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Untersuchungsgegenstand des Forschungsprojektes war die Überprüfung der aktuellen Grenzwertkriterien in Deutschland zur Identifizierung von Unfallhäufungen im Straßennetz. Nach Analyse des IST-Zustandes und der Bestimmung von Defiziten wurden alternative Grenzwertkriterien mit dem Ziel eines optimierten Einsatzes von Ressourcen im Bereich der Örtlichen Unfalluntersuchung überprüft. Auf Grundlage dieser Erkenntnisse erfolgte die Ableitung von Empfehlungen für zukünftige Grenzwertkriterien. Insgesamt wurden verschiedene Grenzwertkriterien getrennt für die Ortslagen innerorts, außerorts (ohne BAB) und Bundesautobahnen mittels einer umfangreichen Unfalldatenauswertung untersucht. Als Untersuchungsgebiete dienten außerorts Bereiche von Bundesländern (Sachsen) oder ganze Bundesländer (Bayern, Rheinland-Pfalz) sowie innerorts Städte verschiedener Größe (Großstädte über 100.000 E, Mittelstädte mit 30.000 bis 100.000 E sowie Durchfahrten von Ortschaften unter 30.000 E) aus vier Bundesländern. Die Untersuchungen lassen sich in folgenden Ergebnissen zusammenfassen:- Bei der Bestimmung der unfallauffälligen Stellen (UAS) mit gleichartigen Unfällen werden ortslagenunabhängig nahezu alle UAS durch die Gleichartigkeit des Unfalltyps identifiziert. Durch die Berücksichtigung von Unfallumständen wie z.B. die Verkehrsbeteiligung werden kaum zusätzliche Stellen erkannt. - Bei der parallelen Betrachtung der drei aktuellen Auswertungszeiträume (1-Jahreskarte, 3-Jahreskarte (P) und 3-Jahreskarte (SP)) wurde festgestellt, dass ein Großteil der UAS, die in der 3-Jahreskarte (SP) auffällig sind, auch in der 3-Jahreskarte (P) als auffällig identifiziert werden. - Die zeitliche Stabilität, d.h. das wiederholte Auftreten eines unfallauffälligen Bereiches in zwei oder mehr aufeinanderfolgenden Betrachtungszeiträumen, erreicht gemessen am Anteil an allen unfallauffälligen Bereichen in einem Ausgangszeitraum weder bei den UAS noch bei den unfallauffälligen Linien (UAL) eine zufriedenstellende Größenordnung. - Aus den unterschiedlichen Kriterien für die Optimierung von Grenzwerten nach einem ausgewogenen Verhältnis von Aufwand und Nutzen resultieren zum Teil unterschiedliche Ergebnisse. Bei der Empfehlung neuer Grenzwerte wurde darauf geachtet, dass bei Anwendung des Grenzwertes mindestens 10% des Gesamtunfallgeschehens im jeweiligen Betrachtungszeitraum bearbeitet werden. Die Empfehlungen beinhalten für die Identifizierung von unauffälligen Bereichen insbesondere Vorschläge zu geeigneten Betrachtungszeiträumen, räumlichen Abgrenzungen von unfallauffälligen Bereichen sowie der Angabe optimierter Grenzwerte differenziert nach Ortslage und Betrachtungszeitraum.
Europe has benefited from a decreasing number of road traffic fatalities. However, the proportion of older road users increases steadily. In an ageing society, the SENIORS project aims to improve the safe mobility of older road users by determining appropriate requirements towards passive vehicle safety systems. Therefore, the characteristics of road traffic crashes involving the elderly people need to be understood. This paper focuses on car occupants and pedestrians or cyclists in crashes with modern passenger cars. Ten crash databases and four hospital statistics from Europe have been analysed to answer the questions on which body regions are most frequently and severely injured in the elderly, and specific injuries sustained by always comparing older (65 years and above) with midâ€aged road users (25â€64 years). It was found that the body region thorax is of particularly high importance for the older car occupant with injury severities of AIS2 or AIS3+, where as the lower extremities, head and the thorax need to be considered for older pedestrians and cyclists. Further, injury risk functions were provided. The hospital data analysis showed less difference between the age groups. The linkage between crash and hospital data could only be made on a general level as their inclusion criteria were quite different.
