injured organs. Then, we shall focus on the abdominal injury risk curves for adults involved in frontal impact and on the comparisons of the average risks according to the seat location. In the second part we will list counter-measures and we shall calculate their effectiveness. The method of case control will be used in order to estimate odds ratio, comparing two samples, given by occupants having or not having the studied safety system. For this study, two type of data sources are used: national road injured accident census and retrospective in-depth accident data collection. Abdominal injuries are mainly observed in frontal impact (52%). Fatal or severe abdominal occupant- injuries are observed at least in 27% of cases, ranking this body region as the most injured just after the thorax (51%). In spite of a twice lower occupation rate in the back seats compared to the front seats, the number of persons sustaining abdominal injuries at the rear place is higher than in the front place. In recent cars, the risk of having a serious or fatal abdominal injury in a frontal impact is 1.6% for the driver, 3.6% for the front passenger and 6.3% for the rear occupants. The most frequently hurt organs are the small intestine (17%), the spleen (16%) and the liver (13%). The most common countermeasures have a good efficiency in the reduction of the abdominal injuries for the adults: the stiffness of the structure of the seats allows decreasing the abdominal injury risk from 54% (driver) to 60% (front occupant), the seatbelt pretensioners decrease also this risk from 90% (driver) to 83% (front passenger).
From an automotive safety occupant protection standpoint, effective occupant restraint requires a system capable of providing non-injurious occupant ride down of anticipated crash forces. This is not only the case for frontal collisions, where occupant restraint is provided primarily by seatbelts and airbags, but is also critical for other crash modes such as side impacts, rear impacts, rollovers, as well as multiple impact events. In the rear impact crash mode, occupant restraint is provided primarily by the seatbacks and to some extent the seatbelts. Foundationally, therefore, what becomes fundamental to the seatback's role in rear occupant protection is its ability to contain the occupant within the seat, preventing occupant ramping, as well as preventing the seat's, and/or its occupant's, dangerous intrusion into the rear occupant's survival space where contact with rear compartment components and/ or rear seated occupants can present a significant injury risk. An analysis is presented of a series of rear impact sled testing conducted by the authors that evaluates the timing, position and extent of the front seatback's reward displacement toward and into the rear occupant compartment as well as consideration of the front seat occupant' ramping potential and its injury potential relative to the rear compartment. Additionally, three other series of testing are presented which assess various seat designs occupant retention capabilities. Lastly, a matched-pair comparison test series is presented which evaluates occupant motion in rear impact with and without use of a typical vehicle body mounted 3-point seatbelt. Discussion of restraint system performance observed in all the testing is included along with ATD biofidelity and thigh-gap considerations. The data collected and presented includes accelerometer instrumentation and high speed video analysis.
This study investigates the protection offered by passive head-restraints with different stiffness and energy dissipation properties. For this purpose, computational multi-body models of a generic car seat and a biofidelic 50thpercentile male human for rear impact are used to study different seat designs and passive head-restraints. The validated seat-occupant model is also used in the design of two different car-seat models which are shown to effectively mitigate whiplash by utilising a crash-energy distribution technique. Five different passive head-restraints with varying stiffness (low-medium-high) and energy dissipation percentages (low-high) are successively attached to four different car-seat models. The simulation results indicate that the protection offered by head restraints is strongly dependent on the seat design. It has also been shown that the stiffness of the passive head-restraint has much more influence on whiplash-risk in comparison to its energy dissipation capacity.
The incidence of side impacts was investigated from GIDAS data. Both vehicle-fixed object and vehicle-vehicle collisions were analysed as these are enclosed within the consumer testing program. Vehicle-fixed object collisions were stratified according to ESC availability. Results indicated that vehicles equipped with ESC rarely have pure-lateral impacts. An increase in oblique collisions was seen for the vehicles with ESC whereby most vehicle were driving in left curves. The analysis of vehicle-vehicle collisions developed injury risk curves were developed at the AIS3+ injury severity for the vehicle-vehicle side impacts. Results suggested that greatest injury risk occurred when a Pre Euro NCAP vehicle was struck by a Post Euro-NCAP vehicle. The remaining curves did not show different behaviour, indicating that stiffness increased have been equally combated. This was attributable to the few Post Euro-NCAP vehicles that had a deployed curtain airbag available in the sample. The integration of Euro NCAP testing has shown to improve vehicle crashworthiness for pole collisions, as those vehicles with ESC rarely incur lateral impacts.
At IAM RoadSmart we share the excitement about autonomous cars " who wouldn't! However over half of the drivers we polled supported concentrating on making drivers safer " among IAM RoadSmart members it was 70%. Driverless cars are still years away but delivering safer drivers can help reduce death and injury from tomorrow. Governments, academics and car makers need to work hard to convince sceptical British and American drivers that autonomous cars can deliver the benefits promised such as a 90% plus reduction in road deaths.
In 2016 the seventh 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.
Im Rahmen des weltweiten ESV-Programmes (Enhanced Safety of Vehicles) werden seit mehreren Jahren internationale Forschungsbemühungen unternommen (International Harmonized Research Activities, IHRA), um im Vorfeld der Gesetzgebung die wissenschaftlichen Grundlagen gemeinsam zu erarbeiten. Ziel der IHRA-Arbeiten ist es, auf der Grundlage dieser Forschungsergebnisse die Harmonisierung der Vorschriften zu erleichtern. Eine besondere Aktivität bezieht sich auf Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS). Im vorliegenden Beitrag wird die Aufgabe dieser IHRA-ITS-Arbeiten geschildert, sowie der derzeitige Stand der Forschungsbemühungen beschrieben. Es zeigt sich, dass die beschriebene Sicherheitsbewertung eine Fülle von Fragestellungen aufwirft und weitere Forschungsanstrengungen erfordert. Die zukünftigen Bemühungen sind darauf gerichtet, in internationaler Zusammenarbeit und Arbeitsteilung die als besonders wichtig erkannten Themen zur Bewertung der fahrzeugseitigen Fahrerassistenzsysteme zu bearbeiten.
Ausgehend von den Unfalldaten der letzten Jahre wird die Bedeutung von Fußgängerunfällen im Unfallgeschehen dargestellt. Betrachtet man die bei Unfällen getöteten Verkehrsteilnehmer, so sind am häufigsten Personen in Kraftfahrzeugen betroffen. Am zweithäufigsten werden, gemäß der Unfallstatistik, Fußgänger getötet. Eine Möglichkeit zur Verbesserung des Schutzes von Fußgängern und anderen sogenannten "ungeschützten Verkehrsteilnehmern" im Falle einer Kollision mit einem Kraftfahrzeug sind Maßnahmen am Fahrzeug. Um die Wirksamkeit derartiger Maßnahmen zu beurteilen, wurde durch das EEVC (European Enhanced Vehicle-Safety Committee) ein Prüfverfahren entwickelt. Es handelt sich dabei um ein Komponentenprüfverfahren, mit dem die Frontstruktur von Fahrzeugen, die bei einer Kollision mit einem Fußgänger hauptsächlich betroffen ist, geprüft wird. Es werden keine den gesamten Menschen repräsentierende Dummies verwendet, stattdessen werden Prüfkörper, die einzelne Körperteile simulieren, eingesetzt. Dieser EEVC Vorschlag wird geschildert. Darüber hinaus wird über Aktivitäten außerhalb des EEVC berichtet, sowie über den aktuellen Stand der Bemühungen der Europäischen Kommission in Bezug auf den Fußgängerschutz, die derzeit, auf Grundlage des Prüfvorschlages des EEVC, einen Vorschlag für eine Europäische Richtlinie erarbeitet.
Fahrerassistenzsysteme unterstützen den Fahrer durch Information, Warnung oder Eingriff in die Fahrzeugsteuerung. Zukünftige Systeme zur Kollisionsvermeidung oder bis hin zum automatischen Fahren werden den Fahrer immer mehr entlasten. Wegen ihres erheblichen Potenzials zur Verbesserung vor allem der aktiven Sicherheit können die Fahrerassistenzsysteme wesentlich zur Vermeidung von Unfällen oder der Reduktion von Unfallfolgen beitragen. Andererseits können Fahrerassistenzsysteme aufgrund des komplexen Systemzusammenhangs zwischen Fahrer, Fahrzeug und Umwelt negative Auswirkungen auf das Verkehrsgeschehen haben. Dieser Aspekt muss schon bei der Entwicklung der Systeme berücksichtigt werden. Die Empfehlung der Europäischen Kommission zur Gestaltung von Informations- und Kommunikationssystemen gibt dazu Leitlinien vor. Die BASt ist mit der wissenschaftlichen Begleitung der Thematik beauftragt. Die Industrie ist dazu aufgefordert darzulegen, welche Maßnahmen zur Einhaltung der Grundsätze ergriffen worden sind beziehungsweise werden. Um das Potenzial der Fahrerassistenzsysteme zur Steigerung der Verkehrssicherheit voll ausschöpfen zu können, sind weiterhin Forschungsarbeiten zur Entwicklung neuer und zur Weiterentwicklung bestehender Systeme unter Berücksichtigung der Gestaltungsanforderungen für sichere Assistenzsysteme durchzuführen.
In der Europäischen Union (EU) gab es 1999 circa 1,3 Millionen Straßenverkehrsunfälle mit Personenschaden, wobei circa 42.000 Personen getötet wurden. Ziel der EU ist es diese Zahl auf 25.000 im Jahr 2010 zu senken. Die EEVC befasst sich bereits seit Anfang der 80er Jahre mit der Thematik Fußgängerschutz in verschiedenen Arbeitsgruppen. Im Dezember 1998 legte die EEVC-Arbeitsgruppe 17 "Fußgängersicherheit" ihren Abschlussbericht vor, in dessen Anhang ein Prüfverfahren zum fahrzeugseitigen Fußgängerschutz enthalten ist. Dieses Prüfverfahren wird vorgestellt. Es basiert auf Komponententests. Unterschieden werden drei Prüfkörperarten und insgesamt vier Prüfkörper. Aus wissenschaftlicher Sicht und aus Sicht der Unfallforschung empfiehlt die EEVC-Arbeitsgruppe 17 eine umfassende Einführung des vorgeschlagenen Prüfverfahrens mit allen Prüfkörpern, gegebenenfalls in Form einer stufenweisen Einführung.
Seit 1997 gibt es in Europa unter dem Namen Euro NCAP (European New Car Assessment Programme) einheitliche Test- und Ratingverfahren. Sie liefern Informationen über den Insassen- und über den Fußgängerschutz. Euro NCAP hat seither fast 90 Fahrzeugmodelle in jeweils drei unterschiedlichen Crashtest-Konfigurationen untersucht und die Ergebnisse den europäischen Konsumenten zugänglich gemacht. Im Beitrag wird auf die Testbedingungen, die Euro NCAP-Ratingverfahren sowie auf die Weiterentwicklung von Euro NCAP eingegangen. Ein wichtiger Aspekt wird dabei auch die weltweite Harmonisierung der Test- und Ratingverfahren sein.
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 European Project FIMCAR, a proposal for a frontal impact test configuration was developed which included an additional full width deformable barrier (FWDB) test. Motivation for the deformable element was partly to measure structural forces as well as to produce a severe crash pulse different from that in the offset test. The objective of this study was to analyze the safety performance of vehicles in the full width rigid barrier test (FWRB) and in the full width deformable barrier test (FWDB). In total, 12 vehicles were crashed in both configurations. Comparison of these tests to real world accident data was used to identify the crash barrier most representative of real world crashes. For all vehicles, the airbag visible times were later in the FWDB configuration. This was attributed to the attenuation of the initial acceleration peak, observed in FWRB tests, by the addition of the deformable element. These findings were in alignment with airbag triggering times seen in real world crash data. Also, the dummy loadings were slightly worse in FWDB compared to FWRB tests, which is possibly linked to the airbag firing and a more realistic loading of the vehicle crash structures in the FWDB configuration. Evaluations of the lower extremities have shown a general increasing of the tibia index with the crash pulse severity.
Within the automotive context camera monitor systems (CMS) can be used to present views of the traffic situation behind the vehicle to the driver via a monitor mounted inside the cabin. This offers the opportunity to replace classical outside rearview mirrors and therefore to implement new design concepts, aerodynamically optimized vehicle shapes and to reduce the width of the vehicle. Further, the use of a CMS offers the potential to implement functionalities like warnings or situation-adaptive fields of view that are not feasible with conventional rearview mirrors. Despite these potential advantages, it is important to consider the possible technical constraints of this technology and its effect on driver perception and behavior. On the technical side next to the field of view and die robustness of die system, aspects as its functionality at day and night as well as under varying weather conditions should be object to scientific investigation. Concerning human machine interaction, it has to be considered, that the perception of velocities and distances of approaching vehicles might be different for CMS as compared to conventional rearview mirrors and potential influences of factors as the Position of the displays or drivers' age should be taken into account. In order to shed light on these and further open issues, BASt is currently conducting a study that will cover the use of CMS under controlled conditions as well in real traffic. The first part of the study will focus on passenger cars, while in a second step the empirical investigation will be extended to heavy goods vehicles, where the potentials as well as the limitations of CMS might differ considerably. The presentation will cover the first part, with regard to the experimental design, implementation and initial results if already available.
