Sonstige
Due to recent years accident avoidance and crashworthiness on Austrian roads were mostly developed on national statistics and on-scene investigation respectively. Identification and elimination of black spots were main targets. In fact many fatal accidents do not occur on such black spots and black-spot investigation has reached a limit. New methods are required and therefore the Austrian Road Safety Programme was introduced by the Austrian Ministry of Transport, Innovation and Technology. The primary objective is the reduction of fatalities and severe injuries. Graz University of Technology initiated the project ZEDATU (Zentrale Datenbank tödlicher Unfälle) with the goal to identify similarities in different accident configurations. A matrix was established which categorizes risk and key factors of participating parties. Based on this information countermeasures were worked out.
The changed focus in vehicle safety technology from secondary to primary safety systems need to evolve new methods to investigate accidents, high critical, critical and normal driving situations. Current Naturalistic Driving Studies mostly use vehicles that are highly equipped with additional measuring devices, video cameras, recording technology, and sensors. These equipped fleets are very expensive regarding the setup and administration of the study. Due to the great rarity of crashes it is additionally necessary to have a high distribution and a homogeneous distribution of subject groups. At the end all these facts are leading to a very expensive study with a manageable number of data. Smartphones are becoming more and more popular not only for younger people. Contrary to traditional mobile phones they are mostly equipped with sensors for acceleration and yaw rates, GPS modules as well as cameras in high definition resolution. Additionally they have high-performance processors that enable the execution of CPU-intensive tools directly on the phone. The wide distribution of these smartphones enables researchers to get high numbers of users for such studies. The paper shows and demonstrates a software app for smartphones that is able to record different driving situations up to crashes. Therefore all relevant parameter from the sensors, camera and GPS device are saved for a given duration if the event was triggered. The complete configuration is independently adjustable to the relevant driver and all events were sent automatically to the research institute for a further process. Direct after the event, interviews with the driver can be done and important data regarding the event itself are documented. The presentation shows the methodology and gives a demonstration of the working progress as well as first results and examples of the current study. In the discussion the advantages of this method will be discussed and compared with the disadvantages. The paper shows an alternative method to investigate real accident and incident data. This method is thereby highly cost efficient and comparable with existing methods for benefit estimation.
The role of a national motor vehicle crash causation study-style data set in rollover data analysis
(2010)
On 1 January 2005, The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, an agency of the United States Department of Transportation, implemented a new data collection strategy designed to assess crash avoidance technologies and report associated behavioral inputs and outcomes. The original goal was a six-year program, however, during the shortened data collection period; it proved a valuable resource for understanding a precrash environment previously obscured by forensic case investigation. Another unintended consequence was an overlap with infrastructure, roadway geometry, and design with the occupant and vehicle outcomes, by virtue of well-defined attributes. External to the collected data, supplementary information was extrapolated, by using manuals published in the United States, by the American Association of State Highway Transportation Officials and selected State Departments of Transportation, in conjunction with the National Motor Vehicle Crash Causation Study (NMVCCS). This provided a backdrop to the infrastructure framework of the rollover problem within which the occupant and vehicle outcomes were studied. If a NMVCCS-style data collection were to be implemented elsewhere, then complementary manuals produced by federal transportation officials might be consulted producing similar relationships. The current study uses NMVCCS data to describe vehicles travelling through diverse design geometries and the outcome for occupants involved in crashes within that system. Codified and extrapolated data form the basis for assessing NMVCCS and its value to the transportation safety community, as the protocols are applicable universally. The benefit in continuing a NMVCCS-style study is noted, as the interaction of roadway infrastructure and occupant protection agencies might find paths to better work together in solving the complex rollover problem using a common data-driven approach.
