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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.
Since 2005 the German In-Depth Accident Study (GIDAS) also records aspects of active vehicle safety. This is done because vehicles are fitted with an increasing number of active safety devices which have undoubtedly an influence on the number, severity and course of accidents. Accident researchers expect that collecting active safety data will facilitate to assess and quantify the impact of these and future devices. It is the aim of this paper to outline benefits and limitations associated with the recording of active safety aspects within indepth studies. An overview about possible areas where active safety data can be useful will be given. For that purpose single safety or comfort systems will be selected to estimate the effects of an accident database which includes variables associated with these systems. Questions with regard to the limitations of collecting active safety data will be addressed. Possible items are for example the usability of the data recorded, the real accident cause, the small number of relevant accidents, the time span needed to gather a sufficient dataset, the small share of vehicles equipped with a certain system or different functionalities of systems that are supposed to fall in the same category. As a result user needs for a reasonable data collection of active safety elements will be elaborated.
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.
Except for corrective steering functions automatic steering is up to now only allowed at speeds up to 10 km/h according to UN Regulation No. 79. Progress in automotive engineering with regard to driver assistance systems and automation of driving tasks is that far that it would be technically feasible to realise automatically commanded steering functions also at higher vehicle speeds. Besides improvements in terms of comfort these automated systems are expected to contribute to road traffic safety as well. However, this safety potential will only be exhausted if automated steering systems are properly designed. Especially possible new risks due to automated steering have to be addressed and reduced to a minimum. For these reasons work is currently ongoing on UNECE level with the aim to amend the regulation dealing with provisions concerning the approval of steering equipment. It is the aim to revise requirements for automatically commanded steering functions (ACSF) so that they can be approved also for higher speeds if certain performance requirements are fulfilled. The paper at hand describes the derivation of reasonable system specifications from an analysis of relevant driving situations with an automated steering system. Needs are explained with regard to covering normal driving, sudden unexpected critical events, transition to manual driving, driver availability and manoeuvres to reach a state of minimal risk. These issues form the basis for the development of test procedures for automated steering to be implemented in international regulations. This holds for system functionalities like automatic lane keeping or automatic lane change as well as for addressing transition situations in which the system has to hand over steering to the driver or addressing emergency situations in which the system has to react instead of the driver.
Road markings are an essential component of a safe road. In particular, the optical guidance at night and under wet conditions rates high. Special surface textures of road markings can enhance the nighttime visibility during wetness, but they can lead on the other hand to noise emission during passages of vehicles and thus annoy residents. In the present study the tyre/road marking noise is analysed based on two different measurement methods for traffic noise: Several different road markings with increased nighttime visibility during wetness were overrun and the noise was determined by controlled coast-by measurements as well as close-proximity measurements. For both measuring methods the averaged A-weighted sound pressure levels were determined and an analysis of the third octave spectra was performed in order to identify annoying tonal components. The results of both measurement methods were compared with each other. Limitations of the individual measurement methods were overcome by combining the data. Properties of road marking noise depending on the texture of the marking are discussed in relation to those of road surface noise. The results will help specifying road marking texture types that ensure less annoyance and at the same time good visibility at wetness and night-time.
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 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
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.
This document describes the development and state of the art of orthotropic steel bridges in Germany. Following a short historical review of the performance of orthotropic bridge decks over the last decades, the present traffic loads are described and related to the resistance of the existing structures. Based on four different hazard categories, this paper describes different retrofitting methods. Although several promising strengthening techniques are introduced and evaluated, it appears that further research is urgently required in order to improve these techniques.
EEVC Status report
(2001)
Pedestrians represent about 20% of the overall fatalities in Europe- road traffic accidents. In this paper a methodology is proposed to understand why the numbers are so high, especially in the south of Europe and particularly in Portugal, . First a detailed statistical analysis using Ordinal Logistic Regression model (OLR) was applied to the gathered data from all Portuguese accidents with victims in the period 2010-2012. In a second stage accident reconstruction computational techniques using pedestrian biomechanical models are used to evaluate the accident conditions that lead to the injuries, such as the speed and the impact location. For biomechanical injury criterions, the AIS (Abbreviated Injury Scale), the HIC (Head Injury Criterion) and other injury criterions based on the resulting accelerations in the pedestrian's body are used. The statistical model reported that there were several predictors that significantly influenced the pedestrian injury severity in the event of a road accident, such as Pedestrian's age, Pedestrian's gender, Vehicle Design/Category or Driver's gender. The use of injury scales and biomechanical criterions in in-depth investigation of road accidents, such as AIS, can significantly improve the quality of the reconstruction process.
This paper set out to examine the possibilities for injury avoidance implications for older drivers in crashes, based on crash and injury patterns among older drivers and current trends in ageing in most western societies. A number of safety technologies were identified and discussed which have potential for improving vehicle older driver crash avoidance and crashworthiness. While there were some promising estimates available of the likely benefits of this technology for improving safety, it is evident that they need to be confirmed for older drivers, given their age-related disabilities and sensory limitations. Further research is urgently required to ensure that these technologies yield safety benefits without any disbenefits for older drivers.rn
Whiplash injuries are characterized by the high variability of its symptoms and by the subjectivity of its diagnosis, which sometimes leads to frauds perpetrated by victims of rear-end impacts. It is estimated that whiplash injuries cost annually about 10.000 million Euros in Europe. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the influence of the dynamics of the accident in which the victim was involved in the probability of development of whiplash associated injuries. In the presented methodology, first an accident reconstruction is performed where the dynamics of the accident is determined. This is carried out using the software PC-Crash, police and insurance companies' data. Then biomechanical injuries criteria related with whiplash injuries are evaluated. For the evaluation of the probability of having whiplash injuries, the Neck Injury Criterion (NIC) of the victim and the mean acceleration of the vehicle were evaluated. Then, with medical reports, the results of the accident reconstruction are correlated with the reported injuries. Some examples are presented. The results obtained indicate that the study of the dynamics of the road accidents in which the victims were involved could be used as an auxiliary of the prognosis of whiplash injuries and is important for a precise diagnosis of this type of injuries.
A national initiative from the vehicle manufacturers, safety system suppliers, the road administration and universities in Sweden took off in 2007. The aim was to develop a national investigation network and a methodology focusing on all phases of a crash (pre-crash, in-crash and post-crash) as well as all parts of the road transport system (road user, vehicle and road environment). The initiative is formally run as a project with the acronym INTACT (Investigation Network and Accident Collection Techniques). It was a three year pilot with the aim to develop methodologies for an extended national crash investigation activity. During the first year the INTACT partners agreed on the aim for the investigation and methods for retrieving the data were developed. During the second and third year the methodology was tested in real-world investigations and further refinement was made. The paper describes the methodology developed to obtain high qualitative in-depth road crash data.
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.
The SafetyNet project was formulated in part to address the need for safety oriented European road accident data. One of the main tasks included within the project was the development of a methodology for better understanding of accident causation together with the development of an associated database involving data obtained from on-scene or "nearly onscene" accident investigations. Information from these investigations was complemented by data from follow-up interviews with crash participants to determine critical events and contributory factors to the accident occurrence. A method for classification of accident contributing factors, known as DREAM 3.0, was developed and tested in conjunction with the SafetyNet activities. Collection of data and case analysis for some 1 000 individual crashes have recently been completed and inserted into the database and therefore aggregation analyses of the data are now being undertaken. This paper describes the methodology development, an overview of the database and the initial aggregation analyses.
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.
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 and limits 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 configurations such as impacts with car sides, trucks, and pedestrians. The WG consists of national government representatives who are supported by industrial advisers. The WG serves as a focal point for European research conducted by national and industry sponsored projects. The WG is responsible for collating the results from this research to achieve its objectives. EEVC WG 15 serves 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 partly funded by the European Commission. This paper presents a review of the current European research status. It also identifies current issues with candidate test procedures and lists the parameters that should be considered in assessing compatibility. The current candidate test procedures are: an offset barrier test with the progressive deformable barrier (PDB) face; a full width wall test with or without a deformable aluminium honeycomb face and a high resolution load cell wall; an offset barrier test with the EEVC barrier and load cell wall. These candidate test procedures must allow assessment of structural interaction, frontal force levels and compartment strength. The WG will report its findings to the EEVC Steering Committee and propose a test procedure in November 2006.