Assessment of the effectiveness of Intersection Assistance Systems at urban and rural accident sites
(2015)
An Intersection Collision Avoidance System is a promising safety system for accident avoidance or injury mitigation at junctions. However, there is still a lack of evidence of the effectiveness, due to the missing real accident data concerning Advanced Driver Assistance Systems. The objective of this study is the assessment of the effectiveness of an Intersection Collision Avoidance System based on real accidents. The method used is called virtual pre-crash simulation. Accidents at junctions were reconstructed by using the numerical simulation software PC-Crashâ„¢. This first simulation is called the baseline simulation. In a second step the vehicles of these accidents were equipped with an Intersection Collision Avoidance System and simulated again. The second simulation is called the system simulation. In the system simulation two different sensors and four different intervention strategies were used, based on a time-to-collision approach. The effectiveness of Intersection Collision Avoidance System has been evaluated by using an assessment function. On average 9% of the reviewed junction accidents could have been avoided within the system simulations. The other simulation results clearly showed a change in the principal direction of force, delta-v and reduction of the injury severity.
Event data recorders (EDRs) are a valuable tool for in-depth investigation of traffic accidents. EDRs are installed on the airbag control module (ACM) to record vehicle and occupant information before, during, and after a crash event. This study evaluates EDR characteristics and aims at better understanding EDR performance for the improvement of accident reconstruction with more reliable and accurate information regarding accidents. The analysis is based on six crash tests with corresponding EDR datasets.
The Traffic Accident Research Institute at University of Technology Dresden investigates about 1,000 accidents annually in the area around and in Dresden. These datasets have been summarized and evaluated in the GIDAS (German Accident In-Depth Study) project for 13 years. During the project it became apparent that the specific traffic situation of a covert exit of a passenger car and an intersecting two-wheeler involves a high risk potential. This critical situation develops in a large part due to the lack of visibility between the driver and the intersecting bike. In this paper the accident avoidance potential of front camera systems with lateral field of view, which allows the driver to have an indirect sight into the crossing street area will be presented.
SEEKING is looking for answers regarding electric powered bicycles and their relation to traffic safety issues. Does a cyclist need "E"? Is it as risky as riding a moped or are E-bikes creating conflicts with other cyclists? The project described herein, funded by the Austrian Ministry of Transport, has the aim of seeking answers to these hot topics. The SEEKING-team shows an in-depth investigation of vehicle dynamic sensing, together with subjective feedback of test riders to detect similarities and differences between conventional cycling and E-biking. Following an overview on the international status quo, measurement runs and their analyses are performed to find a set of preventative measures to make (E-)biking safer. A specific focus is the detection of curve handling, stopping and acceleration phases as well as conflict studies on course-based test rides and "real world" tests on cycling paths (naturalistic riding).
Die UNECE Regelung R58 regelt die Beschaffenheit und die Installation von Heckunterfahrschutzsystemen an schweren Güterkraftfahrzeugen, deren Ziel die Verbesserung der Kompabilität zwischen Pkw-Frontstrukturen und Lkw-Hecks ist. Dennoch verunglücken laut amtlicher Unfallstatistik allein in Deutschland rund 30 Pkw-Insassen in Heckauffahrunfällen auf Lkw tödlich, da diese Vorrichtungen hinsichtlich Einbauhöhe und Steifigkeit den Anforderungen des realen Unfallgeschehens nicht genügen. Das Ziel dieser Studie ist eine quantitative Abschätzung der möglichen Reduzierung der Verletzungsschwere mit Hilfe eines statistischen Modells, die durch eine Anpassung der geltenden Bestimmungen und die damit verbundenen technischen Veränderungen des bereits vorgeschriebenen Heckunterfahrschutzes zu erreichen wäre. In einer Nutzen-Kosten-Analyse wird die Wirtschaftlichkeit dieser Modifizierungen mit einem idealen Notbremsassistenten verglichen. Die Untersuchung orientiert sich dabei an den aktuell in der UN-ECE WP29/GRSG in Genf diskutierten Vorschlägen zur Anpassung der ECE-R58. Das verwendete ordinale Probit-Modell stellt einen Zusammenhang zwischen der Verletzungsschwere im auffahrenden PKW und erklärenden Größen her, in diesem Fall der kinetischen Energie des unterfahrenden Pkws und der strukturellen lnteraktion zwischen Lkw-Heck und Pkw-Front. Diese Maßnahmen könnten demnach 53 - 78% der Getöteten sowie 27 - 49% der Schwerverletzten bei diesen Unfallkonstellationen reduzieren, was pro Jahr 20 Getöteten und 95 Schwerverletzten entsprechen würde. Somit würde eine Modifikation einer bestehenden passiven Schutzmaßnahme an jährlich 100.000 neuzugelassenen Lkw und Anhängern bereits 20 Getötete adressieren. Im Vergleich dazu müssten jährlich 3 Millionen Pkw mit zusätzlicher Sensorik und Aktuatorik für einen idealen Notbremsassistenten ausgestattet werden, um im Idealfall alle Heckauffahrunfälle von Pkw auf andere Pkw oder Lkw und damit 53 Getötete zu vermeiden. Daher fällt auch das Nutzen-Kosten-Verhältnis deutlich zugunsten des verbesserten Heckunterfahrschutzes aus.
Regarding to the German road traffic licensing regulations it is mandatory to have a light system using a bicycle in public traffic. All attached components must be approved. The admission requires additional restrictions such as a dynamo as energy source with a nominal voltage of 6 V. Batteries are only allowed in addition to this. To adopt the German bicycle regulation to the state of art of an energy efficient lighting, additional power sources such as a battery respectively rechargeable batterie should be evaluated. The project will propose amendments for German Road Traffic Regulations and technical requirements.
This study aimed at developing an injury estimation algorithm for AACN technologies for Germany and compared them to findings based on Japanese data. The data to build and to verify the algorithm was obtained from the German in-depth Accident Database (GIDAS) and split into a training and a validation dataset. Significant input variables and the generalized linear regression model to predict severe injuries (ISS>15) were selected to maximize area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC). Probit regression with the input parameter multiple impact, delta v, seatbelt use and impact direction gave the largest AUC of 0.91. Sensitivity of the algorithm was validated at 90% and specificity at 76% for an injury risk threshold of 2%. It appears that no major differences between Japan and Germany exist for injury estimation based on delta v and impact direction. However, far side impact and multiple crash events appear to be associated with a larger risk increase in the German data.
The current Brussels EU Regulation No. 1235/2011, valid from May 30, 2012, has introduced an European Tyre Label with wet grip index G classes from A to G for passenger car tyres C1, light commercial vehicles tyres C2 and heavy truck- and bus tyres C3. Every wet grip class for each vehicle category has a defined band of numerical values for the wet grip index G. The legislated wet grip values G in this EU- Regulation are very low. The measured braking distances and corresponding impact speeds of the test vehicles are showing very critical results. Regulation No. 1235/2011 of the European Parliament and the Council for Type Approval of Vehicles (EU) should be changed in such a way, that for C1-tyres (normal passenger cars tyres) the minimum wet grip index G is 1.25. All C2-tyres (light commercial vehicles tyres) should at least meet a minimum wet grip index of G = 1.1. All C3-tyres (heavy trucks and buses tyres) should at least meet a minimum wet grip index of G = 0.95. Due to the missing lower limits for G in the wet grip class F for C1, C2 and C3 tyres according to Commission Regulation (EU) No. 1235/2011, officially valid from 30 May 2012, a tyre-to-road coefficient of adhesion in the extreme of 0 (zero) is legally permitted. This is an apparent flaw in above cited EU Regulation, which causes a potential danger to the road traffic safety for all motor vehicles in Europe with such tyres. The wet grip class F has to be removed urgently from said EURegulation, since a direct liability of the responsible EU-Commission can not be excluded.
Today's volumes of traffic require more and more responsibility from each individual road user in their interactions. Those who drive motor vehicles have the singular obligation to minimise the risk of accidents and hence the severity of injuries, particularly with a view to the most vulnerable road users such as motor bikes, bikes and pedestrians. Since responsible and pro-active driving depends first and foremost on the visual information relayed by our eyes and the visual channel this requires good command of the traffic and all-round visibility from our driver's seat. Granted that human error can never be fully excluded, improving visibility around the car is nevertheless an urgent priority. To do so, we need to rate visibility in the most realistic driving situations. Since the existing visibility metrics and methodology are not applicable to real-life driving situations, this study aimed at developing a new visibility rating methodology based on real-life accident scenarios. On the basis of the cases documented by the accident research project, this study analysed criteria indicative of diminishing visibility on the one hand and revealing some peculiarities in connection with the visibility issue on the other. Based on the above, the project set out to develop a rating methodology allowing to assess all-round visibility in various road situations taking into account both driver and road geometries. In this context, the assessment of visibility while turning a corner, crossing an intersection and joining traffic on a major road (priority through route) is of major importance. The first tests have shown that critical situations can be avoided by adapting the relevant geometries and technical solutions and that significant improvements of road safety can be derived therefrom.
For the estimation of the benefit and effect of innovative Driver Assistance Systems (DAS) on the collision positions and by association on the accident severity, together with the economic benefit, it becomes necessary to simulate and evaluate a variety of virtual accidents with different start values (e.g. initial speed). Taken into account the effort necessary for a manual reconstruction, only an automated crash computation can be considered for this task. This paper explains the development of an automated crash computation based on GIDAS. The focus will be on the design of the virtual vehicle models, the method of the crash computation as well as exemplary applications of the automated crash computation. For the first time an automated crash computation of passenger car accidents has been realized. Using the automated crash computation different tasks within the field of vehicle safety can be elaborated. This includes, for example, the calculation of specific accident parameters (such as EES or delta-V) for various accident constellations and the estimation of the economic benefit of DAS using IRFs (Injury Risk Functions).
The project UR:BAN "Cognitive assistance (KA)" aims at developing future assistance systems providing improved performance in complex city traffic. New state-of-the-art panoramic sensor technologies now allow comprehensive monitoring and evaluation of the vehicle environment. In order to improve protection of vulnerable road users such as pedestrians and cyclists, a particular objective of UR:BAN is the evaluation and prediction of their behaviour and actions. The objective of subproject "WER" is development support by providing quantitative estimates of traffic collisions at the very start and predict potential in terms of optimized accident avoidance and reduction of injury severity. For this purpose an integrated computer simulation toolkit is being devised based on real world accidents (GIDAS as well as video documented accidents), allowing the prediction of potential effectiveness and future benefit of assistance systems in this accident scenario. Subsequently, this toolkit may be used for optimizing the design of implemented assistance systems for improved effectiveness.
The evaluation of the expected benefit of active safety systems or even ideas of future systems is challenging because this has to be done prospectively. Beside acceptance, the predicted real-world benefit of active safety systems is one of the most important and interesting measures. Therefore, appropriate methods should be used that meet the requirements concerning representativeness, robustness and accuracy. The paper presents the development of a methodology for the assessment of current and future vehicle safety systems. The variety of systems requires several tools and methods and thus, a common tool box was created. This toolbox consists of different levels, regarding different aspects like data sources, scenarios, representativeness, measures like pre-crash-simulations, automated crash computation, single-case-analyses or driving simulator studies. Finally, the benefit of the system(s) is calculated, e.g. by using injury risk functions; giving the number of avoided/mitigated accidents, the reduction of injured or killed persons or the decrease of economic costs.