During the last 5 years, the number of cars fitted with side airbags has dramatically increased. They are now standard equipment, even on many smaller cars or less luxurious vehicles. While some side airbags offer thoracic protection alone, there are those that combine thoracic and head protection (of which most deploy from the seat). Other systems employ separate airbags for head and thorax protection, which are designed to be effective noticeably in a crash against a pole. This paper proposes an evaluation of the effectiveness of side airbags in preventing thoracic injuries to passenger car occupants involved in side crashes. First, the target population (who can take benefit of side airbag deployment and in what circumstances) is defined. Side airbags can be especially effective in cases of impacts on the door with intrusion at a certain impact speed. Then, an example case of a side impact with side airbag deployment is given were side airbag deployment is thought to have had a positive effect on injury outcome. A further case is presented where the impact configuration is likely to have reduced the effect of side airbag deployment on injury outcome. Finally, the estimation of side airbag effectiveness (in terms of additional occupant protection brought exclusively by the airbag) is proposed by comparing injury risk sustained by occupants in (more or less) similar cars (fitted or non fitted with airbags) because, during these years, car structure, and side airbag conception have considerably evolved. In-depth accident data from France, the UK and Germany has been collected. Out of 2,035 side impact accident cases available in the databases, we selected 435 occupants of passenger cars (built from 1998 onwards) involved in an injury accident between year 1998 and year 2004 for EES (Energy Equivalent Speed) values between 20km/h and 50km/h. The occupants, belted or not, were sat on the struck side, whatever the obstacle and type of accidents (intersection, loss of control, etc.). For multiple impact crashes, the side impact is assumed to be the more severe one. Passenger cars were fitted with (96) or without (339) side airbags. Most of the potential risk explanatory variables were correctly and reliably reported in the databases (velocity " impact zone " impact angle " occupant characteristics, etc.). The analysis compared injury risks for different levels of EES and different types of side airbags. A logistic regression model was also computed with injury variables (such as thoracic AIS 2+ or AIS 3+) as the dependant variable and other variables (including airbag type and EES) as explanatory injury risk factors. Results revealed statistically non-significant reductions in thoracic AIS 2+ and AIS 3+ injury risk in side airbag equipped cars in the impact violence range selected (odds ratio between 0.84 and 0.98 depending on types of airbags). The results are discussed. The non-significance is assumed to be due to a low number of cases. Statistical analysis for head injuries was not possible due to the low number of accident cases with passenger cars fitted with head airbags in the databases. Moreover, the discrepancies between the data coming from different countries (especially calculation of EES) might have introduced instability in the analysis.
This study is aimed to investigate the correlations of impact conditions and dynamic responses with the injuries and injury severity of child pedestrians by accident reconstruction. For this purpose, the pedestrian accident cases were selected from Sweden and Germany with detailed information about injuries, accident cars, and accident environment. The selected accident cases were reconstructed using mathematical models of pedestrian and passenger car. The pedestrian models were generated based on the height, weight, and age of the pedestrian involved in accidents. The car models were built up based on the corresponding accident car. The impact speeds in simulations were defined based on the reported data. The calculated physical quantities were analyzed to find the correlation with injury outcomes registered in the accident database. The reconstruction approaches are discussed in terms of data collection, estimating vehicle impact speeds, pedestrian moving speeds and initial posture, secondary ground impact, validity of the mathematical models, as well as impact biomechanics.
Impact severity is a fundamental measure for all in-depth crash investigation projects. One methodology used in the UK is based on the US Calspan software package CRASH3. The UK- in-depth crash investigation studies routinely use AiDamage3 a software package which is based on an updated version of the original CRASH3 algorithm, including enhancements to the vehicle stiffness coefficients. Real world accident-damaged vehicles are measured and their crush is correlated with a library of stiffness coefficients. These measurements are then used, along with other parameters, to calculate the crash energy and equivalent changes of velocity of the vehicles (delta-v), which is a measure of the impact severity. UK in-depth accident studies routinely validate the crash severity methodologies applied as the vehicle fleet changes. This is achieved by analysing crash test data and using the appropriate residual crush damage and other inputs to AiDamage3 and checking the program- outputs with the known crash severity parameters. This procedure checks, at least in part, the default stiffness values in the data libraries and the reconstruction methods used.