The main focus of the benefit estimation of advanced safety systems with a warning interface by simulation is on the driver. The driver is the only link between the algorithm of the safety system and the vehicle, which makes the setup of a driver model for such simulations very important. This paper describes an approach for the use of a statistical driver model in simulation. It also gives an outlook on further work on this topic. The build-up process of the model suffices with a distribution of reaction times and a distribution of reaction intensities. Both were combined in different scenarios for every driver. Each scenario has then a specific probability to occur. To use the statistical driver model, every accident scene has to be simulated with each driver scenario (combinations of reaction times and intensities). The results of the simulations are then combined regarding the probabilities to occur, which leads to an overall estimated benefit of the specific system. The model works with one or more equipped participants and delivers a range for the benefit of advanced safety systems with warning interfaces.
The focus of the technical innovation in the automobile industry is currently changing to sensor based safety systems, which are operating in the pre-crash phase of an accident. To get more information about this pre-crash phase for real accidents a simulation of this phase using the GIDAS database is done. The basics for this simulation are geometrical information about the accident location and the exact accident data out of the GIDAS database. This aggregated information gives the possibility to simulate an exact motion for every accident participant, using MATLAB / SIMULINK, in the pre-crash phase. After the simulation the information about the geometrical positions, the velocities and maneuvers of the drivers to an individual TTC (time to collision) are available. With those results it is possible to develop new useful sensor geometries using pre-crash scatter plots or estimate the efficiency of implemented active safety systems in combination with sensor characteristics. This simulation can be done for every reconstructed accident included in the GIDAS database, so these results can represent a wide spread basis for the further development of active safety systems and sensor geometries and characteristics
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.
A set of recommendations for pan-European transparent and independent road accident investigations has been developed by the SafetyNet project. The aim of these recommendations is to pave the way for future EU scale accident investigation activities by setting out the necessary steps for establishing safety oriented road accident investigations in Member States. This can be seen as the start of the process for establishing road accident investigations throughout Europe which operate according to a common methodology. The recommendations propose a European Safety Oriented Road Accident Investigation Programme which sets out the procedures that need to be put in place to investigate a sample of every day road accidents. They address four sets of issues; institutional addressing the characteristics of the programme; operational describing the conditions under which data isrncollected; data storage and protection; and reports, countermeasures and the dissemination of data.rn
Road condition acquisition and assessment are the key to guarantee their permanent availability. In order to maintain a country's whole road network, millions of high-resolution images have to be analyzed annually. Currently, this requires cost and time excessive manual labor. We aim to automate this process to a high degree by applying deep neural networks. Such networks need a lot of data to be trained successfully, which are not publicly available at the moment. In this paper, we present the GAPs dataset, which is the first freely available pavement distress dataset of a size, large enough to train high-performing deep neural networks. It provides high quality images, recorded by a standardized process fulfilling German federal regulations, and detailed distress annotations. For the first time, this enables a fair comparison of research in this field. Furthermore, we present a first evaluation of the state of the art in pavement distress detection and an analysis of the effectiveness of state of the art regularization techniques on this dataset.
The national accident statistics demonstrate that the situation of passenger car side impacts is dominated by car to car accidents. Car side to pole impacts are relatively infrequent events. However the importance of car side to pole impacts is significantly increasing with fatal and seriously injured occupants. For the present study the German in-depth database GIDAS (German In-Depth-Accident Study) and the UK based database CCIS (Co-operative Crash Injury Study) were used. Two approaches were undertaken to better understand the scenario of car to pole impacts. The first part is a statistical analysis of passenger car side to pole impacts to describe the characteristics and their importance relevant to other types of impact and to get further knowledge about the main factors influencing the accident outcome. The second part contains a case by case review on passenger cars first registered 1998 onwards to further investigate this type of impact including regression analysis to assess the relationship between injury severity and pole impact relevant factors.
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.
To assess occupant safety in a crash test, criteria associating the measurements made with a crash test dummy to injury risk are necessary. To enable better protection of elderly car occupants the objective of this study was to develop improved thoracic injury criteria for the THOR average male dummy. The development of these criteria is usually based on matched dummy and Post Mortem Human Surrogate (PMHS) tests by relating the obtained PMHS injuries to dummy measurements. This approach is limited, since only a few tests in relevant loading conditions are available and any new test series requires high efforts to be performed due to their complexity and costs. To overcome these limitations and to extend the dataset for the development of THOR dummy chest injury risk functions a simulation-based approach was applied within the EC funded project SENIORS (Safety Enhanced Innovations For older Road Users - www.seniors-project.eu). Within this study frontal impact sled simulations with an FE model representing a THOR average male dummy and matched simulations with a human body model (HBM) representing an elderly car occupant were carried out. The HBM used for this study was the THUMS TUC with modified rib cage, which was developed in SENIORS. The modifications included material and geometry changes aiming to represent an elderly car occupant. The rib fracture risk was predicted with a deterministic approach whereby a rib was considered broken when the strain exceeded an age-dependent threshold. Furthermore, a probabilistic method was applied to predict the probability of sustaining a certain number of fractured ribs by comparing local strain values to the distribution of cortical rib ultimate strain. By relating the output from the HBM simulations to a multi-point dummy injury criterion, injury risk curves were calculated by statistical methods. The wide range of loading conditions resulted in the desired range of injuries and THOR ATD output. The number of fractured ribs predicted by the HBM based on the deterministic prediction method was between 0 and 15. Furthermore, the probabilistic risk for the number of rib fractures equal or greater than two, three or four was calculated for each load case. The THOR rib deflection criterion Rmax was between 18 and 56 mm, while the PC Score was in the range of 2.5 to 7.2. Based on these outputs new risk curves for the predicted deterministic (AIS2+/3+) and probabilistic injury risk were calculated. The new curves show reasonable shapes and significance that provide trust in their application. The new risk curves are compared to risk curves obtained by traditional methods. The results were found similar to previous injury risk functions based on physical tests, which gives a high level of confidence in the chosen approach. The simulation-based approach of matched ATD model vs. HBM simulation was successfully applied. Rmax curves show a slightly better quality than the injury criterion PC Score.
Thorax injury is one of main causes of serious injury in frontal collisions, especially for elderly car occupants. The anthropometric test device (ATD) THOR‐M provides chest deflection measurements at multiple locations, to assess the risk of thorax injury. For this purpose e, risk functions are needed that relate the potential criteria based on multipoint chest deflection measurement to in jury risk. Different thorax injury criteria and risk functions for THOR have been proposed [2‐3]. The criteria and functions are based on the traditional approach to developing injury risk functions using matched ATD and PMHS tests by relating the injury (number of fractures) to injury criteria. Regarding these studies, some limitations have been identified, in particular concerning the loading conditions of the data used (mainly 3‐point‐belt loading, high loading severity, out‐of‐date ATD versions. To extend the data set and overcome these limitations, a new approach for improved thorax injury criteria was applied within the EC‐funded project SENIORS. The new approach is based on matched frontal impact sled computer simulations with a model representing the latest THOR‐M ATD version, and matching simulations with a human body model (HBM) representing an elderly car occupant.
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.
Upcoming test procedures and regulations consider the use of Q-dummies. Especially Q6 and Q10 will be introduced to assess the safety of child occupants in vehicle rear seats. Therefore detailed knowledge of these dummies is important to improve safety. As recent studies have shown, chest deflection measurements of both dummies are influenced by parameters like belt geometry. This could lead to a non optimized design of child restraint systems (CRS) and belt systems. The objective of this study is to obtain a more detailed understanding of the sensitivity of chest measurements to restraint parameters and to investigate the possibilities of chest acceleration as an alternative for the assessment of chest injury risks. A study of frontal impact sled tests was performed with Q6 and Q10 in a generic rear seat environment on a bench. Belt parameters like modified belt attachment locations were varied. For the Q6 dummy, different positioning settings of the CRS (booster with backrest) and of the dummy itself were investigated. The Q10 dummy was seated on a booster cushion. Here the position of the upper belt anchorage point was varied. To simulate the influence of vehicle rotation in the ODB crash configuration, the bench was pre-rotated on the sled in additional tests with the Q10. This configuration was tested with and without pretensioner and load limiter. Chest deflection in Q6 showed a high sensitivity to changes in positioning of the CRS and the dummy itself. A more slouched position of the CRS or dummy resulted in a reduction of measured chest deflection, whereas chest acceleration increased for a more slouched position of the CRS. Chest deflection in Q10 is sensitive to belt geometry as already shown in other studies. In a more outboard position of the shoulder belt anchorage the measured chest deflection is higher. Chest acceleration shows the opposite tendency, which is highest for the rearmost location of the upper belt anchorage. On a pre-rotated bench the highest chest deflection within this test series was observed without load limiter/pretensioner and an outboard belt position. By optimizing the belt location and the use of pretensioner/load limier the chest deflection was significantly reduced. For the Q6 a criterion based on chest acceleration as well as deflection measured at two locations might be the most reliable approach, which requires further research with an additional upper deflection sensor. In the Q10 the measured chest deflection does not always correctly reflect the severity of chest loading. The deflection is depending on initial belt position and restraint parameters as well as test conditions, which result in different directions of belt migration. A3ms chest acceleration might be a better indicator for severity of chest loading independent of different conditions like belt geometries. However, in some cases the benefit of an optimized restraint system could only be shown by deflection. These findings suggest that further research is needed to identify a chest injury assessment method, which could be based on deflection as well as acceleration or other parameters related to belt to occupant interaction.