The paper gives an overview of the recent (mostly 2012) figures of killed bus/coach occupants (drivers and passengers) in 27 Member States of the European Union as reported by CARE. The Evolution of the figures of bus/coach occupants killed in road accidents urban, rural without motorway and on motorways from 1991 to 2010 in 15 Member States of the EU supplements this information. More detailed are the figures reported for Germany by the Federal Statistics. The paper displays long-term evaluations (1957 to 2012) for killed, seriously and slightly injured occupants in all kinds of buses/coaches. Midterm evaluations (1995 to 2012) of the figures of fatalities and casualties are displayed for different busses according to their identification of road using as coaches, urban buses, school buses, trolley buses and "other buses". To be able to compare the evolutions of the safety of vehicle occupants it is customary to use different risk indicators. Calculations and illustrations for three often used indicators with their development over time are given: fatalities, seriously injured and slightly injured per 100,000 vehicles registered, per 1 billion (109) vehicle-kilometres travelled and per 1 billion (109) person-kilometres. These indicators are shown for occupants of cars, goods vehicles and buses/coaches. For the period from 1957 until 2012 it is obvious, that for all three vehicle categories analysed there was a clear long-term trend towards more occupant safety in terms of casualties per vehicles registered and per vehicle mileage. This was most significant for car occupants but it can be seen for bus/coach occupants and goodsvehicle occupants as well. Figures of killed occupants and of casualties related to person-kilometres are calculated and displayed for the shorter period 1995 to 2012. Here it becomes obvious that the bus/coach is still the safest mode of transport for the occupants of road vehicles. Graphs for the casualty risk indices still show significantly higher risks for car occupants despite the corresponding curve moved sustainable downwards. It is remarkable, that the risks of being killed or injured for the occupants of urban buses is growing whereas the corresponding risk for the occupants of coaches in line traffic tends downwards. The article ends with a short comparison and discussion of the risk indicators which are actually published for the occupants (driver and passengers) of cars and the passengers of buses/coaches, railroads, trams and airplanes. The interpretation of such information depends on the perception and it seems that for a complete view not only one indicator should be used and the evolutions of the indicator values during longer periods (as displayed with examples in the paper) should also be taken into account.
This work aimed for getting the main features of accidents involving Light Goods Vehicles (LGV), using accident cases collected in the In-Depth Accidents Studies built up at IFSTTAR-LMA (France), in order to analyse thoroughly the proceedings of these accidents and identify the major factors for the different types of LGV. This work was based on the analysis of 88 accident cases involving LGV with a Maximum Authorised Mass inferior to 3.5 tonnes. In particular kinematics reconstruction of these accidents were performed to calculate the average impact speeds and to better understand the compatibility problems between LGV and antagonist vehicles. Specific features have been reviewed to pick up problems concerning safety, maintenance, loading, LGV design: general conditions of the accident, vehicle features, and passive safety. The main results of this study are presented in this paper.
In 2014 the sixth 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.
EEVC Status report
(2001)
Despite the steadily declining number of pedestrian fatalities and injuries in most European countries during recent decades, pedestrian protection is still of great importance in the European Union as well as in Germany. This is because they still constitute a large proportion of road user casualties and are more likely to suffer serious and fatal injuries than most other road users. In 1999 only car occupants suffered more fatal injuries than pedestrians in Germany. In December 1998, EEVC WG 17 completed their review and updating of the EEVC WG 10 pedestrian test procedure that made it possible to evaluate the protection afforded to pedestrians by the front of passenger cars in an accident. Within the scope of this procedure, four different impactors are used representing those parts of the body which are injured very often and/or very seriously in vehicle-pedestrian-collisions. In a project executed by IKA and BASt, a small family car was tested according to the EEVC WG 17 test procedure. Afterwards modifications to the car were carried out in order to improve the pedestrian protection provided by the vehicle design. There were certain restrictions placed on the level of modifications undertaken, e.g. only minor modifications to vehicle styling and to the vehicle structures, which provide passenger protection. The redesigned vehicle was tested again using the WG 17 test procedure. The test results of the modified vehicle were compared with those of the standard vehicle and evaluated. The results show that considered measures for pedestrian protection in many areas of the vehicle front structure and the use of innovative techniques can lead to a significant reduction of the loads of pedestrians at an acceptable expense.
EEVC Working Group 15 (Compatibility Between Passenger Cars) has carried out research for several years thanks to collaborative project funded by the E.C. and also by exchanging results of projects funded by national programmes. The main collaborative activity of the EEVC WG15 for the last four years was a research project partly funded by the European Commission, where the group made the first attempt to investigate compatibility between passenger cars in a comprehensive research program. Accident, crash test, and mathematical modelling data were analysed. The main result was that structural incompatibilities were frequently found and identified as the main source of incompatibility problems but were not easy to quantify. Unfortunately as little vehicle information other than mass is recorded in most accident databases, most analyses have only been able to show the effect of mass or mass ratio. Common ideas to improve compatibility have been reached by this group and from discussion with other research groups. They will be investigated in the next phase, where research work will concentrate on the development of methods to assess compatibility of passenger cars. The main idea is that the prerequisite to improve crash compatibility between cars is to improve structural interaction. The most important issue is that improved compatibility must not compromise a vehicle- self protection. Test methods should lead to vehicles which show good structural interaction in car to car accidents. Test methods to prove good compatibility may be an adaptation of existing regulatory test procedures (offset deformable barrier test or full width test like in the USA) for frontal impact or may be new compatibility tests. Additional criteria, e.g. impact force distribution, and maximum vehicle deceleration or maximum vehicle impact force should result in compatible cars. Attempts will be made to estimate the benefit of a more compatible car fleet for the European Community.
A means of assessing the passive safety of automobiles is a desirable instrument for legislative bodies, the automobile industry, and the consumer. As opposed to the dominating motor vehicle assessment criteria, such as engine power, spaciousness, aerodynamics and consumption, there are no clear and generally accepted criteria for assessing the passive safety of cars. The proposed method of assessment combines the results of experimental safety tests, carried out according to existing legally prescribed or currently discussed testing conditions, and a biomechanical validation of the loading values determined in the test. This evaluation is carried out with the aid of risk functions which are specified for individual parts of the body by correlating the results of accident analysis with those obtained by computer simulation. The degree of conformance to the respective protection criterion thus deduced is then weighted with factors which take into account the frequency of occurrence and the severity of the accident on the basis of resulting costs. Each of the test series includes at least two frontal and one lateral crash test against a deformable barrier. The computer-aided analysis and evaluation of the simulation results enables a vehicle-specific overall safety index as well as partial and individual safety values to be determined and plotted graphically. The passive safety provided by the respective vehicle under test can be defined for specific seating positions, special types of accident, or for individual endangered parts of the body.
Many big cities in Europe and elsewhere in the world have problems managing the traffic especially during rush hours. The improvement of the parking problematic and environmental protection as well are important aspects for the future traffic design of urban areas. To improve the traffic situation the development of new traffic concepts and alternative vehicles are required. The BMW company has developed a new type of two-wheel vehicle. This two-wheeler constitutes a totally new concept. BMW implemented a lot of safety features, such as a structure made up of rollover bars and a crush element instead of a front protecting plate. Furthermore the driver can secure himself with two safety belts. The paper contains a description of the novel two-wheel vehicle concept designed so far. BMW's concept and the safety features are also explained. The Federal Highway Research Institute (BASt) was given the task of assessing the concept as a whole with regard to the active and passive safety and the exemption of the obligation to wear a helmet. The expertise concluded that the BMW two-wheeler concept has a very high safety standard. Some extracts of the expertise, in particular the investigations concerning the exemption of the obligation to wear a helmet are presented. Common legal requirements for the vehicle registration of vehicle concepts similar to the BMW two-wheeler in Germany have been formulated.
This paper provides an overview of the research work of the European Enhanced Vehicle-safety Committee (EEVC) in the field of crash compatibility between passenger cars. Since July 1997 the EC Commission is partly funding the research work of EEVC. The running period of this project will be two years. The progress of five working packages of this research project is presented: Literature review, Accident analysis, Structural survey of cars, Crash testing, and Mathematical modelling. According to the planned time schedule the progress of research work is different for the five working packages.
Side-impact safety of passenger cars is assessed in Europe in a full-scale test using a moving barrier. The front of this barrier is deformable and represents the stiffness of an 'average' car. The EU Directive 96/27/EC on side impact protection has adopted the EEVC Side Impact Test Procedure, including the original performance specification for the barrier face when impacting a flat dynamometric rigid wall. The requirements of the deformable barrier face, as laid down in the Directive, are related to geometrical characteristics, deformation characteristics and energy dissipation figures. Due to these limited requirements, many variations are possible in designing a deformable barrier face. As a result, several barrier face designs are in the market. However, research institutes and car manufacturers report significant difference in test results when using these different devices. It appears that the present approval test is not able to distinguish between the different designs that may perform differently when they impact real vehicles. Therefore, EEVC Working Group 13 has developed a number of tests to evaluate the different designs. In these tests the barrier faces are loaded and deformed in a specific and/or more representative way. Barrier faces of different design have been evaluated. In the paper the set-up and the reasoning behind the tests is presented. Results showing specific differences in performance are demonstrated.
Past European collaborative research involving government bodies, vehicle manufacturers and test laboratories has resulted in a prototype barrier face called the Advanced European Mobile Deformable Barrier (AE-MDB) for use in a new side impact test procedure . This procedure offers a better representation of the current accident situation and, in particular, the barrier concept is a better reflection of front-end stiffness seen in today- passenger car fleet compared to that of the current legislative barrier face. Based on the preliminary performance corridors of the prototype AE-MDB, a refined AE-MDB specification has been developed. A programme of barrier to load cell wall testing was undertaken to complete and standardise the AE-MDB specification. Barrier faces were supplied by the four leading manufacturers to demonstrate that the specification could be met by all. This paper includes background, specification and proof of compliance.
At the 2001 ESV-Conference the EEVC working group on compatibility (WG 15) reported the first phase of the research work to investigate the major factors influencing compatibility between passenger cars. Following this, WG15 performed an interim study, which was partly subventioned by the European Commission, the results of which are reported in this paper. In the next phase of work, it is intended to complete the development of a suite of test procedures and associated performance criteria to assess the compatibility of passenger cars in frontal impacts The main areas of work for the interim study were: - in depth accident data analysis - the development of methods to assess the potential benefit of improved compatibility - crash testing. The accident analysis identified the major compatibility problems to be poor structural interaction, stiffness mismatching and compartment strength. Different methods to assess the potential benefit of improved compatibility were applied to in depth accident data. Full scale crash testing including a car to car test was performed to help develop the following candidate compatibility test procedures: - a full width wall test with a deformable aluminium honeycomb face and a high resolution load cell wall - an offset barrier test with the EEVC barrier face and a high resolution load cell wall - an offset barrier test with the progressively deformable barrier (PDB) face. The results of the interim study will be presented in detail and the proposed methodology of the next phase to complete the development of a suite of test procedures for the assessment of car to car compatibility in frontal impacts will be outlined
The development of tyre- and truck-manufacturers leads to the direction to introduce wide base single tyres (size 495/45R22,5) instead of twin tyres on the driving axle of trucks, tractors and busses. To study the driving behaviour and safety of various trucks and units with different tyre combinations and loading conditions was the aim of the study. A computer-aided simulation was used for this investigation. Drive tests with a 40 t unit with prototype single tyres on the drive axle were carried out to verify the simulation. Alterations in driving behaviour and driving safety are mainly dependent on the tyre cornering stiffness. The prototype wide single tyres had a higher lateral stiffness which leads to a higher degree of under-steering (safer driving behaviour). The altered spring base on the drive axle had no influence on the side- tilt stability of vehicle combinations but the solo truck profited from the higher rear axle roll stiffness (less danger for roll-over accidents). As far as the driving safety is concerned nothing speaks against wide base tyres on the drive axle. The simulation of a tyre defect in a bend (assuming 40% of the max. transferable side force for the flat tyre) showed no increased danger using wide single tyres. Later driving tests showed however the need of tyre run flat possibilities to avoid jack-knifing of road trains. Also tyre pressure monitoring systems and electronic stability programs for the trucks are advised.
The European Enhanced Vehicle-safety Committee wants to promote the use of more biofidelic child dummies and biomechanical based tolerance limits in regulatory and consumer testing. This study has investigated the feasibility and potential impact of Q-dummies and new injury criteria for child restraint system assessment in frontal impact. European accident statistics have been reviewed for all ECE-R44 CRS groups. For frontal impact, injury measures are recommended for the head, neck, chest and abdomen. Priority of body segment protection depends on the ECE-R44 group. The Q-dummy family is able to reflect these injuries, because of its biofidelity performance and measurement capabilities for these body segments. Currently, the Q0, Q1, Q1.5, Q3 and Q6 are available representing children of 0, 1, 1.5, 3 and 6 years old. These Q-dummies cover almost all dummy weight groups as defined in ECE-R44. Q10, representing a 10 year-old child, is under development. New child dummy injury criteria are under discussion in EEVC WG12. Therefore, the ECE-R44 criteria are assessed by comparing the existing P-dummies and new Q-dummies in ECE-R44 frontal impact sled tests. In total 300 tests covering 30 CRSs of almost all existing child seat categories are performed by 11 European organizations. From this benchmark study, it is concluded that the performance of the Q-dummy family is good with respect to repeatability of the measurement signals and the durability of the dummies. Applying ECE-R44 criteria, the first impression is that results for P- and Q-dummy are similar. For child seat evaluation the potential merits of the Q-dummy family lie in the extra measurement possibilities of these dummies and in the more biofidelic response.