Advancing active safety towards the protection of vulnerable road users: the PROSPECT project
(2017)
Accidents involving Vulnerable Road Users (VRU) are still a very significant issue for road safety. According to the World Health Organisation, pedestrian and cyclist deaths account for more than 25% of all road traffic deaths worldwide. Autonomous Emergency Braking Systems have the potential to improve safety for these VRU groups. The PROSPECT project (Proactive Safety for Pedestrians and Cyclists) aims to significantly improve the effectiveness of active VRU safety systems compared to those currently on the market by expanding the scope of scenarios addressed by the systems and improving the overall system performance. The project pursues an integrated approach: Newest available accident data combined with naturalistic observations and HMI guidelines represent key inputs for the system specifications, which form the basis for the system development. For system development, two main aspects are considered: advanced sensor processing with situation analysis, and intervention strategies including braking and steering. All these concepts are implemented in several vehicle prototypes. Special emphasis is put on balancing system performance in critical scenarios and avoiding undesired system activations. For system validation, testing in realistic scenarios will be done. Results will allow the performance assessment of the developed concepts and a cost-benefit analysis. The findings within the PROSPECT project will contribute to the generation of state -of-the-art knowledge, technical innovations, assessment methodologies and tools for advancing Advanced Driver Assistance Systems towards the protection of VRUs. The introduction of a new generation safety system in the market will enhance VRU road safety in 2020-2025, contributing to the "Vision Zero" objective of no fatalities or serious injuries in road traffic set out in the Transport White Paper. Furthermore, the test methodologies and tools developed within the project shall be considered for the New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP) future roadmaps, supporting the European Commission goal of halving the road toll in the 2011-2020 timeframe.
The presence and performance of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) has increased over last years. Systems available on the market address also conflicts with vulnerable road users (VRUs) such as pedestrians and cyclists. Within the European project PROSPECT (Horizon2020, funded by the EC) improved VRU ADAS systems are developed and tested. However, before determining systems" properties and starting testing, an up-to-date analysis of VRU crashes was needed in order to derive the most important Use Cases (detailed crash descriptions) the systems should address. Besides the identified Accident Scenarios (basic crash descriptions), this paper describes in short the method of deriving the Use Cases for car-to-cyclist crashes. Method Crashes involving one passenger car and one cyclist were investigated in several European crash databases looking for all injury severity levels (slight, severe and fatal). These data sources included European statistics from CARE, data on national level from Germany, Sweden and Hungary as well as detailed accident information from these three countries using GIDAS, the Volvo Cars Cyclist Accident database and Hungarian in-depth accident data, respectively. The most frequent accident scenarios were studied and Use Cases were derived considering the key aspects of these crash situations (e.g., view orientation of the cyclist and the car driver- manoeuvre intention) and thus, form an appropriate basis for the development of Test Scenarios. Results Latest information on car-to-cyclist crashes in Europe was compiled including details on the related crash configurations, driving directions, outcome in terms of injury severity, accident location, other environmental aspects and driver responsibilities. The majority of car-to-cyclist crashes occurred during daylight and in clear weather conditions. Car-to-cyclist crashes in which the vehicle was traveling straight and the cyclist is moving in line with the traffic were found to result in the greatest number of fatalities. Considering also slightly and seriously injured cyclists led to a different order of crash patterns according to the three considered European countries. Finally the paper introduced the Use Cases derived from the crash data analysis. A total of 29 Use Cases were derived considering the group of seriously or fatally injured cyclists and 35 Use Cases were derived considering the group of slightly, seriously or fatally injured cyclists. The highest ranked Use Case describes the collision between a car turning to the nearside and a cyclist riding on a bicycle lane against the usual driving direction. A unified European dataset on car-to-cyclist crash scenarios is not available as the data available in CARE is limited, hence national datasets had to be used for the study and further work will be required to extrapolate the results to a European level. Due to the large number of Use Cases, the paper shows only highest ranked ones.