The "Seven Steps Method" is an analysis and classification system, which describes the human participation factors and their causes in the temporal sequence (from the perceptibility to concrete action errors) taking into consideration the logical sequence of individual basic functions. By means of the "seven steps" it is possible to describe the relevant human causes of accidents from persons involved in the accident in an economic way with a sufficient degree of exactitude, because the causes can be further differentiated in their value (e.g. diversion as external diversion with regard to impact due to surroundings) and their sub values (e.g. external diversion with regard to impact due to surroundings in the shape of a "capture" of the perception by a prominent object of the traffic environment). Theoretically it is possible that one or more causing moments can be assigned to a person involved in an accident in each of the "seven steps"; however it is also possible to sufficiently clarify the cause in only one level (examples for this are described). In the practice of accident investigation at the site of the accident, the sequence chart is also relevant. With its assistance the questioning of the people involved in an accident can be accomplished in a structured way by assigning a set of questions to each step.
Als Ergebnis des Forschungsvorhabens wurde ein Simulationsverfahren für die Ermittlung von Streckenkapazitäten auf Bundesautobahnen (BAB) bei winterlichen Straßenzuständen erarbeitet. Der Berechnungsansatz wurde auf eine robuste Verfahrensweise ausgelegt, um die Auswirkungen von Ungenauigkeiten und Fehlern der Eingangsgrößen zu minimieren. Das Verfahren orientiert sich an den technischen Rahmenbedingungen wie z.B. die Eigenschaften der derzeit verfügbaren Daten der Wetterprognose und der Umfelddatenerfassung. Zugleich werden die Anforderungen an die Nutzung der Prognoseergebnisse berücksichtigt. Ausgehend von einer Grundkapazität der Streckenabschnitte in Anlehnung an das Handbuch für die Bemessung von Straßenverkehrsanlagen (HBS) wurden Abschlagsfaktoren für die jeweils vorherrschende Witterungssituation ermittelt. Diese Witterungseigenschaften wurden zuvor anhand charakteristischer Eingangsgrößen zusammengefasst und als Wetterklassen definiert. Das nachgeschaltete Prognoseverfahren ist als zweistufiger Ansatz mit einer Planungsprognose für die vorausschauende Disposition sowie einer Kurzfristdarstellung für die operative Durchführung der Verkehrsmanagements, des Straßenbetriebsdienstes und des Arbeitsstellenmanagements aufgebaut. Es basiert auf einem Warteschlangenmodell. Die Ergebnisse zeigen mögliche Stauereignisse auf und können als Entscheidungshilfe verwendet werden. Beide Komponenten setzen auf den gleichen grundsätzlichen Vorgehensweisen für die Prognose auf. Es bleibt offensichtlich, dass die Güte der Wetterprognose für die korrekte Auswahl der Wetterklasse entscheidend ist. Die Zuverlässigkeit der nachfolgend aufgesetzten Prognose des Verkehrsablaufs korreliert daher unmittelbar mit der Qualität der Eingangsgröße Wetterprognose. Aus diesem Grund ist der Bereitstellung hochwertiger und kleinräumiger Wetterprognosen für den Straßenbetriebsdienst die erforderliche Aufmerksamkeit zu widmen. Die im Forschungsvorhaben entwickelte modelltechnische Abbildung der witterungsbedingten Kapazitätseinschränkung und ihrer Auswirkungen auf den Verkehrsablauf durch zwei Risikostufen in Form einer "Warnung" und eines "Alarms" hat sich in der Evaluierung bewährt. Dabei ist die betriebsnahe Interpretation der Prognoseergebnisse möglich. Das Verfahren mit den Vorhersagen des Verkehrszustands Eingangsgrößen beweist, dass sie als Auslösekriterien für Maßnahmen des Verkehrsmanagements genutzt werden können.