Topics of this report are: Securing mobility and making mobility sustainable - Strategies for road safety: Safe behavior, Safe vehicles, Safe infrastructure, Telematics, International vehicle-engineering measures " Accident statistics " Accident research " Passive vehicle safety " Active vehicle safety " Driver assistance systems " Environmental protection through vehicle engineering.
In the EC FP6 Integrated Project Advanced Protection Systems, APROSYS, the first WorldSID small female prototype was developed and evaluated by BASt, FTSS, INRETS, TRL and UPM-INSIA during 2006 and 2007. Results were presented at the ESV 2007 conference (Been et al., 2007). With the prototype dummy scoring a biofidelity rating higher than 6.7 out of 10 according to ISO/TR9790, the results were very promising. Also opportunities for further development were identified by the evaluation group. A revised prototype, Revision1, was subsequently developed in the 2007-2008 period to address comments from the evaluation group. The Revision1 dummy includes changes in the half arms and the suit (anthropometry and arm biomechanics), the thorax and abdomen ribs and sternum (rib durability), the abdomen/lumbar area and the lower legs (mass distribution). Also a two-dimensional chest deflection measurement system was developed to measure deflection in both lateral and anterior-posterior direction to improve oblique thorax loading sensitivity. Two Revision1 prototype dummies have now been evaluated by FTSS, TRL, UPM-INSIA and BASt. The updated prototype dummies were subjected to an extensive matrix of biomechanical tests, such as full body pendulum tests and lateral sled impact tests as specified by Wayne State University, Heidelberg University and Medical College of Wisconsin. The results indicated a significant improvement of dummy biofidelity. The overall dummy biofidelity in the ISO rating system has significantly improved from 6.7 to 7.6 on a scale between 0-10. The small female WorldSID has now obtained the same biofidelity rating as the WorldSID mid size male dummy. Also repeatability improved with respect to the prototype. In conclusion the recommended updates were all executed and all successfully contributed in achieving improved performance of the dummy.
A legform impactor with biofidelic characteristics (FlexPLI) which is being developed by the Japanese Automobile Research Institute (JARI) is being considered as a test tool for legislation within a proposed Global Technical Regulation on pedestrian protection (UNECE, 2006) and therefore being evaluated by the Technical Evaluation Group (TEG) of GRSP. In previous built levels it already showed good test results on real cars as well as under idealised test conditions but also revealed further need for improvement. A research study at the Federal Highway Research Institute (BASt) deals with the question on how leg injury risks of modern car fronts can be revealed, reflected and assessed by the FlexPLI and how the impactor can be used and implemented as a legislative instrument for the type approval of cars according to current and future legislations on pedestrian protection. The latest impactor built level (GTα ) is being evaluated by a general review and assessment of the certification procedure, the knee joint biofidelity and the currently proposed injury criteria. Furthermore, the usability, robustness and durability as a test tool for legislation is examined and an assessment of leg injuries is made by a series of tests with the FlexPLI on real cars with modern car front shapes as well as under idealised test conditions. Finally, a comparison is made between the FlexPLI and the current european legislation tool, the legform impactor according to EEVC WG 17.
The use of proper child restraint systems (CRS) is mandatory for children travelling in cars in most countries of the world. The analysis of the quantity of restrained children shows that more than 90% of the children in Germany are restrained. Looking at the quality of the protection, a large discrepancy between restrained and well protected children can be seen. Two out of three children in Germany are not properly restrained. In addition, considerable difference exists with respect to the technical performance of CRS. For that reason investigations and optimisations on two different topics are necessary: The technical improvement of CRS and the ease of use of CRS. Consideration of the knowledge gained by the comparison of different CRS in crash tests would lead to some improvements of the CRS. But improvement of child safety is not only a technical issue. People should use CRS in the correct way. Misuse and incorrect handling could lead to less safety than correct usage of a poor CRS. For that reason new technical issues are necessary to improve the child safety AND the ease of use. Only the combination of both parts can significantly increase child safety. For the assessment of the safety level of common CRS, frontal and lateral sled tests simulating different severity levels were conducted comparing pairs of CRS which were felt to be good and CRS which were felt to be poor. The safety of some CRS is currently at a high level. All well known products were not damaged in the performed tests. The performance of non-branded CRS was mostly worse than that of the well known products. Although the branded child restraint systems already show a high safety level it is still possible to further improve their technical performance as demonstrated with a baby shell and a harness type CRS.
As set out in the Terms of Reference, the objective of European Enhanced Vehicle-safety Committee (EEVC) Working Group (WG) 15 Car Crash Compatibility and Frontal Impact is to develop a test procedure(s) with associated performance criteria for car frontal impact compatibility. This work should lead to improved car to car frontal compatibility and self protection without decreasing the safety in other impact configuration such as impacts with car sides, trucks, and pedestrians. Since 2003, EEVC WG 15 served as a steering group for the car-to-car activities in the "Improvement of Vehicle Crash Compatibility through the development of Crash Test Procedures" (VC-COMPAT) project that was finalised at the end of 2006 and partly funded by the European Commission. This paper presents the research work carried out in the VC-COMPAT project and the results of its assessment by EEVC WG 15. Other additional work presented by the UK and French governments and industry " in particular the European industry - was taken into consideration. It also identifies current issues with candidate testing approaches. The candidate test approaches are: - an offset barrier test with the progressive deformable barrier (PDB) face in combination with a full width rigid barrier test - a full width wall test with a deformable aluminium honeycomb face and a high resolution load cell wall supplemented by the forces measured in the offset deformable barrier (ODB) test with the current EEVC barrier. These candidate test approaches must assess the structural interaction and give information of frontal force levels and compartment strength for passenger vehicles. Further, this paper presents the planned route map of EEVC WG 15 for the evaluation of the proposed test procedures and assessment criteria.
At the 2005 ESV conference, the International Harmonisation of Research Activities (IHRA) side impact working group proposed a 4 part draft test procedure, to form the basis of harmonisation of regulation world-wide and to help advances in car occupant protection. This paper presents the work performed by a European Commission 6th framework project, called APROSYS, an further development and evaluation of the proposed procedure from a European perspective. The 4 parts of the proposed procedure are: - A Mobile Deformable Barrier test; - An oblique Pole side impact test; - Interior headform tests; - Side Out of Position (OOP) tests. Full scale test and modelling work to develop the Advanced European Mobile Deformable Barrier (AE-MDB) further is described, resulting in a recommendation to revise the barrier face to include a bumper beam element. An evaluation of oblique and perpendicular pole tests was made from tests and numerical simulations using ES-2 and WorldSID 50th percentile dummies. It was concluded that an oblique pole test is feasible but that a perpendicular test would be preferable for Europe. The interior headform test protocol was evaluated to assess its repeatability and reproducibility and to solve issues such as the head impact angle and limitation zones. Recommendations for updates to the test protocol are made. Out-of-position (OOP) tests applicable for the European situation were performed, which included additional tests with Child Restraint Systems (CRS) which use is mandatory in Europe. It was concluded that the proposed IHRA OOP tests do cover the worst case situations, but the current test protocol is not ready for regulatory use.
The PDB, BASt and Opel conducted two test series to evaluate possible effects on the results obtained using the EEVC WG17 Lower Legform Impactor as a test tool for the assessment of pedestrian safety. The reproducibility and repeatability of the test results were assessed using six legform impactors while keeping the test parameters constant. In the second series one impactor was used and the test parameters were varied to assess the effects on the readings of the legform. The test parameters were velocity, temperature, relative humidity, the point of first contact regarding the deviation in z-direction and the deviations of the pitch, roll and yaw angle. The tests were performed using an inverse setup, i.e. the legform was hit by a guided linear impactor equipped with a honeycomb deformation element. This setup was chosen to be able to vary each single parameter while avoiding variations of the other test parameters at the same time. The test parameters were varied stronger than allowed in regulatory use in order to determine possible dependencies between the parameters and the readings which were acceleration, bending angle and shear displacement.
The GRSP informal group on child restraint systems (CRS) finalised phase 1 of a new regulation for the homologation of CRS . This regulation is the subject of several discussions concerning the safety benefits and the advantages and disadvantages that certain specific points may bring. However, these discussions are sometimes not based on scientific facts and do not consider the whole package but only single items. Based on the experience of the CASPER partners in the fields of human behaviour, accident analysis, test procedures and biomechanics in the area of child safety, a consideration of the safety benefits of phase 1 of the new regulation and recommendations for phase 2 will be given.
The objective was to develop and validate a crash trolley (reference vehicle) equipped with a compartment and a full restraint system for driver and front seat passenger which can be used in full scale crash testing. Furthermore, the crash trolley should have a suspension to show rotation and nick effects similar to real vehicles. Within the development phase the reference vehicle was build based on a European family car. Special attention was needed to provide appropriate strength to the trolley and its suspension. The reference vehicle is equipped with a restraint system consisting of airbags, pedals, seats, dashboard, and windscreen. On the front of the vehicle different crash barriers can be installed to provide miscellaneous deceleration pulses. For the validation phase a series of low and high speed crash tests with HIII dummies were conducted and compared with full scale tests. For the comparison deceleration pulse, dummy numbers and vehicle movement were analyzed. Validation tests with velocities up to 60 km/h showed promising results. The compartment and the suspension systems stayed stable. Rotation effects were comparable with full scale car crash tests. The airbags and seat belt system worked reasonable. The acceleration pulse compared to an Euro NCAP test had a similar characteristic but was in general slightly lower. After the successful validation the reference vehicle is already in use in different studies in the field of vehicle safety research at BASt.
Topics of the status report are: Road accidents in Germany " Socio-economic costs due to road traffic accidents in Germany " Vehicle population and road performance " Electromobility " Alternative power train technologies: market penetration and consequences. The following research subjects are presented: Safety of electric vehicles " Driving dynamics of electric propelled vehicles " New requirements for the periodic technical inspection of electric and hybrid vehicles " Forward looking safety systems " Periodic roadworthiness tests " Cooperative systems: integration of existing systems " Safety related traffic information " Urban space: User oriented assistance systems and network management " Automated driving " Study on camera-monitor-systems " Freight transport " BioRID TEG, dummy harmonization " Frontal impact and compatibility " Child safety " FlexPLI " GIDAS: a blueprint for worldwide in-depth road accident investigations " Druid: Driving under the influence of drugs, alcohol and medicines " Smoke and toxicity in bus fires.
Although the bus belongs to the safest traffic means, single accidents can be particularly severe and concern many passengers. Especially in case of fires a high number of injured and killed persons can be the outcome. Fire safety of buses therefore is of high importance. With the increase of synthetic and plastic materials as a material for the interior equipment of buses and coaches because of their ood mechanical properties combined with low weight, the question arises whether the safety level has decreased in case of a fire during the last years - also compared to other means of transport. Because of the combustible plastics and their ability to release a high amount of heat the main fire load in buses is no longer the fuel but the plastic materials which are also often easy to ignite. Besides the flammability of the equipments, the production of smoke, the smoke development and propagation and its toxicity for the people as well as the testing methods and limit values are of interest. For those reasons research projects were initiated on behalf of the German Federal Highway Research Institute. At the one hand the fire behavior of coach interiors was examined in general focusing on fire propagation as well as fire detection and signalling. As result, recommendations with regard to early fire detection systems for the engine compartments and on-board extinguishing equipment were elaborated. At the other hand research is carried out to examine heat release, smoke, smoke propagation and its toxicity due to burning bus interior materials. The paper describes which effective and economically reasonable fire safety requirements for interiors of buses would improve the current situation. Proposals for amendments of current requirements are recommended including the specification of appropriate limit values. In particular, it is taken into consideration which reasonable fire safety standards from other transport sectors, especially the rail sector, should be transferred to buses.
Since integrated safety systems combine active and passive safety elements in one safety system, it is necessary to define new procedures to evaluate vehicle safety from the overall system point of view. The main goal of the ASSESS project is to develop harmonized and standardized assessment procedures for collision mitigation and avoidance systems. Methods and Data Sources: In ASSESS, procedures are developed for: driver behaviour evaluation, pre-crash system performance evaluation, crash performance evaluation, socio-economic assessment. This paper will concentrate on the activities related to the crash evaluation. The objective is to perform simulations, sled tests and crash tests in order tounderstand the influence of the activation of the pre-crash systems on the occupants" injuries during the crash phase. When a traffic accident is unavoidable, pre-crash systems work on various safety devices in order to improve the vehicle occupants" protection. Braking assistance and adaptive restraint systems are the main pre-crash systems whose effect on the occupants" protection will be described in this paper. Results: The results will be a description of the effect of the activation of the pre-crash systems on the crash phase. Additionally, a set of recommendations for future methodology developments will be delivered. Furthermore, a first approach to the study of the effect of the pre-crash systems activation on the occupants" protection when the impact is unavoidable will be presented. This effect will be quantified using the biomechanical values obtained from the simulation and testing activities and their related injury risks. Simulation and testing activities will consider the following scenarios: - No activation of any pre-crash system, - Activation of one or a combination of several pre-crash systems. In this way, differences in the results obtained from different scenarios will show the effect of each pre-crash system separately during the crash phase. Discussion and Limitations: The set of activities developed in this research project is limited by the fact that with the given resources only a limited number of vehicle models could be investigated. In addition, there are also limitations related to the injury risk curves and the passive safety tools currently on the market. Conclusion and Relevance to session submitted: The paper will present a complete analysis of the effect of pre-crash systems during the crash phase when the impact is unavoidable. Details, limitations and first application experience based on a few examples will be discussed. Currently, there is not any regulation, assessment program, or other similar official procedure able to assess pre-crash systems during the crash phase. This project comprises phases of traffic accidents which have been historically analysed separately, and aims to evaluate them taking into account their interrelationship. ASSESS is one of the first European projects which deals in depth with the concept of integrated safety, defining methodologies to analyse vehicle safety from a global point of view.