Unter bestimmten Voraussetzungen sind im Zuge der quantitativen Sicherheitsbewertung von Straßentunneln Risikoanalysen durchzuführen. Neben objekt-, verkehrs- oder ereignisspezifischen Parametern gibt es auch etliche Eingangsparameter, die fest im Risikomodell hinterlegt sind und deren Variation für gewöhnlich nicht vorgesehen ist. Dies trifft auch für Parameter des menschlichen Verhaltens zu. Im Zuge von Versuchsreihen zum Flucht- und Reaktionsverhalten der Verkehrsteilnehmer im Ereignisfall in Straßentunneln wurden verschiedene Verhaltensparameter ermittelt und analysiert, die den konventionellen Modell-Basisparametern erstmals im Österreichischen Tunnelrisikomodell (TuRisMo) gegenübergestellt werden. Als Ergebnis kann auf Basis der aktuell gewonnenen Verhaltensparameter eine Senkung des Gesamtrisikos aufgezeigt werden, dessen Einordnung im folgenden Beitrag diskutiert wird.
A reduction of around 48% of all road fatalities was achieved in Europe in the past years including a reduced number of fatalities with an older age. However, among all road fatalities, the proportion of elderly is steadily increasing. In an ageing society, the European (Horizon2020) project SENIORS aims to improve the safe mobility of older road users, who have different transportation habits compared to other age groups. To increase their level of safe mobility by determining appropriate requirements for vehicle safety systems, the characteristics of current road traffic collisions involving the elderly and the injuries that they sustain need to be understood in detail. Hereby, the paper focuses on their traffic participation as pedestrian, cyclist or passenger car occupant. Following a literature review, several national and international crash databases and hospital statistics have been analysed to determine the body regions most frequently and severely injured, specific injuries sustained and types of crashes involved, always comparing older road users (65 years and more) with mid-aged road users (25-64 years). The most important crash scenarios were highlighted. The data sources included European statistics from CARE, data on national level from Germany, Sweden, Italy, United Kingdom and Spain as well as in-depth crash information from GIDAS (Germany), RAIDS (UK), CIREN and NASS-CDS (US). In addition, familiar hospital data from Germany (TraumaRegister DGU-®), Italy (Italian Register of Acute Traumas) and UK hospital statistics (TARN) were included in the study to gain further insight into specific injury patterns. Comprehensive data analyses were performed showing injury patterns of older road users in crashes. When comparing with mid-aged road users, all databases showed that the thorax body region is of particularly high importance for the older car occupant with injury severities of AIS 2 or AIS 3+, whereas the body regions lower extremities, head and thorax need to be considered for the older pedestrians and cyclists. Besides these comparisons, the most frequent and severe top 5 injuries were highlighted per road user group. Further, the most important crash configurations were identified and injury risk functions are provided per age group and road user group. Although several databases have been analysed, the picture on the road safety situation of older road users in Europe was not complete, as only Western European data was available. The linkage between crash data and hospital data could only be made on a general level as their inclusion criteria were quite different.
Das Sicherheitsaudit stellt einen wesentlichen Bestandteil des Sicherheitsmanagements von Straßen in der Planungsphase dar. Ein aktueller systematischer Überblick über die Auditpraxis in den Ländern sowie über die Verbreitung in Kommunen lag jedoch bisher nicht vor. Ziel war es daher, zunächst Wissenslücken bezüglich der tatsächlichen Anwendung und der organisatorischen Verankerung des Sicherheitsaudits zu schließen. Hierfür erfolgten zunächst eine Recherche zur Anwendung von Sicherheitsaudits auf Länder- und kommunaler Ebene sowie eine Erhebung zu durchgeführten Audits. In diesem Zusammenhang erfolgte auch ein Erfahrungsaustausch mit Auditoren von Straßenbauverwaltungen der Länder sowie mit Auditoren von Stadtverwaltungen. Darüber hinaus wurden jeweils 200 Auditberichte zu außer- und innerörtlichen Maßnahmen einschließlich der zugehörigen Stellungnahmen ausgewertet. Darauf aufbauend erfolgte die detaillierte Untersuchung ausgewählter auditierter Maßnahmen, die bereits realisiert und unter Verkehr waren und für die ein Unfallgeschehen von mindestens drei Jahren nach Verkehrsfreigabe vorlag. Während die Gespräche zum Erfahrungsaustausch weitestgehend übereinstimmende Aussagen im Hinblick auf die Auditierung von außer- und innerörtlichen Maßnahmen erbracht haben, haben die Auswertungen der jeweils 200 Audits wie auch die Detailauswertung der Audits von Außerorts- und Innerortsstraßen zu unterschiedlichen Erkenntnissen geführt. Abschließend wurden Empfehlungen zur Weiterentwicklung der Auditpraxis in Deutschland sowie zur Übernahme in die Fortschreibung der ESAS abgeleitet. Der wesentliche Baustein im Zusammenhang mit der Fortschreibung der ESAS war die Erarbeitung von Defizitlisten, die zukünftig in elektronischer Form zur Verfügung stehen sollen und anhand derer ein Audit auf Vollständigkeit überprüft werden kann. Ferner sollen sie für eine Dokumentation und Auswertung der Auditergebnisse genutzt werden können.