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.
One main objective of the EU-Project SENIORS is to provide improved methods to assess thoracic injury risk to elderly occupants. In contribution to this task paired simulations with a THOR dummy model and human body model will be used to develop improved thoracic injury risk functions. The simulation results can provide data for injury criteria development in chest loading conditions that are underrepresented in PMHS test data sets that currently proposed risk functions are based on. To support this approach a new simplified generic but representative sled test fixture and CAE model for testing and simulation were developed. The parameter definition and evaluation of this sled test fixture and model is presented in this paper. The justification and definition of requirements for this test set-up was based on experience from earlier studies. Simple test fixtures like the gold standard sled fixture are easy to build and also to model in CAE, but provide too severe belt-only loading. On the other hand a vehicle buck including production components like airbag and seat is more representative, but difficult to model and to be replicated at a different laboratory. Furthermore some components might not be available for physical tests at later stage. The basis of the SENIORS generic sled test set-up is the gold standard fixture with a cable seat back and foot rest. No knee restraint was used. The seat pan design was modified including a seat ramp. The three-point belt system had a generic adjustable load limiter. A pre-inflated driver airbag assembly was developed for the test fixture. Results of THOR test and simulations in different configurations will be presented. The configurations include different deceleration pulses. Further parameter variations are related to the restraint system including belt geometry and load limiter levels. Additionally different settings of the generic airbag were evaluated. The test set-up was evaluated and optimized in tests with the THOR-M dummy in different test configurations. Belt restraint parameters like D-ring position and load limiter setting were modified to provide moderate chest loading to the occupant. This resulted in dummy readings more representative of the loading in a contemporary vehicle than most available PMHS sled tests reported in the literature. However, to achieve a loading configuration that exposes the occupant to even less severe loading comparable to modern vehicle restraints it might be necessary to further modify the test set-up. The new generic sled test set-up and a corresponding CAE model were developed and applied in tests and simulations with THOR. Within the SENIORS project with this test set-up also volunteer and PMHS as well as HBM simulations are performed, which will be reported in other publications. The test environment can contribute in future studies to the assessment of existing and new frontal impact dummies as well as dummy improvements and related instrumentation. The test set-up and model could also serve as a new standard test environment for PMHS and volunteer tests as well as HBM simulations.
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.
Cost benefit analysis
(2014)
Although the number of road accident casualties in Europe is falling the problem still remains substantial. In 2011 there were still over 30,000 road accident fatalities [EC 2012]. Approximately half of these were car occupants and about 60 percent of these occurred in frontal impacts. The next stage to improve a car- safety performance in frontal impacts is to improve its compatibility for car-to-car impacts and for collisions against objects and HGVs. Compatibility consists of improving both a car- self and partner protection in a manner such that there is good interaction with the collision partner and the impact energy is absorbed in the car- frontal structures in a controlled way which results in a reduction of injuries. Over the last ten years much research has been performed which has found that there are four main factors related to a car- compatibility [Edwards 2003, Edwards 2007]. These are structural interaction potential, frontal force matching, compartment strength and the compartment deceleration pulse and related restraint system performance. The objective of the FIMCAR FP7 EC-project was to develop an assessment approach suitable for regulatory application to control a car- frontal impact and compatibility crash performance and perform an associated cost benefit analysis for its implementation.
Autonomous Emergency Braking (AEB) systems for pedestrians have been predicted to offer substantial benefit. On this basis, consumer rating programmes, e.g. Euro NCAP, are developing rating schemes to encourage fitment of these systems. One of the questions that needs to be answered to do this fully, is to determine how the assessment of the speed reduction offered by the AEB is integrated with the current assessment of the passive safety for mitigation of pedestrian injury. Ideally, this should be done on a benefit related basis. The objective of this research was to develop a benefit based methodology for assessment of integrated pedestrian protection systems with pre-crash braking and passive safety components. A methodology has been developed which calculates the cost of pedestrian injury expected, assuming all pedestrians in the target population (i.e. pedestrians impacted by the front of a passenger car) are impacted by the car being assessed, taking into account the impact speed reduction offered by the car’s AEB (if fitted) and the passive safety protection offered by the car’s frontal structure. For rating purposes, this cost can be normalised by comparing it to the cost calculated for selected cars. The methodology uses the speed reductions measured in AEB tests to determine the speed at which each casualty in the target population will be impacted. The injury to each casualty is then calculated using the results from standard Euro NCAP pedestrian impactor tests and injury risk curves. This injury is converted into cost using ‘Harm’ type costs for the body regions tested. These costs are weighted and summed. Weighting factors were determined using accident data from Germany and GB and the results of a benefit analysis performed by the EU FP7 AsPeCSS project. This resulted in German and GB versions of the methodology. The methodology was used to assess cars with good, average and poor Euro NCAP pedestrian ratings, with and without a current AEB system fitted. It was found that the decrease in casualty injury cost achieved by fitting an AEB system was approximately equivalent to that achieved by increasing the passive safety rating from poor to average. Also, it was found that the assessment was influenced strongly by the level of head protection offered in the scuttle and windscreen area because this is where head impact occurs for a large proportion of casualties. The major limitation within the methodology is the assumption used implicitly during weighting. This is that the cost of casualty injuries to body areas, such as the thorax, not assessed by the headform and legform impactors, and other casualty injuries such as those caused by ground impact, are related linearly to the cost of casualty injuries assessed by the impactors. A methodology for assessment of integrated pedestrian protection systems was developed. This methodology is of interest to consumer rating programmes which wish to include assessment of these systems. It also raises the interesting issue if the head impact test area should be weighted to reflect better real-world benefit.
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.
Although many German monitoring sites report declines of NOx concentrations, NO2-concentrations actually stagnate or even increase quite often. Various analyses have identified the altered compositions of nitrogen oxides (NO2/NOx-ratio) emitted by motor vehicles (resulting in an increase of primary NO2-emissions) as well as the chemical environmental conditions (mainly ground level ozone) as the main causes. The chemical conversion of NO to NO2 is often parameterized in dispersion calculations of exhaust emissions. A widely applied conversion model is the so-called Romberg approach from 1996. However, the Romberg approach has to be re-evaluated to accommodate the above-mentioned conditions. This article presents an adjustment to the Romberg approach in accordance with the measured data from 2000 to 2006, taking into consideration substantially higher NO2/NOx-ratios especially for higher NOx-concentrations. Model calculations with OSPM (Operational Street Pollution Model) including its internal chemistry module are able to reproduce very well the trends in the measured annual NO2-concentrations over a 10 year period. The relevant parameters for variations between the years are the NOx-emissions, primary NO2-emissions, ozone concentrations, wind conditions, and background concentrations. A simplified chemistry model based on annual mean NOx- and NO2-concentrations, and background ozone concentrations, as well as primary NO2-emissions is presented as a better method than the updated Romberg approach. This model simulates the annual mean NO2-concentrations much more accurately than the conventional and the updated Romberg approaches.
The frontal crash is still an important contributor to deaths and serious injured resulting from road accidents in Europe. As the Hybrid-III dummy used in crash tests is over two decades old, the European Enhanced Vehicle-safety Committee is studying the potential for a new test device. Key is the availability of a well-defined set of requirements that identifies the minimum level of biofidelity required for an advanced frontal dummy. In this paper, a complete set of frontal impact biofidelity requirements, consisting of references , description of test conditions and corridors, is presented.