A biofidelic flexible pedestrian legform impactor (FlexPLI) has been developed from the year 2000 onwards and evaluated by a technical evaluation group (Flex-TEG) of UN-ECE GRSP. A recently established UN-ECE GRSP Informal Group on GTR9 Phase 2 is aiming at introducing the FlexPLI within world-wide regulations on pedestrian safety (Phase 2 of GTR No. 9 as well as the new UN regulation 127 on pedestrian safety) as a test tool for the assessment of lower extremity injuries in lateral vehicle-to-pedestrian accidents. Besides, the FlexPLI has already been introduced within JNCAP and is on the Euro NCAP roadmap for 2014. Despite of the biofidelic properties in the knee and tibia sections, several open issues related to the FlexPLI, like the estimation of the cost benefit, the feasibility of vehicle compliance with the threshold values, the robustness of the impactor and of the test results, the comparability between prototype and production level and the finalization of certification corridors still needed to be solved. Furthermore, discussions with stakeholders about a harmonized lower legform to bumper test area are still going on. This paper describes several studies carried out by the Federal Highway Research Institute (BASt) regarding the benefit due to the introduction of the FlexPLI within legislation for type approval, the robustness of test results, the establishment of new assembly certification corridors and a proposal for a harmonized legform to bumper test area. Furthermore, a report on vehicle tests that previously had been carried out with three prototype legforms and were now being repeated using legforms with serial production status, is given. Finally, the paper gives a status report on the ongoing simulation and testing activities with respect to the development and evaluation of an improved test procedure with upper body mass for assessing pedestrian femur injuries.
Recent accident statistics from the German national database state bicyclists being the second endangered group of vulnerable road users besides pedestrians. With 399 fatalities, more than 14.000 seriously injured and more than 61.000 slightly injured persons on german roads in the year 2011, the group of bicyclists is ranked second of all road user groups (Statistisches Bundesamt, 2012). While the overall bicycle helmet usage frequency in Germany is very low, evidence is given that its usage leads to a significant reduction of severe head injuries. After an estimation of the benefit of bicycle helmet usage as well as an appropriate test procedure for bicyclists, this paper describes two different approaches for the improvement of bicyclist safety. While the first one is focusing on the assessment of the vehicle based protection potential for bicyclists, the second one is concentrating on the safety assessment of bicycle helmets. Within the first part of the study the possible revision of the existing pedestrian testing protocols is being examined, using in depth accident data, full scale simulation and hardware testing. Within the second part of the study, the results of tests according to supplemental test procedures for the safety assessment of bicycle helmets developed by the German Federal Highway Research Institute (BASt) are presented. An additional full scale test performed at reduced impact speed proves that measures of active vehicle safety as e.g. braking before the collision event do not necessarily always lead to a reduction of injury severity.
Within this paper different European accident data sources were used to investigate the causations and backgrounds of road traffic accidents with pedestrians. Analyses of high level national data and in-depth accident data from Germany and Great Britain was used to confirm and refine preliminary accident scenarios identified from other sources using a literature review. General observations made included that a high proportion of killed or seriously injured pedestrian casualties impacted by cars were in "dark" light conditions. Seven accident scenarios were identified (each divided into "daylight" and "dark" light conditions) which included the majority of the car front-to-pedestrian crash configurations. Test scenarios were developed using the identified accident scenarios and relevant parameters. Hypothetical parameters were derived to describe the performance of pedestrian pre-crash systems based on the assumption that these systems are designed to avoid false positives as a very high priority, i.e. at virtually all costs. As result, three "Base Test Scenarios" were selected to be developed in detail in the AsPeCSS project. However, further Enhanced Test Scenarios may be needed to address environmental factors such as darkness if it is determined that system performance is sensitive to these factors. Finally, weighting factors for the accident scenarios for Europe (EU-27) were developed by averaging and extrapolation of the available data. This paper represents interim results of Work Package 1 within the AsPeCSS project.
In Germany the number of casualties in passenger car to pedestrian crashes has been reduced by a considerable amount of 40% as regards fatalities and 25% with regard to seriously injured pedestrians since the year 2001. Similar trends can be seen in other European countries. The reasons for that positive development are still under investigation. As infrastructural or behavioral changes do in general take a longer time to be effective in real world, explanations related to improved active and passive safety of passenger vehicles can be more relevant in providing answers for this trend. The effect of passive pedestrian protection " specified by the Euro NCAP pedestrian test result " is of particular interest and has already been analyzed by several authors. However, the number of vehicles with some valid Euro NCAP pedestrian score (post 2002 rating) was quite limited in most of those studies. To overcome this problem of small datasets German National Accident Records have been taken to investigate a similar objective but now based on a much bigger dataset. The paper uses German National Accident Records from the years 2009 to 2011. In total 65.140 records of pedestrian to passenger car crashes have been available. Considering crash parameters like accident location (rural / urban areas) etc., 27.143 of those crashes have been classified to be relevant for the analysis of passive pedestrian safety. In those 27.143 records 7.576 Euro NCAP rated vehicles (post 2002 rating) have been identified. In addition it was possible to identify vehicles which comply with pedestrian protection legislation (2003/102/EG) where phase 1 came into force in October 2005. A significant correlation between Euro NCAP pedestrian score and injury outcome in real-life car to pedestrian crashes was found. Comparing a vehicle scoring 5 points and a vehicle scoring 22 points, pedestrians" conditional probability of getting fatally injured is reduced by 35% (from 0.58% to 0.37%) for the later one. At the same time the probability of serious injuries can be reduced by 16% (from 27.4% to 22.9%). No significant injury reducing effect, associated with the introduction of pedestrian protection legislation (phase 1) was detected. Considerable effects have also been identified comparing diesel and gasoline cars. Higher engine displacements are associated with a lower injury risk for pedestrians. The most relevant parameter has been "time of accident", whereas pedestrians face a more than 2 times higher probability to be fatally injured during night and darkness as compared to daytime conditions.
Thoracic injuries are one of the main causes of fatally and severely injured casualties in car crashes. Advances in restraint system technology and airbags may be needed to address this problem; however, the crash test dummies available today for studying these injuries have limitations that prevent them from being able to demonstrate the benefits of such innovations. THORAX-FP7 was a collaborative medium scale project under the European Seventh Framework. It focused on the mitigation and prevention of thoracic injuries through an improved understanding of the thoracic injury mechanisms and the implementation of this understanding in an updated design for the thorax-shoulder complex of the THOR dummy. The updated dummy should enable the design and evaluation of advanced restraint systems for a wide variety (gender, age and size) of car occupants. The hardware development involved five steps: 1) Identification of the dominant thoracic injury types from field data, 2) Specification of biomechanical requirements, 3) Identification of injury parameters and necessary instrumentation, 4) Dummy hardware development and 5) Evaluation of the demonstrator dummy. The activities resulted in the definition of new biofidelity and instrumentation requirements for an updated thorax-shoulder complex. Prototype versions were realised and implemented in three THOR dummies for biomechanical evaluation testing. This paper documents the hardware developments and biomechanical evaluation testing carried out.
Proposal for a test procedure of assistance systems regarding preventive pedestrian protection
(2011)
This paper is showing a proposal for a test procedure regarding preventive pedestrian protection based on accident analysis. Over the past years pedestrian protection has become an increasing importance also during the development phase of new vehicles. After a phase of focusing on secondary safety, there are current activities to detect a possible collision by assistance systems. Such systems have the task to inform the driver and/or automatically activate the brakes. How practical is such a system? In which kind of traffic situations will it work? How is it possible to check the effectiveness of such a system? To test the effectiveness, currently there are no generally approved identifiable procedures. It is reasonable that such a test should be based on real accidents. The test procedure should be designed to test all systems, independent of the system- working principle. The vFSS group (advanced Forward-looking Safety Systems) was founded to develop a proposal for a technology independent test procedure, which reflects the real accident situation. This contribution is showing the results of vFSS. The developed test procedure focuses on accidents between passenger cars and pedestrians. The results are based on analysis results of in-depth databases of GIDAS, German insurers and DEKRA and added by analysis of national and international statistics. The in-depth analysis includes many pre-crash situations with several influencing factors. The factors are e. g. speed of the car, speed of the pedestrian, moving direction and a possible obscuration of the pedestrian by an object. The results comprise also the different situations of adults and children. Furthermore, they include details regarding influence of the lighting conditions (daylight or night) especially with respect to the accident consequences. In fact, more accidents happen at daylight, but fatal accidents are more often at night. A clustering of parameter combinations was found which represents typical accident scenarios. There are six typical accident scenarios which were merged in four test scenarios. The test scenarios are varying the starting position of the pedestrian, the pedestrian size (adult or child) and the speed of the pedestrian, whereas the speed of the car will not be varied. To ensure the independency from used sensing technologies it is necessary to use a suitable dummy. For example, if sensors are based on infrared, the dummy should emit the temperature of a human being. The test procedure will identify the collision speed as the key parameter for assessing the effectiveness of the tested system. The collision speed is defined as the reduction between initial test speed of the car and impact speed. The assessment of the speed reduction value regarding the safety benefit, however, will be part of a separate procedure.
New vehicle types are extensively tested to check almost all factors that influence ride and handling. With reference to the Association of German Car Tuners" (VDAT e.V.) valuations, approximately 10% of all cars in Germany are being modified by their owners. 28 % of those modifications" sales are divergent wheel-tire combinations, 13 % are tuning measures on the chassis suspension or wheel spacers. In almost all cases the singular modifications present a general permission for specific vehicles they have been tested in. Combined tuning measures, however, are often checked by just one inspector, following a procedure of mostly subjective assessment criteria. Today, critical attributes are only being observed, in case a vehicle is involved in an accident and the modifications are identified as crash causal factors or as a cofactor on the development of a crash. For the first time, a field study allows a survey of safety affecting chassis modifications. The test layout has to comply with some basic conditions. Different vehicle concepts with a wide margin of modifications are required to get a high transferability of the results. A total amount of more than 150 tested vehicles serves the same purpose. The tests are limited concerning the installation time of measurement techniques and the requirement that no damage, defilement or immoderate wear of the vehicles are accepted by their owners. Due to such factors as well as the driver Ìs acceptance, the vehicles are controlled by its owners instead of robots or test drivers. For keeping down the driver- influence, the lane has narrow boundaries and the driver has to drive in strictly adherence to the given instructions. After gathering all modifications, as well as static and kinematic parameters like the toe and camber angle, dynamic testing of predominantly lateral dynamics is conducted. Besides standardized tests like the ISO 3888-2 (Obstacle Avoidance) or the ISO 14512 (Braking on Surfaces with Split Coefficient of Friction), to test the influence of modified kingpin offsets caused by wheel spacers, some deviant tests are conducted. Those are required due to the demand of objective test results for road tests with vertical induced stimulation of the chassis suspension. Hence, new tests on corner braking with and without vertical stimulation have been developed. The interpretation of data includes thresholds, e.g. the maximum entrance velocity without hitting cones, on the one hand, and the analysis of characteristics of data concerning time and frequency range, "1-second values" and peak response times on the other hand. Besides the thresholds as indicators for the achievable velocities, which are mainly affected by friction coefficients, the vehicle reaction in the course of time characterizes the vehicle reaction in the threshold range and consequently the operational demands on the driver. The field study has started and promises the first long-range analysis of chassis modifications. The results offer a basis for hypothesis and resultant further test layouts for oncoming studies of the identified critical tuning measures.
Topics of this report are: Road accidents in Germany - Socio-economic costs due to road traffic accidents - Vehicle population and road performance " Automotive IT " Electromobility. The following research subjects are presented: Safety of electric vehicles - Forward looking safety systems - Cooperative systems - Safety related traffic information - Freight transport: Action plan freight transport and trial with longer trucks - Lane departure warning systems and Advanced emergency braking systems (AEBS) for heavy duty vehicles - Dummy harmonization " Compatibility - Child safety - Virtual testing - Driving under the influence of drugs, alcohol and medicines - Fire safety of buses - Milled shoulder rumble strips - Conspicuity of powered-two-wheelers - Automatically dipped high beam and rear view mirrors.