Nach wie vor ist die Anzahl von Unfällen motorisierter Einspurfahrzeuge (MESFz) mit sehr schweren Verletzungsfolgen oder tödlichem Ausgang für die Aufsassen im Vergleich zu allen anderen getöteten Verkehrsteilnehmern alarmierend hoch. Im Jahr 2013 wurden bei insgesamt 42.427 Unfällen MESFz 641 Aufsassen getötet und 12.034 schwer verletzt. Um dieser hohen Zahl schwerverletzter und getöteter Aufsassen von MESFz entgegenzuwirken, hat die Bundesanstalt für Straßenwesen (BASt) das vorliegende Projekt initiiert. Zielsetzung des Projektes war es, durch eine Analyse von Unfalldaten von MESFz, durch ergänzende computergestützte FEM-Simulationen und durch eine kritische Bewertung der UN-Regelung UN-R 22/05 (vormals ECE-R 22/05) hinsichtlich verletzungs-biomechanischer Inhalte (Versuche und Prüfwerte) Erkenntnisse zu erarbeiten, Handlungsbedarf festzustellen und Änderungs- und Ergänzungsvorschläge zur Überarbeitung der UN-R 22/05 sowie hinsichtlich allgemeiner Maßnahmen zu formulieren. Auf der Grundlage der amtlichen Unfalldaten des Statistischen Bundesamtes, Wiesbaden (DESTATIS) erfolgte eine Unfalldatenauswertung im Allgemeinen. Für eine detaillierte Analyse wurden Daten der "German In-Depth Accident Study" (GIDAS, Dresden und Hannover) ausgewählt. Bei etwa der Hälfte der im Teilumfang (n=199) untersuchten Unfälle von MESFz kam es zu Kopfverletzungen, überwiegend bei benutztem Schutzhelm. In 18 % lagen die führenden Verletzungen am Kopf; in 48 % blieb der Kopf unverletzt bei sonstigen schweren bis schwersten und tödlichen Verletzungen am Körper. Etwa 10 % der Aufsassen benutzten ein MESFz ohne bzw. mit absolut ungeeignetem Helm. Eine kritische Bewertung und Alternativvorschläge der derzeitigen Fassung der UN-R 22/05 wurden bezüglich der Punkte Prüfumfang, Prüfausstattung, Prüfdurchführung, Prüfkriterien und eine fälschungssicheren Homologations-Kennzeichnung erarbeitet.