An analysis of NASS and FARS was conducted to determine crash conditions that involved injuries that are not currently being directly addressed by vehicle safety standards or by consumer information test protocols. Analysis of both field data and US NCAP tests were conducted to determine the relative safety provided by seating position and by vehicle model year. Opportunities for improvements were determined by crash categories with large populations of injuries that were not addressed by safety tests or smaller numbers that were increasing in frequency. Areas of opportunities include improved occupant restrain in rollovers, improved frontal protection for rear seat occupants and improved fire prevention in frontal and rollover crashes.
The high density of commercial freight transport on motorways makes it difficult for truck drivers to find safe parking places especially for longer rest periods during the night. Even though expansions have been made to satisfy the demand in Germany, overcrowding and dangerous situations still occur as a result of vehicles parking on the entrance and exit roads of rest areas. In 2005 a control procedure called "Convoy Parking" was installed at the rest area Montabaur on the A3 motorway in Germany. Convoy Parking is subject to a patent (EP 1 408 455 B1, 2007). Convoy Parking requires all drivers entering their departure time at a terminal in front of a barrier. Subsequently, on the basis of the input data, the automatically detected vehicle length and the actual situation at the rest area, a free parking row is assigned and trucks can be parked sorted. The German Federal Highway Research Institute (BASt) developed a new control procedure called "Intelligent Controlled Compact Parking" (hereafter referred to as "Compact Parking" for short) to achieve that trucks are parking in a compact way, side by side and without a driving lane between trucks. Convoy Parking and Compact Parking have a very different control procedure and appearance. While Convoy Parking assigns a parking row to the driver, Compact Parking deliberately leaves the choice of the parking row to the drivers themselves. Drivers do not have to disclose their departure time to any system and they are not stopped by any barrier because Compact Parking offers a wide range of departure times on variable message signs. Drivers ought to use the parking row where their intended departure time is offered. With the innovative system Compact Parking the capacity of an existing rest area can be quickly increased without enlarging the area. This also avoids long-term planning approval procedures and is friendly to the environment. Besides, the safety for all users of the rest area can be improved by reducing illegal parking. Compact Parking is supported by the German Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BMVI). The first installation of Compact Parking is under construction at the rest area Jura-West on the A3 motorway (Northern Bavaria). The Autobahndirektion Nordbayern (Motorway Directorate for Northern Bavaria) is the central agency to plan, build and run the motorways in Northern Bavaria and got the approval of the BMVI to realize the pilot project. BASt accompanies the pilot project and leads the implementation of the control procedure. The opening is scheduled for summer 2015.
At the end of each year, the German Federal Highway Research Institute (BASt) publishes the road safety balance of the closing year. They describe the development of accident and casualty numbers disaggregated by road user types, age groups, type of road and the consequences of the accidents. However, at the time of publishing, these series are only available for the first eight or nine months of the year. To make the balance for the whole year, the last three or four months are forecasted. The objective of this study was to improve the accuracy of these forecasts through structural time-series models that include effects of meteorological conditions. The results show that, compared to the earlier heuristic approach, root mean squared errors are reduced by up to 55% and only two out of the 27 different data series yield a modest rise of prediction errors. With the exception of four data series, prediction accuracies also clearly improve incorporating meteorological data in the analysis. We conclude that our approach provides a valid alternative to provide input to policy makers in Germany.
One of the major problems of road safety in Europe is the powered two wheelers accidents. One of the European countries with one of the highest rates is Portugal where in 2006, mopeds and motorcycles fatalities represented 27% of all road users deaths. In this work, a deep analysis and overview of the current state of mopeds and motorcycles accidents for the 2004-2006 period is presented. Within this period 830 PTW occupants die, 2958 have been severely injured and 25000 suffer slight injuries. A detailed analysis of the conditions of these accidents has been carried out, using the data of the national accident database. This analysis provides global information, about geographic environmental conditions, driver- characteristics among others. From this data detailed information is obtained allowing to know when, where and who. In order to answer the question why more a widely collection of data has been collect for 70 accidents. The data has been collected using OECD methodology. For these accidents a detailed reconstruction has been carried out, what is especially important for fatal accidents where for instance speed in an important factor. From these collection and analysis of data a wider overview of facts and measures are extracted. Among them, some are emphasized such as that the quality and non-use of helmets plays an important role in severe and fatal accidents especially for accidents involving moped vehicles, or speed is the most important factor in fatal accidents involving motorcycles. Concerning motorcycle accident reconstruction, different tools can be used depending of the accident scenario and complexity. For simple cases, with specific characteristics, analytical formulation based in vehicle crash dynamics can be use in order to determine the impact speed of the vehicles impact, analysing the skid marks, deformations, victims rest position and considering parameters (EES, vehicle deceleration, etc). Aspects such as the energy absorption capability of motorcycles are also discussed. In the general cases the accident reconstruction software Pc-Crash has been used for the reconstruction of the accident. In very complex cases, has for instance the impact between motorcyclist and barriers, Madymo software is used especially to determine speed from injuries. An example of the impact of a motorcyclist and a motorcyclist-friendly barrier is present to illustrate the benefits and limitations of such systems.
The number of road accidents in Portugal has decreased significantly in the last decades, however, this tendency is not similar in all types of transportation. In the most recent years and by European standards, Portugal is still one of the leading countries concerning the number of fatalities in Powered Two Wheelers (PTW) accidents. To this effect, the in-depth investigation of PTW accidents is crucial and so, a thorough statistical analysis concerning the main factors influencing PTW riders injury severity accidents was undertaken regarding the 2007-2010 period in the National Road Safety Authority (ANSR) injured riders database using the software SPSS. In addition, to determine the importance of absent factors in the database analysis, such as velocity, a set of 53 real accidents involving PTW were also investigated and computationally reconstructed using the software PC-Crash. Lateral collisions between a motorcycle, its rider and the side of three different passenger cars were also simulated, varying the motorcycle impact angle and velocity in order to estimate the PTW deformation energy and the rider- injuries, as this accident configuration stands out in terms of frequency and even severity. The results of this detailed study are presented.
Accidents involving two wheels vehicles represent one of the more important types of accidents in Europe. These accidents are usually not easy to reconstruct specially for the analysis of the injuries and its correlation with accident dynamics and evidences. Different methodologies are applied in this work for the reconstruction of two wheeler accidents, especially accident involving motorcycles. From the typologies of road evidences like skid marks, to the use of Pc-Crash and the use of Madymo models, different reconstruction of real accidents are presented. One of the questions that sometimes arise for legal purposes when some type of head injuries arise is if the occupant was wearing or not a helmet. The correlation of head injuries with the use of the helmet is a very important issue, therefore an important legal aspect. One of the key questions for the reconstructions that is difficult to analyze, is if the vehicle occupant, was or not, wearing the helmet. Based on the previously collected information, a generic model of a helmet was developed on CAD 3D, followed by its conversion into finite elements, all in order to perform impact tests using the Madymo software that would help improve the helmet- safety, but that also can be used as a tool in accident reconstruction.
Portugal has the highest rate of road fatalities in Europe (2002 and for Eur-15 - CARE database). For this highest rate, the accidents involving pedestrians and motorcycle occupants have a higher contribution than the European average. In the last years, especially accidents involving motorcycles have been investigated and currently two different projects are being carried out, one related with motorcycles accidents and the other with pedestrian accidents. In these projects, countermeasures among others to reduce the fatalities between these two types of road users are being studied. These accidents are investigated with the commercial accident reconstruction software PCCRASH but also new methodologies based on multibody dynamics are in development in order to more accurately study these two types of accidents. In this paper, the methodologies in use for accident reconstruction and new methodologies in development are presented. Speeding his found to be one of the major causes of road fatalities for pedestrians and motorcycle occupants. In the case of motorcycle accidents, these involve mainly young drivers. Aspects as social behavior are also important to understand the causes of some of these accidents. Some examples of accidents occurring in Portugal, involving especially motorcycles and pedestrians are presented and discussed.