For the assessment of vehicle safety in frontal collisions, the crash compatibility between the colliding vehicles is crucial. Compatibility compromises both the self protection and the partner protection properties of vehicles. For the accident data analysis, the CCIS (GB) and GIDAS (DE) in-depth data bases were used. Selection criteria were frontal car accidents with car in compliance with ECE R94. For this study belted adult occupants in the front seats sustaining MAIS 2+ injuries were studied. Following this analysis FIMCAR concluded that the following compatibility issues are relevant: - Poor structural interaction (especially low overlap and over/underriding) - Compartment strength - Frontal force mismatch with lower priority than poor structural interaction In addition injuries arising from the acceleration loading of the occupant are present in a significant portion of frontal crashes. Based on the findings of the accident analysis the aims that shall be addressed by the proposed assessment approach were defined and priorities were allocated to them. The aims and priorities shall help to decide on suitable test procedures and appropriate metrics. In general it is anticipated that a full overlap and off-set test procedure is the most appropriate set of tests to assess a vehicle- frontal impact self and partner protection.
The 2BeSafe project (2-Wheeler Behaviour and Safety) is a collaborative project (co financed by the European Commission) that aims to study the naturalistic behaviour of Powered-Two-Wheeler (PTW) riders in normal and critical riding situations. That includes the interaction between PTW riders and other road users and possible conflicts between them. One of the predominant causes of accidents involving PTWs is that PTWs are often overlooked by other road users. One task of the project lead by BASt therefore deals with possible improvements in conspicuity and the development of recommendations. Particularly using the findings of the studies on conflict situations, promising lighting arrangements to enhance conspicuity of PTWs during the day and at night are selected. An abstract recognizing pattern for PTWs is defined, enabling other road users (e.g. car drivers) to clearly identify riders. Lamps and outfit like lighting configurations of different colours, different helmet lights, reflect / luminescent clothing parts and retro-reflective markings are designed and manufactured. Then, the different solutions are tested in a laboratory setting using experimental motorcycles together with riders to which the equipment is fitted. As result a proposal for a uniform signal pattern or lamp configuration in the front of all motorcycles and riders will be outlined. The contribution first gives a short overview of the topics of the research project that deal with conflicts and their connection with poor conspicuity and then presents in detail the methods used in the activities concerning solutions for the improvement of conspicuity together with first results.
The ASSESS project is a collaborative project that develops test procedures for pre-crash safety systems like Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB). One key criterion for the effectiveness of e.g. AEB is reduction in collision speed compared to baseline scenarios without AEB. The speed reduction for a given system can only be determined in real world tests that will end with a collision. Soft targets that are crashable up to velocities of 80 km/h are state of the art for these assessments, but ordinary balloon cars are usually stationary targets. The ASSESS project goes one step further and defines scenarios with moving targets. These scenarios define vehicle speeds of up to 100 km/h, different collision scenarios and relative collision speeds of up to 80km/h. This paper describes the development of a propulsion system for a soft target that aims to be used with these demanding scenario specifications. The Federal Highway Research Institute- (BASt-) approach to move the target is a self-driving small cart. The cart is controlled either by a driver (open-loop control via remote-control) or by a computer (closed-loop control). Its weight is limited to achieve a good crashability without damages to the test vehicle. To the extent of our knowledge BASt- approach is unique in this field (other carts cannot move at such high velocities or are not crashable). This paper describes in detail the challenges and solutions that were found both for the mechanical construction and the implementation of the control and safety system. One example for the mechanical challenges is e.g. the position of the vehicle- center of gravity (CG). An optimum compromise had to be found between a low CG oriented to the front of the vehicle (good for driveability) and a high CG oriented to the rear of the vehicle (good for crashability). The soft target itself which is also developed within the ASSESS project will not be covered in detail as this is work of a project partner. Publications on this will follow. The paper also shows first test results, describes current limitations and gives an outlook. It is expected that the presented test tools for AEB and other pre-crash safety systems is introduced in the future into consumer testing (NCAP) as well as regulatory testing.
A flexible pedestrian legform impactor (FlexPLI) has been evaluated by a Technical Evaluation Group (Flex-TEG) of the Working Party on Passive Safety (GRSP) of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UN-ECE). It will be implemented within phase 2 of the global technical regulation (GTR 9) as well as within a new ECE regulation on pedestrian safety as a test tool for the assessment of lower extremity injuries in lateral vehicle-to-pedestrian accidents (UN-ECE 2010-1, 2010-2 and 2010-3). Due to its biofidelic properties in the knee and tibia section, the FlexPLI is found to having an improved knee and tibia injury assessment ability when being compared to the current legislative test tool, the lower legform impactor developed by the Pedestrian Safety Working Group of the European Enhanced Vehicle-safety Committee (EEVC WG 17). However, due to a lack of biofidelity in terms of kinematics and loadings in the femur part of the FlexPLI, an appropriate assessment of femur injuries is still outstanding. The study described in this paper is aimed to close this gap. Impactor tests with the FlexPLI at different impact heights on three vehicle frontends with Sedan, SUV and FFV shape are performed and compared to tests with a modified FlexPLI with upper body mass. Full scale validation tests using a modified crash test dummy with attached FlexPLI that are carried out for the first time prove the more humanlike responses of the femur section with applied upper body mass. Apart from that they also show that the impact conditions described in the current technical provisions for tests with the FlexPLI don"t necessarily compensate the missing torso mass in terms of knee and tibia loadings either. Therefore it can be concluded that an applied upper body mass will contribute to a more biofidelic overall behavior of the legform and subsequently an improved injury assessment ability of all lower extremity injuries addressed by the FlexPLI. Nevertheless, the validity of the original as well as the modified legform for tests against vehicles with extraordinary high bumpers as well as flat front vehicles still needs to be evaluated in detail. A first clue is given by the application of an additional accelerometer to the legform.
Thoracic injury is one of the predominant types of severe injuries in frontal accidents. The assessment of the injury risk to the thorax in the current frontal impact test procedures is based on the uni-axial chest deflection measured in the dummy Hybrid III. Several studies have shown that criteria based on the linear chest potentiometer are not sensitive enough to distinguish between different restraint systems, and cannot indicate asymmetric chest loading, which has been shown to correlate to increased injury risk. Furthermore, the measurement is sensitive to belt position on the dummy chest. The objective of this study was to evaluate the optical multipoint chest deflection measurement system "RibEye" in frontal impact sled tests. Therefore the sensitivity of the RibEyesystem to different restraint system parameters was investigated. Furthermore, the issue of signal drop out at the 6 th rib was investigated in this study.A series of sled tests were conducted with the RibEye system in the Hybrid III 50%. The sled environment consisted of a rigid seat and a standard production three-point seat belt system. Rib deflections were recorded with the RibEye system and additionally with the standard chest potentiometer. The tests were carried out at crash pulses of two different velocities (30 km/h and 64 km/h). The tests were conducted with different belt routing to investigate the sensitivity of chest deflection measurements to belt position on the dummy chest. Furthermore, different restraint system parameters were investigated (force limiter level, with or without pretensioning) to evaluate if the RibEye measurements provide additional information to distinguish between restraint system configurations . The results showed that with the RibEye system it was possible to identify the effect of belt routing in more detail. The chest deflections measured with the standard chest potentiometer as well as the maximum deflection measured by RibEye allowed the distinction to be made between different force limiter levels. The RibEye system was also able to clearly show the asymmetric deflection of the rib cage due to belt loading. In some configurations, differences of more than 15 mm were observed between the left and side areas of the chest. Furthermore, the abdomen insert was identified as source of the problem of signal drop out at the 6th rib. Possible solutions are discussed. In conclusion, the RibEye system provided valuable additional information regarding the assessment of restraint systems. It has the potential to enable the evaluation of thoracic injury risk due to asymmetric loading. Further investigations with the RibEye should be extended to tests in a vehicle environment, which include a vehicle seat and other restraint system components such as an airbag.
Safety of light goods vehicles - findings from the German joint project of BASt, DEKRA, UDV and VDA
(2011)
Light goods vehicles (LGVs) are an important part of the vehicle fleet, providing a vital component in the European transportation system. On the other hand, LGVs are in the focus of public discussion regarding road safety. In order to analyse the accident situation of LGVs in an objective manner, Federal Highway Research Institute (BASt), VDA, DEKRA and German Insurers Accident Research (UDV) launched a joint project. The aim of this project, which will be finished by mid of 2011, is to identify reasonable measures which will further improve the safety of LGVs. For the first time, these partners jointly together conducted a research project and put together their know-how in accident research. Analyses are based on real-life accident data from the GIDAS database, the Accident Database of UDV (UDB), the DEKRA database and national statistics. The findings deliver answers to questions within the arena of future legislative actions and consumer protection activities. The analyses of databases cover areas of primary and secondary safety of LGVs with a special focus on advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), driver behaviour as well as partner and occupant protection. Key figures from national statistics are used to highlight hotspots of accidents of LGVs in Germany. Finally, the proposed countermeasures are assessed regarding their potential effectiveness. Amongst others, the results show that the accident situation of LGVs is very similar to that of passenger cars. Noteworthy variations could be found in collisions with pedestrians, at reversing and regarding accident causes. Occupant safety of LGVs is on a higher level compared to cars. Results indicate that seatbelt use is on a significantly lower level compared to cars. This leads to higher-than-average injury risk for unbelted LGV occupants. When it comes to partner protection, there are problems with compatibility at LGVs. For car occupants there is a very high injury risk when colliding with a LGV. It indicates that higher passive safety test standards for LGVs would be counterproductive if they further increase stiffness of LGVs. The analysis of LGV-pedestrian accidents shows that pedestrian kinematic differs significantly from car-pedestrian accidents. At this point, existing pedestrian related test standards developed for cars cannot be adopted to LGVs. When it comes to active safety, ESC proved its effectiveness once again. Beyond that, rear view cameras, advanced emergency braking systems and lane departure warning systems show a safety potential, too. In addition to any technical countermeasures previously discussed, the importance of the driver behavior and attitude regarding the accident risk was investigated. In order to develop successful actions it is important to understand the main target population. In the case of LGV especially the crafts business and smaller companies are the major contributors the safety issue.
It is well known that most accidents with pedestrians are caused by the driver not being alert or misinterpreting the situation. For that reason advanced forward looking safety systems have a high potential to improve safety for this group of vulnerable road users. Active pedestrian protection systems combine reduction of impact speed by driver warning and/or autonomous braking with deployment of protective devices shortly before the imminent impact. According to the Euro NCAP roadmap the Autonomous Emergency Braking system tests for Pedestrians Protection will be set in force from 2016 onwards. Various projects and organisations in Europe are developing performance tests and assessment procedures as accompanying measures to the Euro NCAP initiative. To provide synthesised input to Euro NCAP so-called Harmonisation Platforms (HP-) have been established. Their main goal is to foster exchange of information on key subjects, thereby generating a clear overview of similarities and differences on the approaches chosen and, on that basis, recommend on future test procedures. In this paper activities of the Harmonisation Platform 2 on the development of Test Equipment are presented. For the testing targets that mimic humans different sensing technologies are required. A first set of specifications for pedestrian targets and the propulsion systems as collected by Harmonisation Platform 2 are presented together with a first evaluation for a number of available tools.
For a number of EU regulatory acts Virtual Testing (VT) is already allowed for type approval (see Commission Regulation No. 371/2010 of 16 April 2010 amending the Framework Directive 2007/46/EC). However, only a very general procedure on how to apply VT for type approval is provided. Technical details for specific regulatory acts are not given yet. The main objective of the European project IMVITER (IMplementation of VIrtual TEsting in Safety Regulations) was to promote the implementation of VT in safety regulations. When proposing VT procedures the new regulation was taken into account, in particular, addressing open issues. Special attention was paid to pedestrian protection as pilot cases. A key aspect for VT implementation is to demonstrate that the employed simulation models are reliable. This paper describes how the Verification and Validation (V&V) method defined by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers was adapted for pedestrian protection VT based assessment. or the certification of headform impactors an extensive study was performed at two laboratories to assess the variability in calibration tests and equivalent results from a set of simulation models. Based on these results a methodology is defined for certification of headform impactor simulation models. A similar study was also performed with one vehicle in the type approval test setup. Its bonnet was highly instrumented and subjected to 45 impacts in five different positions at two laboratories in order to obtain an estimation of the variability in the physical tests. An equivalent study was performed using stochastic simulation with a metamodel fed with observed variability in impact conditions of physical headforms. An estimation of the test method uncertainty was obtained and used in the definition of a validation corridor for simulation models. Validation metric and criteria were defined in cooperation with the ISO TC22 SC10 and SC12 WG4 "Virtual Testing". A complete validation procedure including different test setups, physical magnitudes and evaluation criteria is provided. A detailed procedural flowchart is developed for VT implementation in EC Regulation No 78/2009 based on a so called "Hybrid VT" approach, which combines real hardware based head impact tests and simulations. This detailed flowchart is shown and explained within this paper. Another important point within the virtual testing based procedures is the documentation of relevant information resulting from the verification and validation process of the numerical models used. For this purpose report templates were developed within the project. The proposed procedure fixes minimum V&V requirements for numerical models to be confidently used within the type-approval process. It is not intended to be a thorough guide on how to build such reliable models. Different modeling methodologies are therefore possible, according to particular OEM know-how. These requirements respond to a balance amongst the type-approval stakeholders interests. A cost-benefit analysis, which was also performed within the IMVITER project, supports this approach, showing the conditions in which VT implementation is beneficial. Based on the experience gained in the project and the background of the experts involved an outlook is given as a roadmap of VT implementation, identifying the most important milestones to be reached along the way to a future vehicle type approval procedure supported by VT. The results presented in this paper show an important step addressing open questions and fostering the future acceptance of virtual testing in pedestrian protection type approval procedures.