Die Bundesanstalt für Straßenwesen (BASt) bringt zum Ende jeden Jahres eine Prognose der Unfall- und Verunglücktenzahlen des noch laufenden Jahres heraus, um so über die Entwicklung der Verkehrssicherheit in Deutschland Bilanz ziehen zu können. Dabei wird das Unfallgeschehen nach dem Schweregrad der Konsequenzen, der Ortslage sowie Alter und Art der Verkehrsbeteiligung der Verunglückten in 27 Zeitreihen unterteilt. Zu diesem Zeitpunkt sind die Daten lediglich für die ersten acht oder neun Monate erhältlich. Um Bilanz zu ziehen, werden die Anzahlen der letzten drei oder vier Monate prognostiziert. Gesamtziel des hier beschriebenen Forschungsvorhabens ist die Optimierung der jährlichen Unfallprognosen durch Anwendung von strukturellen Zeitreihenmodellen, bei denen die Vorhersagen aus dem Trend der vorliegenden Monate, und der Dynamik der vorhergehenden Jahre abgeleitet werden. Um dem Einfluss der Witterungsverhältnisse Rechnung zu tragen, werden dabei meteorologische Variablen in das Vorhersagemodell aufgenommen. Um die Modelle zu testen, werden die endgültigen Daten der letzten 15 Jahre jeweils aus den vorläufigen Daten der ersten Monate vorhergesagt und mit den tatsächlich beobachteten endgültigen Unfall- und Verunglücktenzahlen verglichen. Die Resultate zeigen, dass im Vergleich zu den bisherigen Vorhersagen mithilfe der hier vorgestellten Modelle die Vorhersagen für 25 der 27 Reihen präziser werden. Lediglich zwei Reihen zeigen einen leichten Anstieg des Vorhersagefehlers. Beim Vergleich von Modellen mit und ohne meteorologischen Variablen zeigt sich, dass 23 der 27 Reihen besser vorhergesagt werden können, wenn man das Wetter berücksichtigt. Neben der verbesserten Vorhersage ermöglicht die Aufnahme der Wettervariablen auch eine Einschätzung, wie groß der Einfluss der Witterungsgegebenheiten auf das Unfallgeschehen ist. Es zeigt sich also, dass die Anwendung von strukturellen Zeitreihenmodellen und die Berücksichtigung von meteorologischen Variablen zu einer deutlichen Verbesserung der Vorhersagegenauigkeit führen. Die Verbesserung der Vorhersagen durch die Aufnahme von Wettervariablen bestätigt nochmals den Einfluss der Witterungsumstände auf das Unfallgeschehen.
Bus or heavy vehicle passenger accidents are rare events, compared with car accidents, but sometimes leads to a large number of victims especially in rollover crash scenarios. Two accidents occurred in Portugal in 2007 and 2013 in which 28 people died and more than 50 are injured, shown the importance of the investigation of such accidents. For the investigation of these accidents multidisciplinary teams are constituted with engineers and police officers. All the factors involved are taken into consideration including road design, traffic signs, maintenance and hardware, human factors, and vehicle factors. In this work a methodology to an accurate collection of the data is proposed. From the information collected the accident is reconstructed using the PC-CrashTM software. From this all the contribution factors are determined and recommendations to mitigate these crashes are listed. These two accidents are rollover accidents and the analysis of the injuries and its correlation with the use of retention systems is very important. From the medical data and with the dynamics of the accident determined simulations of the occupants with biomechanical models are carried out in order to evaluate the effect of the retention systems in the injuries. This analysis is based on injury criteria (such as Abbreviated Injury Score (AIS) or Injury Severity Scale (ISS)). With this it is possible to determine if the seat belt was worn or not.
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.
Causation of traffic accidents with children from the perspective of all involved participants
(2017)
In the year 2014 about 2,800 children between zero and 14 years got injured due to traffic accidents in Austria. More than 50% were taking part in traffic as active road users like cyclists or pedestrians. Within this study 46 real world traffic accidents between vehicles and children as pedestrians were analysed. In 39 cases, car drivers hit the crossing children. In the other cases, the collision opponents were busses, trucks or motorcycles. Most of the children got hit while crossing a road at urban sites. By analysing the traffic accidents from the perspectives of all involved participants, vehicle drivers and injured children, it is possible to identify factors for each participant, which led to the accident and factors that contributed the accident. The main task is to find patterns in the behaviour of crash victims (children and driver) before the collision. One important fact is that in more than 50% of the analysed cases sight obstructions were an important contributing factor for both, the driver and the child. From drivers view situations in which the child moved unexpected into the driven road lane were often found. For the injured child, factors like: no attention to the road traffic or no sufficient traffic observation were found to be relevant. Further it- possible to sensitise children and adults to possible source of critical traffic situations according to the findings of this study.