Internationally, the need is expressed for harmonized traffic accident data collection (PSN, PENDANT, etc.). Together with this effort of harmonization, traffic accident investigation moves more and more in the direction of accident causation. As current methods only partly address these needs, a new method was set up. The main characteristics of this method are: • Accident/injury causation (associated) factors can objectively be identified and quantified, by comparison with exposure information from a normal population. • All relevant accident and exposure data can be included: human-, vehicle-, and environmental related data for the pre-crash, crash and postcrash situation (the so-called Haddon matrix). The level of detail can be chosen depending on interest and/or budget, which makes the method very flexible. In this paper the accident collection and control group method are presented, including some of the achieved results from a pilot study on 30 truck accidents and 30 control locations. The data were analyzed by using cross-tabulations and classification-tree analysis. The method proved useful for the identification of statistically significant causational aspects.
Validation of human pedestrian models using laboratory data as well as accident reconstruction
(2007)
Human pedestrian models have been developed and improved continually. This paper shows the latest stage in development and validation of the multibody pedestrian model released with MADYMO. The biofidelity of the multibody pedestrian model has been verified using a range of full pedestrian-vehicle impact tests with a large range in body sizes (16 male, 2 female, standing height 160-192cm, weight 53.5-90kg). The simulation results were objectively correlated to experimental data. Overall, the model predicted the measured response well. In particular the head impact locations were accurately predicted, indicated by global correlation scores over 90%. The correlation score for the bumper forces and accelerations of various body parts was lower (47-64%), which was largely attributed to the limited information available on the vehicle contact characteristics (stiffness, damping, deformation). Also, the effects of the large range in published leg fracture tolerances on the predicted risk to leg fracture by the pedestrian model were evaluated and compared with experimental results. The validated mid-size male model was scaled to a range of body sizes, including children and a female. Typical applications for the pedestrian models are trend studies to evaluate vehicle front ends and accident reconstructions. Results obtained in several studies show that the pedestrian models match pedestrian throw distances and impact locations observed in real accidents. Larger sets of well documented cases can be used to further validate the models especially for specific populations as for instance children. In addition, these cases will be needed to evaluate the injury predictive capability of human models. Ongoing developments include a so-called facet pedestrian model with a more accurate geometry description and a more humanlike spine and neck and a full FE model allowing more detailed injury analysis.
Injury severity of e.g. pedestrians or bikers after crashes with cars that are reversing is almost unknown. However, crash victims of these injuries can frequently be seen in emergency departments and account for a large amount of patients every year. The objective of this study is to analyze injury severity of patients that were crashed into by reversing cars. The Hannover Medical School local accident research unit prospectively documented 43,000 road traffic accidents including 234 crashes involving reversing cars. Injury severity including the abbreviated injury scale (AIS) and the maximum abbreviated injury scale (MAIS) was analyzed as well as the location of the accident. As a result 234 accidents were included into this study. Pedestrians were injured in 141 crashes followed by 70 accidents involving bikers. The mean age of all crash victims was 57 -± 23 years. Most injuries took place on straight stretches (n = 81) as well as parking areas (n = 59), entries (n = 36) or crossroads (n = 24). The AIS of the lower extremities was highest followed by the upper extremities. The AIS of the neck was lowest. The mean MAIS was 1.3 -± 0.6. The paper concludes that the lower extremities show the highest risk to become injured during accidents with reversing cars. However, the risk of severe injuries is likely low.
While cyclists and pedestrians are known to be at significant risk for severe injuries when exposed to road traffic accidents (RTAs) involving trucks, little is known about RTA injury risk for truck drivers. The objective of this study is to analyze the injury severity in truck drivers following RTAs. Between 1999 and 2008 the Hannover Medical School Accident Research Unit prospectively documented 43,000 RTAs involving 582 trucks. Injury severity including the abbreviated injury scale (AIS) and the maximum abbreviated injury scale (MAIS) were analyzed. Technical parameters (e.g. delta-v, direction of impact), the location of accident, and its dependency on the road type were also taken into consideration. The results show that the safety of truck drivers is assured by their vehicles, the consequence being that the risk of becoming injured is likely to be low. However, the legs especially are at high risk for severe injuries during RTAs. This probability increases in the instance of a collision with another truck. Nevertheless, in RTAs involving trucks and regular passenger vehicles, the other party is in higher risk of injury.
Introduction: The incidence of trauma-related cervical-spine fractures is 19-88 / 100.000. In contrast, the incidence of cervical spine injuries is as high as 19% - 51% of all spinal trauma. Cervical spine injuries in non-polytrauma patients are rare. However, due to the potential damage to the spinal cord these traumata are feared and mustn't be missed. Cervical spine injuries represent the highest reported early mortality rate of all spinal trauma. The rate of functional impairment afterwards is high and the rate of reintegration into work is low compared to other organ systems. In the past, trauma surgeons often did x-rays of the cervical spine with low inhibition threshold and often without strong clinical suggestion for vertebral or discoligamental injuries. This practice was queried by the Canadian C-Spine rule and extensively discussed in the past. Therefore we did a retrospective study whether non-polytrauma patients benefit from cervical spine x-rays.
Over the past two decades the popularity of consumer crash test programs, commonly referred to as New Car Assessment Programs (NCAP), has grown across the world. They are popular among government regulators as they afford a means of promoting safety innovations and levels of vehicle performance beyond those dictated by national standards. They also fulfill the demand for information regarding the safety ranking of vehicles among consumers contemplating the purchase of a new vehicle. There is no question that consumer crash test programs greatly influence vehicle design changes as well as accelerate the fitment of new safety features. The extent to which these changes can be expected to reduce serious and potentially fatal injuries will be influenced by how well the testing protocols and associated rating schemes correctly reflect the nature of the residual safety problem they seek to address. Drawing on data contained primarily in the US National Automotive Sampling System (NASS), the field relevance of current and proposed testing and rating protocols addressing frontal crash test protection is examined. Emphasis is placed on examining how accurately injury rates computed from the dummy responses measured in consumer crash tests correspond to actual injury rates observed in the field. Additional data from Canadian field investigations and US databases such as the National Motor Vehicle Crash Causation Survey (NMVCCS) are examined to see how well frontal airbag firing times, crush pulse durations and other determinants of injury are replicated in consumer testing protocols. This portion of the analysis draws on data obtained from Event Data Recorders (EDR) in both field collisions and staged tests of the same vehicle model. Vehicle rankings and overall frontal crash test ratings were found to be particularly sensitive to the choice of injury risk functions employed in the test. This was particularly true in the case of injury risk functions used to assess neck injury potential. Neck injury risk derived from Nij was found to show the least agreement with the field. Agreement between field chest injury rates and those derived from crash tests was improved considerably when chest injury risk functions for "older" occupants were employed. The paper concludes with a discussion of how different current testing protocols could be improved to enhance their field relevance.
In North America, frontal crash tests in both the regulatory environment and consumer-based safety rating schemes have historically been based on full-width and moderate-overlap (40%) vehicle to barrier impacts. The combination of improved seat-belt technologies, notably belt tensioning and load limiting systems, together with advanced airbags, has proven very effective in providing occupant protection in these crash modes. Recently, however, concern has been raised over the contribution of narrower frontal impacts, involving primarily the vehicle corners, to the incidence of fatality and serious injury as a result of the potential for increased occupant compartment intrusion and performance limitations of current restraint systems. Drawing on data documented in the National Automotive Sampling System (NASS)/ Crashworthiness Data System (CDS) for calendar years 1999 to 2012, the present study examines the characteristics of existing and proposed corner crash test configurations, and the nature of real-world collisions that approximate the test environments. In this analysis, particular emphasis is placed on crash pulse information extracted from vehicle-based event data recorders (EDR's).
The current maintenance management for bridges is mainly based on visual inspection and aims at the repair of identified damages. In the project cluster "Smart Bridge" an adaptive system for holistic evaluation in real time is developed. The following pilot studies show significant aspects of the Smart Bridge. Within the research project "Digital Test Area Autobahn" a new constructed prestressed concrete bridge is implemented with instrumented expansion joints and bearings, a "RTMS©" and a sensor network. By using analytical bridge models and evaluation methods the condition and reliability of the bridge as well as the remaining service life is determined. In the pilot study "duraBASt" sensors for the detection of durability and structural safety as well as data analyzing and evaluation procedures are investigated. The aim of this study is the partial implementation of the aspects: data collection, data processing and model development for condition assessment of the bridge.