Since its beginning in 1999, the German In-Depth Accident Study (GIDAS) evolved into the presumably leading representative road traffic accident investigation in Europe, based on the work started in Hanover in 1973. The detailed and comprehensive description of traffic accidents forms an essential basis for vehicle safety research. Due to the ongoing extension of demands of researchers, there is a continuous progress in the techniques and systematic of accident investigation within GIDAS. This paper presents some of the most important developments over the last years. Primary vehicle safety systems are expected to have a significant and increasing influence on reducing accidents. GIDAS therefore began to include and collect active safety parameters as new variables from the year 2005 onwards. This will facilitate to assess the impact of present and future active safety measures. A new system to analyse causation factors of traffic accidents, called ACASS, was implemented in GIDAS in the year 2008. The whole process of data handling was optimised. Since 2005 the on-scene data acquisition is completely conducted with mobile tablet PCs. Comprehensive plausibility checks assure a high data quality. Multi-language codebooks are automatically generated from the database structure itself and interfaces ensure the connection to various database management systems. Members of the consortium can download database and codebook, and synchronize half a terabyte of photographic documentation through a secured online access. With the introduction of the AIS 2005 in the year 2006, some medical categorizations have been revised. To ensure the correct assignment of AIS codes to specific injuries an application based on a diagnostic dictionary was developed. Furthermore a coding tool for the AO classification was introduced. All these enhancements enable GIDAS to be up to date for future research questions.
A flexible pedestrian legform impactor (FlexPLI) with biofidelic characteristics is aimed to be implemented within global legislation on pedestrian protection. Therefore, it is being evaluated by a technical evaluation group (Flex-TEG) of GRSP with respect to its biofidelity, robustness, durability, usability and protection level (Zander, 2008). Previous studies at the Federal Highway Research Institute (BASt) and other laboratories already showed good progress concerning the general development, but also the need for further improvement and further research in various areas. An overview is provided of the different levels of development and all kinds of evaluation activities of the Flex-TEG, starting with the Polar II full scale pedestrian dummy as its origin and ending up with the latest legform impactor built level GTR that is expected to be finalized by the end of the year 2009. Using the latest built levels as a basis, gaps are revealed that should be closed by future developments, like the usage of an upper body mass (UBM), the validation of the femur loads, injury risk functions for the cruciate knee ligaments and an appropriate certification method. A recent study on an additional upper body mass being applied for the first time to the Flex-GT is used as means of validation of recently proposed modified impact conditions. Therefore, two test series on a modern vehicle front using an impactor with and without upper body mass are compared. A test series with the Flex-GTR will be used to study both the comparability of the impact behavior of the GT and GTR built level as well as the consistency of test results. Recommendations for implementation within legislation on pedestrian protection are made.
According to the German road traffic regulations children up to the age of 12 or a height below 150 cm have to use approved and appropriate child restraint systems (CRS). CRS must be approved according to UN-ECE Regulation No. 44. The regulation classifies CRS in 5 weight categories. The upper weight group is approved for children from 22 to 36 kg. However, studies show that already today many children weigh more than 36 kg although they have not reached a height of 150 cm. Therefore, no ECE R44 approved CRS is available for these overweight children. In conclusion, today's sizes and weights of children are no longer represented by the current version of the ECE R44. The heaviest used dummy (P10) weighs just 32.6 kg and has a height of 137.9 cm. Statistical data of German children show that already 5% of the children at a height of 137.9 cm have a weight above 45.3 kg. Regarding children at a height of 145 cm, the 95th percentile limit is at a weight of 53.3 kg. Based on these data 4 dummies with different heights and weights were defined and produced. Two of them are overweight. Up to now, there is no experience how current child restraint systems perform in a car crash if they are used by children with a weight above 36 kg and a height smaller than 150 cm. In the future, different child restraint systems will be tested with respect to the ECE R44 regulation using these overweight dummies.
The head impact of pedestrians in the windscreen area shows a high relevance in real-world accidents. Nevertheless, there are neither biomechanical limits nor elaborated testing procedures available. Furthermore, the development of deployable protection systems like pop-up bonnets or external airbags has made faster progress than the corresponding testing methods. New requirements which are currently not considered are taken into account within a research project of BASt and the EC funded APROSYS (Advanced PROtection SYStems) integrated project relating to passive pedestrian protection. Testing procedures for head impact in the windscreen area should address these new boundary conditions. The presented modular procedure combines the advantages of virtual testing, including full-scale multi-body and finite element simulations, as well as hardware testing containing impactor tests based on the existing procedures of EEVC WG 17. To meet the efforts of harmonization in legislation, it refers to the Global Technical Regulation of UNECE (GTR No. 9). The basis for this combined hardware and virtual testing procedure is a robust categorization covering all passenger cars and light commercial vehicles and defining the testing zone including the related kinematics. The virtual testing part supports also the choice of the impact points for the hardware test and determines head impact timing for testing deployable systems. The assessment of the neck rotation angle and sharp edge contact in the rear gap of pop-up bonnets is included. For the demonstration of this procedure, a hardware sedan shaped vehicle was modified by integrating an airbag system. In addition, tests with the Honda Polar-II Dummy were performed for an evaluation of the new testing procedure. Comparing these results, it was concluded that a combination of simulation and updated subsystem tests forms an important step towards enhanced future pedestrian safety systems considering the windscreen area and the deployable systems.
Evaluation of the performance of competitive headforms as test tools for interior headform testing
(2009)
The European Research Project APROSYS has evaluated the interior headform test procedure developed by EEVC WG 13, representing the head contact in the car during a lateral impact. One important aspect within this test procedure was the selection of an appropriate impactor. The WG13 procedure currently uses the Free Motion Headform as used within the FMVSS 201. The ACEA 3.5 kg headform used in Phase 1 of the European Directive and the future European Regulation on Pedestrian Protection is still discussed as a possible alternative. This paper reports work performed by the Federal Highway Research Institute (BASt) as a part of the APROSYS Task 1.1.3. The study compares the two headform impactors according to FMVSS and ACEA, in a series of basic tests in order to evaluate their sensitivity towards different impact angles, impact accuracy, the effect of differences to impactors of the same type and the effects of the repeatability and reproducibility of the test results. The test surface consisted of a steel tube covered with PU foam and PVC, representing the car interior to be tested. Despite of the higher mass of the FMH the HIC values of this impactor were generally lower than those of the ACEA headform. The FMH showed a higher repeatability of test results but a high sensitivity on the angle of roll, the spherical ACEA impactor performed better with regards to the reproducibility. In case of the ACEA impactor-, the angle of roll had no influence.
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.
Accident research 2.0: New methods for representative evaluation of integral safety in traffic
(2013)
BMW has developed a procedure for rating Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) benefits that integrates two distinct tools. The tool "S.A.F.E.R." is designed to analyze the pre-crash phase. The aim of S.A.F.E.R. is to simulate all relevant processes in sufficient detail to obtain reproducible estimates of key indicators (effectiveness, false positives, etc.). The relevant processes include not only traffic and vehicle dynamics, but also environmental and most importantly human factors. Representative distributions of factors and parameters are obtained by taking the stochastic variation of all relevant parameters into account in the simulations. The second tool, known as "ICOS", has been designed to provide a high-resolution, high-fidelity description of crash phase dynamics. If one converts the outputs of stochastic simulation into inputs for crash dynamics, the result is a comprehensive description of exactly how a safety system can reduce injuries. Applications currently focus on high-fidelity simulation of individual crashes in order to enhance our understanding and optimization of connected safety systems. An integrated simulation process thus allows an exact prediction of the effectiveness in individual cases in terms of injury severity. The development and rating of integral safety need to reflect the true efficiency in the field. The integrated approach described here could provide a valid and reproducible basis for rating connected systems of active and passive safety. In particular, "virtual experiments" using a traffic-based approach and incorporating models of all relevant processes constitute an essential element of the approach.
The presentation deals with the simulation tool rateEFFECT which intends to answer the following questions: Which active safety systems should be developed to maximize safety benefit in real traffic accidents? What is the effectiveness of a specific active safety system in the real world? How many casualties could be avoided by such a system? It is shown that a lot of information is required to simulate existing accidents in order to estimate ADAS effects. This particularly includes numerical values for the pre-crash and in-crash phase. The database GIDAS provides a required minimum number of these parameters for a statistically significant sample.
The misuse of CRS (child restraint system) is one of the most urgent problems in connection of child safety in cars. Numerous field studies show that more than two thirds of all CRS are used in a wrong way. This misuse could lead to serious injuries for the children. Surprisingly the quality of CRS use is coded much better in accident data (e.g. GIDAS) than the results of observatory field studies show. It is expected that misuse of CRS was not detected by the accident teams in a large number of the cases. An essential part in improving child seats and their usability is the knowledge of the relation between misuse and resulting injuries. For that the analysis and experimental reconstruction of accidents is an important part. For allowing an exact experimental accident reconstruction, it is necessary to have detailed information about the securing situation of the child and about the installation of the CRS in the car.
Automotive interiors have long been a potentially injurious impact area to occupants during accidents, especially in the absence of adequate padding. The U.S. Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS) 201, Occupant Protection in Interior Impact, outlines test procedures and performance criteria in order to mitigate potentially injurious head impacts to interior surfaces. FMVSS 201 specifies a finite set of impact locations and applies to passenger vehicles of a specified year range and with a gross vehicle weight rating less than 10,000 lb. In this paper, two head impact test methodologies are presented, a pendulum-test device and a Free Motion Headform (FMH) launching device, which allows for dynamic, repeatable impact evaluation of various vehicle interior surfaces and their impact attenuation abilities. The presented testing includes multiple series that evaluate the effect of differing vehicle upper interior padding on occupant head injury. One study in particular, analyzes a head impact to the side header of a heavy truck (not included in FMVSS 201) during a 90 degree rollover. Additionally, two other series of tests are presented which assess the injury reduction effect of side airbags to near side as well as far side occupants in a side impact scenario. Lastly, a forensic analysis is presented which evaluates two possible head impact locations experienced in a real world accident by analysis of the resulting interior compartment damage utilizing the FMH launching device test method. The data collected and presented includes accelerometer instrumentation and high speed video analysis. These studies demonstrate that adequate padding and airbags are very effective at mitigating head injury potential at impact speeds of 12-25 mph (19-40 kph).
Rollovers continue to be a major source of heavy truck fatalities when compared to other accident modes. Real world rollover accidents are analyzed and two distinct damage patterns are identified. Damage to heavy truck roofs can occur from lateral loading that transitions to vertical roof loading as the vehicle rolls onto its side and then over onto its roof. A second load path can occur when the vehicle has rolled onto its side and furrows into the ground generating large longitudinal friction forces between the roof and ground. A review of the previous literature and various test methodologies are presented. A sled impact test methodology is presented which allows for structural assessment of a heavy truck cab's crashworthiness in both of these loading environments. Two test series are presented using the sled impact test methodology in order to analyze real world truck rollovers using varying impact platen and contact angles. The structural deformation and failure patterns were found to be consistent with damage seen in real world accident vehicles. In each case, a second equivalent truck cab was then reinforced and tested under similar conditions to evaluate the energy management and crush resistance of a stronger cab structure. These structural reinforcements demonstrated a substantial reduction in roof crush and protected the survival space of the occupant compartment. The sled impact test procedure is an effective method for testing the structural performance of a heavy truck cab in a variety of loading scenarios comparable to real world accidents and ascertaining the load and energy load levels in these accident modes.