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.
The proportion of older road users is increasing because of demographic change (in the group 65+ from current 18% to about 24% by 2030). The mobility needs of people 65+ often differ from those of younger people. Seniors (65+) are already more involved in fatal accidents than younger road users. According to the age development, the senior share of road deaths in the EU of today is increasing nearly one-fifth to one-third. From the in-depth analysis of accidents generic simulation models were developed. Attention has been paid both to psycho-physical characteristics as well as on the social and physical environment and their specifics in conjunction with seniors. By simulating the defined scenarios and varying the defined relevant parameters, accident influencing factors were examined as a basis for avoidance. In addition, the parameters were varied to show the influence from the vehicle, the pedestrian and the infrastructure to avoid the accident or to characterize the conditions for which the accident is inevitable.
In this study, the mean profile depth (MPD) that expresses roughness of road pavements was calculated using the road survey equipment vehicle and the calculated MPD was compared with the real number of traffic accidents. The analysis method used in this study was to classify the appropriate clustering in relation to traffic accidents using the K-means clustering and to compare this with the presence of traffic accidents via the MPDs to derive the result. K-means clustering was used in the analysis method and four clusters were found using the clustering analysis results. The center of each cluster was 0.627, 0.850, 1.118, and 1.237, respectively. The result of this study is expected to be utilized as foundational research in the traffic safety area.
Car occupants have a high level of mortality in road accidents, since passenger cars are the prevalent mode of transport. In 2013, car occupant fatalities accounted for 45% of all road accident fatalities in the EU. The objective of this research is the analysis of basic road safety parameters related to car occupants in the European countries over a period of 10 years (2004-2013), through the exploitation of the EU CARE database with disaggregate data on road accidents. Data from the EU Injury Database for the period 2005 - 2008 are used to identify injury patterns, and additional insight into accident causation for car occupants is offered through the use of in-depth accident data from the EC SafetyNet project Accident Causation System (SNACS). The results of the analysis allow for a better understanding of the car occupants' safety situation in Europe, thus providing useful support to decision makers working for the improvement of road safety level in Europe.
The objectives of this paper are the analysis of the accident risk of drivers brain pathologies (Mild Cognitive Impairment, Alzheimer- disease, and Parkinson- disease), and the investigation of the impact of driver distraction on the accident risk of patients with brain pathologies, through a driving simulator experiment. The three groups of patients are compared to a healthy group of similar demographics, with no brain pathology. In particular, 125 drivers of more than 55 years old (34 "controls"" and 91 "patients") went through a large driving simulator experimental process, in which incidents were scheduled to occur. They drove in rural and urban areas, in low and high traffic volumes and in three distraction conditions (undistracted driving, conversation with a passenger and conversation through a mobile phone). The statistical analyses indicated several interesting findings; brain pathologies affect significantly accident risk and distraction affects more the groups of patients than the control one.
Still correlated with high mortality rates in traffic accidents traumatic aortic ruptures were frequently detected in unprotected car occupants in the early years. This biomechanical analysis investigates the different kinds of injury mechanisms leading to traumatic aortic injuries in todays traffic accidents and how the way of traffic participation affects the frequency of those injuries over the years. Based on GIDAS reported traffic accidents from 1973 to 2014 are analyzed. Results show that traumatic aortic injuries are mainly observed in high-speed accidents with high body deceleration and direct load force to the chest. Mostly chest compression is responsible for the load direction to the cardiac vessels. The main observed load vector is from caudal-ventral and from ventral solely, but also force impact from left and right side and in roll-over events with chest compression lead to traumatic aortic injuries. Classically, the injury appeares at the junction between the well-fixed aortic arch and the pars decendens following a kind of a scoop mechanism, a few cases with a hyperflexion mechanism are also described. In our analysis the deceleration effect alone never led to an aortic rupture. Comparing the past 40 years aortic injuries shift from unprotected car occupants to today's unprotected vulnerable road users like pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists. Still the accident characteristics are linked with chest compression force under high speed impact, no seatbelt and direct body impact.