The National Roads Authority in Ireland is responsible for planning and supervision of construction and maintenance works on the National Road network. Its primary function is "to secure the provision of a safe and efficient network of national roads". The population of Ireland has grown rapidly from 3.5 million to 4 million within the past 10 years, and vehicle ownership has also risen rapidly to 2 million vehicles, with 2.2 million drivers. Collisions rates in Ireland are at approximately 1.5 collisions per 1,000 population (in 2002), and 8.4 deaths per 1,000,000 population (in 2003). This ranked 8th out of the 15 countries in the European Union at the time. Ireland- current Road Safety Strategy includes Engineering Targets. These are to complete construction of certain lengths of new motorway, dual carriageway and 2+1 highway, to implement a certain number of accident remedial and traffic calming schemes, and to implement road safety audit on all new schemes. The accident remedial schemes, traffic calming schemes, and road safety audit are all the responsibility of the Road Safety section of NRA. The road safety programme of the NRA is divided into four main areas; a) accident remedial measures at individual sites, b) accident remedial treatment of entire routes, c) traffic calming of towns and villages on main roads, d) road safety audit. Examples of these measures are described. Evaluation of past programmes of single site accident remedial measures show a reduction in collision occurrence at these sites, but the effectiveness and the economic rate of return is decreasing over successive programmes. A similar programme has now been adopted on the rest of the country- road network, on regional and local roads. The programme of remedial treatment of entire routes has only recently started and has not been evaluated. Evaluation of the first programme of traffic calming of towns and villages shows an overall decrease in collisions and their severity, and a small reduction in speed. Road Safety Audit, examining new schemes a number of times during design and after construction, has been standard procedure on the national road network for nearly 6 years. An evaluation is currently underway.
Estimation of the benefits for the UK for potential options to modify UNECE Regulation No. 95
(2010)
The side impact problem in Europe remains substantial. UK data shows that between 22% and 26% of car occupant casualties are involved in a side impact, but this rises to between 29% and 38% for those who are fatally injured. This indicates the more injurious nature of side impacts compared with frontal impacts. The European Enhanced Vehicle safety Committee (EEVC) has performed work to address the side impact issue since 1979. As part of its continuing work, it has recently investigated potential options for regulatory changes to improve side impact protection in cars further. To support this work the UK undertook an analysis to estimate the benefit for potential options to modify UNECE Regulation 95. The analysis used the UK national STATS19 and detailed Co-operative Crash Injury Study (CCIS) accident databases. Of the potential options reviewed, it was found that the addition of a pole test offered the greatest benefit.
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.
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.
Traffic accidents were ranked the third among the major causes of death in Thailand. About 13,438 deaths and the death rate from traffic accident was 21.5 per 100,000 of population in 2002. The deaths and death rate varied upon the economic situation. After the economic crisis, traffic accidents were increased as well as the period of the bubble economy. In the Central region of Thailand numbers of road traffic crashes were lower than Bangkok Metropolis, but the highest in the number of deaths, death rate and serious injuries in 2002. Men aged 15"29 years old had higher numbers of deaths than men in other age groups and higher than women. Deaths and injuries from road traffic crashes were the highest in April and January, because there was a long weekend in those months. About 80 percent of road traffic crashes were caused by private car and motorcycle. In 2000 about 51 percent of traffic accidents took place on the straight way, followed by the junction and curves. In 2002, about 97 percent of road traffic crashes were caused by human factors including improper passing, speeding and disregarding to traffic signal, however, the identification of causes of traffic accident needed to improve. Drunk driving, disregarding on safety equipment usage, inefficiency of law enforcement and discontinuing of road safety programs were the deepest causes of traffic accidents. Research based information, a broad coalition of stakeholder and urban planning policy were needed to incorporate for a comprehensive road safety policy formulation and actions.
Pedestrian and cyclist are the most vulnerable road users in traffic crashes. One important aspect of this study was the comparable analysis of the exact impact configuration and the resulting injury patterns of pedestrians and cyclists in view of epidemiology. The secondary aim was assessment of head injury risks and kinematics of adult pedestrian and cyclists in primary and secondary impacts and to correlate the injuries related to physical parameters like HIC value, 3ms linear acceleration, and discuss the technical parameter with injuries observed in real-world accidents based documented real accidents of GIDAS and explains the head injuries by simulated load and impact conditions based on PC-Crash and MADYMO. A subsample of n=402 pedestrians and n=940 bicyclists from GIDAS database, Germany was used for preselection, from which 22 pedestrian and 18 cyclist accidents were selected for reconstruction by initially using PC-Crash to calculate impact conditions, such as vehicle impact velocity, vehicle kinematic sequence and throw out distance. The impact conditions then were employed to identify the initial conditions in simulation of MADYMO reconstruction. The results show that cyclists always suffer lower injury outcomes for the same accident severity. Differences in HIC, head relative impact velocity, 3ms linear contiguous acceleration, maximum angular velocity and acceleration, contact force, throwing distance and head contact timing are shown. The differences of landing conditions in secondary impacts of pedestrians and cyclists are also identified. Injury risk curves were generated by logistic regression model for each predicting physical parameters.
Mechanical properties of tibial bone at compressive strain rates of 50-200 s-1 are obtained through Split Hopkinson pressure bar. Cylindrical specimens of 12-15 mm diameter and 2-5 mm thickness were used. The Young- moduli are calculated from linear portion of stress-strain curves. For both cortical and cancellous part of the bones, the Young- modulus was found to increase with the increasing strain rates. Also for both cancellous and cortical bones the Young- modulus increases consistently with increase in densities.
Before 2002, France was in the queue of Europeans countries in terms of road safety results because of the low density of population and the faulty behaviour of French due itself to a very low level of traffic law enforcement Even if there were signs of the change of mind in France towards road safety before, the turning point was in summer 2002, when the President declared road safety as a priority work during his mandate. The more symbolic measure was the decision to settle an automatic speed control system (700 fixed and 300 mobile). Over three years, the average speed on French roads decreased by 5 km/h and the number of fatalities on road turned down from an average of 8000 deaths per year to 5 300, which represents a decrease of more than 34 %. For the next months, we anticipate that, as many drivers have kept loosing points on their driving licence through light speed violations, this will lead drivers to check their speed and the speed limits more systematically as loosing points on one's driving license has longer time effects than paying a fine. Consequently, we expect a decrease of 10 % to 15% of fatalities in 2006, which is a very good result if we compare with the trend of the last twenty five years (about 2,3 %). The reverse effect of this system that lies on the changes of behaviour of the majority is that, there is more and more discontent against the system taking into account that automatic speed control system allows only a minor tolerance above limits and that local speed limits are not always adapted to local infrastructure and traffic conditions. Another weakness of the system is that motorcyclists are too rarely caught by the system; the system is being gradually improved by placing the new speed cameras in position of taking photographs of the back of the vehicle. But this would not be sufficient to reduce the speed of motorcyclists that are a very high risk group (16% of fatalities for 0,8 % of traffic) For alcohol, there is no easy route for progress: all what is done nowadays is toward festive impaired driving (through designating sober drivers or mass alcohol preventive screenings) although there is not enough done towards chronic alcoholic driving.
An eCall device has been mounted on some vehicles in France since 2003. It is an integrated car radio/GSM/GPS system that can be used with a SIM card. When an accident occurs, a call can be sent manually or automatically made to a telephone call centre. Knowing the geographic location, the vehicle identity and the possibility of a direct communication with the people involved enables the nearest emergency services to be called out. In this context, the LAB / CEESAR have set up a study aimed at evaluating the effectiveness of this system. The purpose of this paper is to detail the E-call system evaluation method of effectiveness used and give a global synthesis of the results.
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.
The need of passive safety devices, able to reduce the accidents and the severity of injuries suffered by motorcyclist, distinctly arises from data on accident statistics. In this paper, the effectiveness of an airbag device fitted in the biker- garments has been verified through various numerical simulations. Two simple test conditions were defined, in order to investigate the performance of the device both for back and front impacts, and simulated at various impact speeds. With the aim of providing more information about the actual capability of the airbag to reduce the severity of the injuries, one of accident scenario described by ISO 13232:2005 has been also investigated, checking the real effectiveness of the airbag strap-based firing system too. Confrontation of injury indexes resulting from simulation with and without airbag made possible a realistic evaluation of the harm reduction induced by the airbag presence.