The European CASPER (Child Advanced Safety Project for European Roads) project studying car child safety includes a sociological approach in order to have a better understanding of the behaviour of parents driving children under 12 years old. A questionnaire was distributed via the internet in Europe with 998 parents (representing 1638 children) from 22 European countries responding. The results inform on the way parents secure their children during a car trip. Many parents did not control how their children were installed in the child restraint system (CRS). A toddler was more likely to travel into a child seat than an older child was. Regarding misuse situations, an important part of the participants did not think that they could make mistakes when fixing the child seat to the car (26%) or when placing the child into the seat (39%). This leaves an important field of action especially by communication via different media and in the CRS sale outlets.
Although the number of road accident casualties in Europe (EU27) is falling the problem still remains substantial. In 2011 there were still over 30,000 road accident fatalities. Approximately half of these were car occupants and about 60 percent of these occurred in frontal impacts. The next stage to improve a car's safety performance in frontal impacts is to improve its compatibility. The objective of the FIMCAR FP7 EU-project was to develop an assessment approach suitable for regulatory application to control a car's frontal impact and compatibility crash performance and perform an associated cost benefit analysis for its implementation. This paper reports the cost benefit analyses performed to estimate the effect of the following potential changes to the frontal impact regulation: • Option 1 " No change and allow current measures to propagate throughout the vehicle fleet. • Option 2 " Add a full width test to the current offset Deformable Barrier (ODB) test. • Option 3 " Add a full width test and replace the current ODB test with a Progressive Deformable Barrier (PDB) test. For the analyses national data were used from Great Britain (STATS 19) and from Germany (German Federal Statistical Office). In addition in-depth real word crash data were used from CCIS (Great Britain) and GIDAS (Germany). To estimate the benefit a generalised linear model, an injury reduction model and a matched pairs modelling approach were applied. The benefits were estimated to be: for Option 1 "No change" about 2.0%; for Option 2 "FW test" ranging from 5 to 12% and for Option 3 "FW and PDB tests" 9 to 14% of car occupant killed and seriously injured casualties.
The utilisation of secondary-safety systems to protect occupants has attained a very high level over the past decades. Further improvements are still possible, but increasingly minor progress is only to be had with a high degree of effort. Thus, a key aspect must be the impact to overall safety in an accident. If reliable information is available on an imminent crash, measures already taken in the pre-crash phase can result in a significantly great influence on the outcomes of the crash. With this background preventive measures are the key to a sustainable further reduction of the figures of crash victims on our roads. This paper aims to show a preventive approach that can contribute to lessening the consequences of a crash by creating an optimum interaction of measures in the fields of primary and secondary safety. To further enhance vehicle safety, driver assistant systems are already available that warn the driver of an imminent front-to-rear-end crash. The next step is to support him in his reactions or if he fails to react sufficiently, to even initiate an automatic braking when the crash becomes unavoidable. Automatic pre-crash braking can, in an ideal situation, fully prevent a crash or can significantly reduce the impact speed and thus the impact energy (and the severity of the accident). If a vehicle is being braked in the pre-crash phase, the occupants are already being pre-stressed by the deceleration. The information available about the imminent crash can be used to activate the belt tensioners and likewise other secondary safety systems in the vehicle right before the impact. The pre-crash deceleration also causes the front of the vehicle to dip. Conventional crash tests do not take this specific impact situation into consideration. This is why, for example, the influences of the pre-crash displacements of the occupants are not recorded in the test results. Furthermore, a reproducible representation of the benefit of the vehicle safety systems which prepare the occupants for the imminent impact is not possible. In order to demonstrate the functions of automated pre-crash braking and to investigate the differences during the impact as a consequence of the altered occupant positions as well as the initiation of force and deformations of the vehicle front, DEKRA teamed up with BMW to carry out a joint crash test with the latest BMW 5 series vehicle. It involved the vehicle braking automatically from a starting test speed of 64 km/h (corresponding to the impact speed set by Euro NCAP) down to 40 km/h. The test was still run by the intelligent drive system of the crash test facility. This required several modifications to be made to the test facility as well as to the vehicle. The paper will describe and discuss some relevant results of the crash test. In addition, the possible benefits of such systems will also be considered. The test supplemented the work of the vFSS working group (vFSS stands advanced Forward-looking Safety Systems).
The sequence of accident events can be classified by three essential phases, the pre-crash-sequence, the crash-sequence and the post-crash-sequence. The level of reliability of the information in the GIDAS-database (German In Depth Accident Study) is provided predominantly on the passive side. The period to evaluate active safety systems begins already in the pre-crash-sequence. The assessment of the potential of sensor- or communication-based active safety systems can only be accomplished by a detailed analysis of the pre-crash-phase. Hence the necessity to analyze the early period of the accident event in detail arises. This is possible with the help of the digital sketches of the accident site and the simulation of the accident by a simulation method of the VUFO GmbH. After simulating the pre-crash scenario it is possible to generate additional and standardized data to describe the pre-crash-sequences of an accident in a very high detail. These data are documented in a second database called the GIDAS Pre-Crash-Matrix (PCM). The PCM contains various tables with all relevant data to reproduce the pre-crash-sequence of traffic accidents from the GIDAS database until 5 seconds before the first collision. This includes parameters to describe the environment data, participant data and motion or dynamic data. This paper explains the creation of the PCM, the simulation itself and the contents and structure of the PCM. With this information of the pre-crash-sequence for various accident scenarios an improved benefit estimation and development of active safety systems can be made possible.
Rear-end collisions are the most frequent same and opposite-direction crashes. Common causes include momentary inattention, inadequate speed or inadequate distance. While most rear-end collisions in urban traffic only result in vehicle damage or slight injuries, rear-end collisions outside built-up areas or on motorways usually cause fatal or serious injuries. Driver assistance systems that detect dangerous situations in the longitudinal vehicle direction are therefore an essential safety plus. In view of this, for ADAC, systems that alert drivers to dangerous situations and initiate autonomous braking complement ESC as one of the most important active safety features in modern vehicles. The aim of ADAC is to provide consumers with technical advice and competent information about the systems available on the market. Reliable comparative tests that are based on standardised test criteria may provide motorists with important information and help them make a buying decision. In addition, they raise consumer awareness of the systems and speed up their market penetration. The assessment must focus on as many aspects of effectiveness as possible and include not only autonomous braking but also collision warning and autonomous brake assist. The work of the ADAC accident research is the development of the testing scenarios with direct link to accident situations and the identification of useful test criteria for testing.
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.
Die EU hat für die Verkehrssicherheit in Europa ein anspruchsvolles Ziel vorgegeben: Bis 2010 soll die Anzahl der im Straßenverkehr Getöteten gegenüber 2000 halbiert werden. Für Deutschland kann eine erfolgreiche Zwischenbilanz gezogen werden: In den letzten 5 Jahren nahm trotz Vergrößerung des Kraftfahrzeugbestandes um 6% die Anzahl der Verkehrstoten um 29% ab, in den vergangenen 10 Jahren ist ein Rückgang um 43% zu verzeichnen. Diese im internationalen Vergleich überdurchschnittlichen Erfolge sind nicht zuletzt auch auf Fortschritte in der Fahrzeugtechnik zurückzuführen, wobei die zunehmende Verbreitung von Systemen der Aktiven Sicherheit wie ABS, BAS, ESP einen entscheidenden Anteil hat. Nach der deutlichen Reduzierung von Fahrunfällen durch ESP-® stehen nun die Auffahrunfälle im Fokus der Sicherheitsentwicklung von Mercedes-Benz. Das Paket aus verbessertem rückwärtigen Signalbild (Adaptives Bremslicht) und Brems-Assistent (BAS) wurde kürzlich durch radarbasierte Bremsassistenz ergänzt (BAS PLUS und PRE-SAFE-®-Bremse). Der Beitrag geht auf Funktion und Wirksamkeit der einzelnen Systeme ein und gibt einen Ausblick in die nähere Zukunft.
Motorcycle safety research
(2007)
Honda- global motorcycle sales exceeded the 10 million units mark since 2004, and further expansion is expected. As a responsibility for a company to provide mobility, Honda is focusing on motorcycle safety as top priority and has been working on various activities for both aspects of hardware and software. Here, we present Honda- activity for the safety technology of motorcycles. At present, Honda is promoting motorcycle safety in the four themes of prevention and collision safety such as safety education, recognition assistance, accident prevention and injury reduction. First, in the area of the safety education, the "Honda Safety Driving Promotion Center" was established in 1970, and motorcycle riders and vehicle driver trainings have been organized, and the traffic training centers are used as an actual practice field not only in Japan but also in many other regions in the world. Through our training activities, the new area of safety training with hardware assistance was developed and Honda- unique technology was accumulated such as the riding simulator which can provide experience of potentially dangerous situations without risk. Especially, the "riding trainer", the popular version of the riding simulator, was introduced at several motor shows in various countries and launched in September 2005. It was distributed first in Europe and is expected to expand globally aiming at 3000 units worldwide.. And in Europe, the newest version, which includes the suburban roads program, jointly developed with ADAC, will be released in near future. In the area of recognition assistance, "vehicle to vehicle communication technology" is under development using the advantage of being a manufacturer of both motorcycles and cars. This technology is under research as Honda "ASV-3" in Japan, and as part of C2C activity in Europe. As for the accident prevention, advanced brake systems for motorcycles to assist more effective brake operation have been expanded, Honda signed the European Road Safety Charter in April 2004 with the advanced brake systems commitment and furthermore, they are expanding according to vehicle characteristics and region. Then all models above 250 cc will have a version of the system by 2010. And as the last theme, "motorcycle airbag system" is introduced which is equipped on a mass production motorcycle for the first time in the world. It has been researched and developed for a long time as an injury reduction technology for collision accidents. Honda automobile technology was used for the research and development of the motorcycle airbag, and many specific issues such as the analysis of the collision conditions particular to motorcycles have been solved to realize today- success. It might be known that ADAC in-house crash test held in August this year confirmed the high effectiveness of the airbag system and showed a positive result. This motorcycle airbag system is equipped to the Honda Gold Wing and launched in North America in August, 2006. Also in Europe, it will be sold by the end of this year. Each theme of Honda motorcycle safety technology can be seen at the Honda booth.
Der Allgemeine Deutsche Automobil-Club e.V. (ADAC) und die Bundesanstalt für Straßenwesen (BASt) veranstalteten am 13. Oktober 2006 in Baden-Baden das 6. Symposium "Sicher fahren in Europa". Die Fachvorträge befassten sich mit den Themenbereichen: Ansätze zu mehr Verkehrssicherheit, - Verbesserung der Fahrzeugsicherheit, - Besondere Zielgruppen. Die CD-ROM dokumentiert die Grußworte, die Referate und die Podiumsdiskussion.
The overall purpose of the ASSESS project is to develop a relevant and standardised set of test and assessment methods and associated tools for integrated vehicle safety systems, primarily focussing on currently available pre-crash sensing systems. The first stage of the project was to define casualty relevant accident scenarios so that the test scenarios will be developed based on accident scenarios which currently result in the greatest injury outcome, measured by a combination of casualty severity and casualty frequency. The first analysis stage was completed using data from a range of accident databases, including those which were nationally representative (STATS19, UK and STRADA, SE) and in-depth sources which provided more detailed parameters to characterise the accident scenarios (GIDAS, DE and OTS, UK). A common analysis method was developed in order to compare the data from these different sources, and while the data sets were not completely compatible, the majority of the data was aligned in such a way that allowed a useful comparison to be made. As the ASSESS project focuses on pre-crash sensing systems fitted to passenger cars, the data selected for the analysis was "injury accidents which involved at least one passenger car". The accident data analysis yielded the following ranked list of most relevant accident scenarios: Rank Accident scenario 1 Driving accident - single vehicle loss of control 2 Accidents in longitudinal traffic (same and opposite directions) 3 Accidents with turning vehicle(s) or crossing paths in junctions 4 Accidents involving pedestrians The ranked list highlights the relatively large role played by "accidents in longitudinal traffic", and "accidents with turning vehicle(s) or crossing paths in junctions" (the second and third most prevalent accident scenarios, respectively). The pre-crash systems addressed in ASSESS propose to yield beneficial safety outcomes with specific regard to these accident scenarios. This indicates that the ASSESS project is highly relevant to the current casualty crash problem. In the second stage of the analysis a selection of these accident scenarios were analysed further to define the accident parameters at a more detailed level .This paper describes the analysis approach and results from the first analysis stage.
This work aims at bringing evidence for mass incompatibility in frontal impact for cars built according to the UNECE R94 regulation. French national injury accidents database census for years 2005 to 2008 were used for the analysis. The heterogeneity of frontal self-protection among cars of different masses is investigated, as well as the partner protection parameter offered by these cars. The last part of the analysis deals with the estimation of the benefit, in terms of fatal and severe injuries avoided, if crashworthiness was harmonized for the whole fleet of vehicle. This calculation is done for France and is extended to all Europe.