In Germany, in-depth accident investigations are carried out in the Hannover area since 1973. In 1999 a second region was added with surveys in Dresden and the surrounding area. Internationally, the acronym GIDAS (German In-Depth Accident Study) is commonly used for these surveys. Compared to many other countries, the sample sizes of the GIDAS surveys are much larger. The goal is to collect 1.000 accidents involving personal injuries per year and region. Data collection takes place by using a sampling procedure, which can be interpreted as a two-stage process with time intervals as primary units and accidents as secondary units. An important question is, to what extend these samples are representative for the target population from which they are drawn. Analyses show, for example, that accidents with persons killed or seriously injured are overrepresented in the samples compared to accidents with slightly injured persons. This means, that these data are subject to biases due to uncontrolled variation of sample inclusion probability. Therefore, appropriate weighting and expansion methods have to be applied in order to adjust or correct for these biases. The contribution describes the statistical and methodological principles underlying the GIDAS surveys with respect to sampling procedure, data collection and expansion. In addition, some suggestions regarding potential improvements of study design are made from a methodological point of view.
Standortkataster für Lärmschutzanlagen mit Ertragsprognose für potenzielle Photovoltaik-Anwendungen
(2015)
Lärmschutzwände an bundesdeutschen Fernverkehrsstraßen bieten ein beachtliches Energiepotenzial. In welchem Umfang war bisher nicht ausreichend untersucht. Es fehlen bisher jedoch Untersuchungen darüber, welcher Anteil dieser Anlagen für eine Photovoltaik-Nutzung geeignet ist. Auch fehlen die geeigneten Werkzeuge und Datengrundlagen, um die Eignung im Einzelfall und in der statistischen Übersicht zu analysieren und zu bewerten. Die Ergebnisse dieses Forschungsvorhabens liefern einen Beitrag, diese Lücken zu schließen. Mit diesem Forschungsvorhaben wurde zum ersten Mal ein für die BRD flächendeckendes Kataster der Lärmschutzeinrichtungen erstellt. Auf Grundlage des zu erstellenden Katasters von Lärmschutzeinrichtungen und sonstigen Barrieren an Straßen (Seiten- und Mittelbarrieren) wurden zudem Verfahren entwickelt, die die Standorteignung von Lärmschutzanlagen für Photovoltaikanlagen ermittelt. Die erfassten Informationen wurden in einem "Geografischen Informationssystem" (GIS) zusammengeführt, das nun der Fachabteilung als Arbeitsgrundlage dienen kann. Das entwickelte geografische Informationssystem beinhaltet Berechnungswerkzeuge, die es erlauben, Potenzialanalysen des Photovoltaikertrags an jedem Punkt des Straßenraums für Bundesfernstraßen durchzuführen. Dabei ist es möglich, Ertragsberechnungen sowohl für bestehende Lärmschutzeinrichtungen als auch für neue Standorte für die Zwecke der Ausbauplanung durchzuführen. Damit wird die Grundlage geschaffen, die private Investorenbeteiligung zu forcieren. Die Ergebnisse wurden so aufbereitet und zur Verfügung gestellt, dass ein Import der Ergebnisse in das "Bundesinformationssystem Straße" (BISStra) problemlos möglich ist. Die Ergebnisse des Forschungsvorhabens liefern entscheidende Grundlagen zur Beurteilung der multifunktionalen Nutzung von Lärmschutzanlagen und Barrieren im Straßennebenraum. Damit wird die Grundlage für weitere Planungen geschaffen. Bei Neuanlagen kann bereits in der Planungsphase die Photovoltaik-Eignung bewertet werden. Mit den erfassten Wildbarrieren besteht nun eine Datengrundlage, die es nachfolgenden Arbeiten erlaubt, den Bedarf für besondere Schutzmaßnahmen zur Verbesserung der Verkehrssicherheit und auch zum Schutz gefährdeter Arten oder Populationen abzuleiten.