Among European Countries, Spain first issued a Standard, UNE 135900:2005, further updated in 2008, that deals with homologation and effectiveness evaluation of road restraint systems components designed to reduce harm for bikers impacting on them. An in depth analysis and critical review of this standard is reported in this paper. Beside a close examination of the standard requirements, numerical models of the crash test stated by the standard have been set up and simulated to study the effects of slight speed and approach angle variations on test results, remaining within tolerance gaps allowed by the standard. Model were validated against experimental data. Together with the expected increasing severity of the impact according with speed, a strong influence of approach angle on injury parameters was found. Possible improvements to the norm, in order to make it more robust, are suggested.
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.
Supervision of the safety performance in public transport is one of the main tasks of the Federal Office of Transport (FOT) in Switzerland. Recently a three level system of safety indicators has been defined to cover all means of Swiss public transport. The safety indicators are fed by the FOT incident database since the year 2000. In cooperation with the Institute for Traffic Safety and Automation Engineering (iVA) at TU Braunschweig, Germany, FOT is developing a suitable methodology for the definition and evaluation of the safety targets in Swiss public transport. The methodology is applied for evaluation of safety indicators on a country level and for single transport companies. In a new approach the abovementioned methodology is applied to car incident data to develop an indicator based cross-modal safety measure.
The average CO2 concentrations relevant to a motorcyclist wearing an integral helmet were measured twenty years ago and found to be alarmingly high. The present study examined gas concentrations typically inhaled by a motorcyclist. Average concentrations of CO2 for persons (n=4) wearing integral motorcycle helmets were measured in the laboratory and the field to facilitate comparison to previous work, and similarly high average concentrations were found: above 2% when stationary, well below 1% for speeds of 50km/h or more. Detailed measurements of the time-dependent CO2 concentrations during normal inhalation showed levels of about half of the corresponding average concentrations, including 1% at standstill, though higher concentrations (4% or more) are inhaled at the beginning of each breath. Opening the visor at standstill lowered the average inhaled concentration only to about 0.8%. The oxygen deficiency is equal to the CO2 concentration, and could also contribute negatively to motorcyclist cognitive abilities.
Bicyclists and pedestrians belong to the most endangered groups in urban traffic. The EU-funded collaborative research project PROSPECT (‘PROactive Safety for PEdestrians and CyclisTs´) aims to significantly improve safety of those unprotected traffic participants by expanding the scope of scenarios covered by future active safety systems in passenger cars. Concepts for sensor control systems are built into three prototypes covering emergency interventions such as Autonomous Emergency Braking (AEB) as well as Autonomous Emergency Steering (AES). These systems tackle the well-known challenges of currently available systems including limited field-of-view by sensors, fuzzy path prediction, unreliable intent reaction times and slow reaction times. These highly innovative functions call for extensive validation methodologies based on already established consumer testing procedures. Since these functions are developed towards the prevention of intersection accidents in urban areas, a key aspect of the advanced testing methodology is the valid approximation of naturalistic trajectories using driving robots. Eventually, several simulator studies complemented a user acceptance and benefit analysis to evaluate the expected overall impact of the PROSPECT systems. The results achieved within the PROSPECT project are highly relevant for upcoming test protocols regarding the most critical situations with Vulnerable Road Users (VRU). With introducing the new methods in Euro NCAP (European New Car Assessment Programme) a significant increase in road safety is expected.
In Germany averagely two million traffic accidents happen each year and emergency medical services are called to more than 400 000 patients. Even though this number is decreasing continuously (due to improvements in the fields of vehicle safety, road construction, and accident prevention) every case is yet a challenge for the rescuers and requires improvements in emergency medicine as well. Especially during diagnostics right at the accident scene, there are only limited instruments available to gain the necessary knowledge of the injuries suffered, to come to essential decisions about treatment or transport. To provide an additional diagnostic aid by scouting and estimating the situation, a software-tool calculating the likeliness of the most frequent severe injuries (AIS 3-6) of front occupants in passenger cars has been developed to deliver this necessary information about particular accident scenarios. To achieve this, logistic likelihood functions have been calculated in a multivariate regression analysis analysing all AIS 3+ injuries in the GIDAS database of the years 1999-2006 that happened more than four times
The purpose of this study was to analyse the actual injury situation of bicyclists regarding accidents involving more than one bicyclist. Bicyclists were included in a medical and technical analysis to create a basis for preventive measures and discovered repeating accident patterns and circumstances such as daytime, environment, helmet use rate. Technical and medical data were collected at the scene, shortly after accident. The population was compared focusing on bicycle versus bicycle accidents. Technical analysis included speed at crash, type of collision, impact angle, environment, used lane and relative velocity. Medical analysis included injury pattern and severity (AIS, ISS). Included were 578 injured bicyclists in 289 accidents from years 1999 to 2008, 61 percent were male (n=350) and 39 percent female (n=228). Sixty-seven percent ranged between 18 to 64 years of age, twelve percent each between 13 to 17 years of age and older than 65 years, eight percent between 6 to 12 years and one percent between 2 to 5 years.. Crashes took place in urban areas in 92 percent, in rural areas in 8 percent. Weather conditions were dry lanes in 97 percent and wet conditions in 3 percent. Eighty-three percent of all accidents happened during daytime, ten percent during night, and seven percent during dawn. The helmet use rate was only 7,5 percent in all involved bicyclists. The mean Maximum Abbreviated injury scale, Injury severity score was 1,31. Bicyclists are still minimally- or unprotected road users. The helmet use rate is unsatisfactorily low. The incidence of bicycle to bicycle crashes is high. Most of these accidents take place in urban areas. The level and pattern of injuries is moderate. Most of the more severe injuries occur to the head and could have been avoided by frequent helmet use.
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.
Ruptures and dissections of the thoracic and abdominal aortic vessel caused by traffic accidents are rare but potentially life-threatening injuries. They can occur by blunt trauma via seat belt or dashboard injury. The study aimed at evaluating the overall mortality, morbidity, neurological disorders, and differences in operative procedures of open repair and stenting. It shows that, with a change and improvement in diagnostic tools and surgical approach, mortality and morbidity of blunt aortic injuries were significantly reduced. Still an immediate life-threatening injury early diagnosis via multiple-slice and scans and surgical repair with minimally invasive stents showed excellent short-time results for selected patients.
It has been pointed that most of the accidents on the roads are caused by driver faults, inattention and low performance. Therefore, future active safety systems are required to be aware of the driver status to be able to have preventative features. This probe study gives a system structure depending on multi-channel signal processing for three modules: Driver Identification, Route Recognition and Distraction Detection. The novelty lies in personalizing the route recognition and distraction detection systems according to particular driver with the help of driver identification system. The driver ID system also uses multiple modalities to verify the identity of the driver; therefore it can be applied to future smart cars working as car-keys. All the modules are tested using a separate data batch from the training sets using eight drivers" multi-channel driving signals, video and audio. The system was able to identify the driver with 100% accuracy using speech signals of length 30 sec or more and a frontal face image. After identifying the driver, the maneuver/ route recognition was achieved with 100% accuracy and the distraction detection had 72% accuracy in worst case. In overall, system is able to identify the driver, recognize the maneuver being performed at a particular time and able to detect driver distraction with reasonable accuracy.
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.
Since 2005, the motorcycle crash fatalities in the US exceeded 10% of the overall annual traffic fatalities. Consequently, it has become critical to gain in-depth understanding of the factors and characteristics contributing to motorcycle crashes. Unfortunately, there currently exists no database gathering the necessary information for an in-depth analysis of the US motorcycle crashes. So this study utilizes the NASS/CDS database (National Automotive Sampling System, Crashworthiness Data System) in order to gain insights into the patterns and factors leading to a NASS/CDS motorcycle crash, from 1997 to 2007. NASS/CDS samples about 5,000 passenger car tow-away crashes per year. Each case includes photographs and detailed data on crash and pre-crash characteristics, vehicle types, trajectories, types of impact, and other pertinent roadway and crash scene information, allowing an in-depth investigation of the crash mechanisms. However, the NASS/CDS sampling process specifically focuses on passenger car crashes, so the cases extracted only correspond to crashes in which a passenger vehicle was towed, and a motorcycle was somehow involved. Thus, a by-hand in-depth review of about 200 cases allowed retrieving 106 relevant crashes for this study, tending to represent the severe passenger vehicle(s) versus motorcycle(s) crashes on US roads. The findings lead to the conclusion that these crashes mostly result from the low conspicuity of the motorcycle, and from the inability of the car drivers to fully appreciate and anticipate the behavior of a motorcycle. Indeed, it has been shown that, first, the car drivers involved in these cases did not attempt any avoidance maneuver, second, they were largely of ages under 25, and finally, the majority of the crashes were in an intersection scenario. In addition, the two major scenarios unveiled were the car attempting a left turn from the opposite direction and the car attempting a left turn from the right. The paper mentions several solutions to enhance the motorcycle- conspicuity and to allow the car drivers to better anticipate its behavior, which seem to be key factors in the intersection-related crashes (and more generally in the passenger vehicle(s) versus motorcycle(s) crashes).
The performance of asphalt by low temperatures is largely determined by the viscosity of the binder respectively the mortar of the asphalt. The traditional test methods for binder (e.g. ball-draw viscosimeter) are limited to temperatures above the service range of temperature for an asphalt construction. The Dynamic Shear Rheometer (DSR) is limited to temperatures above 30-°C whereas the Bending Beam Rheometer (BBR) is limited to temperatures below -10-°C and not applicable to mortar. Especially the gap in the temperature of these test methods is very important to characterize the viscosity behavior of binder and mortar over the whole range of the service temperatures, which represent the typical environmental conditions of over the seasons, for an asphalt construction. Tension retardation experiments seem to be very useful to bridge the gap. They address the low temperature behavior of binder and mortar. With this test method the flow characteristics of binder (pen grade and any modification) and any kind of mortar in the service temperature range, in particular at low temperatures of -25-°C can be determined with a high precision, and assessed, via the physically interpretable material characteristics quantity of tension viscosity. Furthermore the present findings indicate the potential of extrapolation the results of the Tension retardation for a prediction of the rutting resistance of asphalt mixtures. As part of several research Projects, BASt (Federal Highway Research Institute) investigated the effects of different modifications of the binder to low temperature behavior of the binder by the tension retardation test. This paper is intended to provide a more detailed description of the test method Tension Retardation, selected results and related findings.
Federal highway A 26 in Germany : reinforced dams in soft soils - control method according DIN 1054
(2004)
In 2001 the construction of the Federal Highway A 26 in Lower Saxony (north of Germany) was started. In this area the underground is without any substantial bearing capacity as it consists of soft layers ( clay, peat) with a thickness of up to 12 m. Because it was not possible to exchange the soil neither completely nor partially pre-loading procedure (consolidation method) was chosen for this construction. Short- and long-term stability are ensured by the use of high-tensile fabrics for reinforcement at the dam basis. The vertical and horizontal deformations and the stress changes in the soil, caused by the pre-load procedure, has to be controlled by special geotechnical measurements. Additionally, in the higher parts of the dam the strain behaviour of the high-tensile fabrics is measured. These measurements form the basis for the application of the control method according DIN 1054. In this article, the special circumstances of this project are described. Further on the geotechnical measurements, the winning and evaluation of the necessary parameters of the subsoil, and the consequences of these data for the ongoing of the project are laid down. Intermediate results of the geotechnical measurements are described.
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.
Fire incidents are among the most relevant for people in a tunnel. Therefore, it is important to be sufficiently prepared for such events. A large scale fire test is to be used to help evaluate the initial burning duration and the time it takes for the fire to spread to other vehicles in the tunnel, and in particular how long it takes for a truck carrying wooden pallets to catch fire, taking into consideration the extremely high temperatures. The goal, therefore, is to determine the time it takes for a fire to spread to other vehicles in the tunnel. In the large scale fire test, an accident in a tunnel with one-way traffic is simulated between a truck loaded with approximately 3.7 t of wooden Europol pallets and a passenger car. Directly behind each of the vehicles involved in the accident there is another car which stops at a distance of 1.0 m. Approximately 300 litres of burning diesel are discharged from the truck's fuel tank, which is simulated by using approximately 400 litres of isopropanol. A 10 m-² burning pool forms underneath the truck. Other objectives of the large scale fire test are the validation of the CFD models and the evaluation of the progression of the thermal release ratios estimated for the simulation. The thermal release ratios generated in the test are determined and evaluated using various models.
The price of a new car increased almost every year for a long period. In recent years however, the budget available to most people for purchasing a car either did not grow or became even smaller. Therefore it was in the interest of some OEMs to offer economical car models in the so-called "8,000- Euro class". Here an important question arose regarding the safety of these vehicles. There is no question that the very high safety level of cars reached in Europe during the last decades should not be sacrificed as a consequence of smaller budgets. Customers with sense of responsibility have the right to be properly informed about the balance between safety and price so that they can make a deliberate decision when buying either a new or a used car. Against this background, the German magazine "AutoBILD" commissioned DEKRA to conduct fullscale frontal crash tests with a view to publishing the results. These tests have been carried out in accordance with the corresponding Euro NCAP crash test requirements and performance criteria. The tested vehicles were two new Logans produced by the manufacturer Dacia, two used cars of the type VW Golf IV (registration date 2000) and one new VW Fox. This paper describes the safety features of the vehicles and the results of the five crash tests to demonstrate state-of-the-art safety levels and what levels may be expected from vehicles in the "8,000- Euro class". Looking at real-world crashes it is of interest to think about future trends in a more detailed manner. Therefore it will be more and more necessary to supplement the federal statistics with more detailed in-depth information about the consequences of accidents and the safety performance of crashed vehicles.
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 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.
It is well known that motorcycle riding is fascinating but quite more dangerous than for example car driving. In 2006, 5,091 persons were killed as victims of crashes occurring on public roads in Germany. 52% (2,683) were car occupants, 16% (793) motorcycle riders, 14% (711) pedestrians, 10% (486) bicycle riders, 5% (235) commercial vehicle occupants, 2% (107) riders of smaller powered two-wheelers, called "Mofa, Moped and Mokick". This shows that motorcycle riders recently are the second largest group of killed traffic participants in Germany. Latest information coming from the Federal Statistics predict for the year 2007 the figure of 4,958 killed road victims in total. This would be again a successful reduction (-133 killed persons or "2.6% compared to the year 2006). But the news coming from the Federal Statistics during the year 2007 and at the begin of 2008 did not always tell the same positive story. It is questioned whether the positive trend of substantially reduced figures of killed road user year by year will longer continue for Germany. That means it could be impossible to reach the ambitious target, set by the European Commission, to cut in half the figure of killed road users until the year 2010 " compared to the figure for the year 2001. It was reported that the group of 45 to 49 years old traffic participants (all traffic modes) is conspicuous with an increase of 30% up to 297 killed road users in total from January to August 2007. This increase can be ascribed in particular by an increase of killed motorcycle riders within this age group. Due to mild weather conditions in Germany in 2007 the season for motorcycle riding began relatively early and this may be a main reason for the increase of the figure of killed motorcycle riders by 16% from January to August 2007. With this background the accident occurrence of motorcycles became more and more essential. As part of the actual discussion about historical trends, recent emphases, causes and relevant structures of the events of motorcycle crashes it is evident, to have latest and carefully updated figures coming from both the Federal Statistics and In-depth studies. The paper will give a contribution to this using the German Federal Statistics and in-depth studies, for example GIDAS. Additional data coming from the DEKRA Motorcycle Accident Database as well as from literature are considered, too. The paper will help to describe the current situation of the accident involvement of motorcycles in Germany.
Tree impacts are still one of the most important focal points of road deaths in Germany. For the year 2008, the latest figures in the national statistics show a share of 28% of road users killed in crashes with trees alongside a road amongst all crashes on rural roads (except the Autobahn). The official German statistics show the attribute "impact on a tree" since 1995. For this first reported year, the share of road users killed in such crashes was 30%. During the last 14 years, fatal accidents with road users killed on rural roads (except the Autobahn) after impacts on a tree declined by 60% from 1,737 (year 1995) to 696 (year 2008). But this is more or less in line with the general evolution of vehicle and traffic safety in Germany. For Germany as a whole the accident statistics do not show a reduction for "treer crashes" which is clearly more than the average for all accidents. But, as shown with the paper, there are different evolutions in the several German States. In public awareness the topic "tree impacts" is mostly associated with the situation in Germany after the reunification. At that time a lot of road users were killed on the avenues in the so called "new countries". The fact that "tree impacts" are still a big share within the figure of killed road users seems to be little-known. Using updated information coming from the official statistics and in-depth-studies, accident researchers can identify a big potential for further improvements of traffic safety on the associated district roads, state roads and federal highways. There is still a need to analyse more details of the accident occurrence with impacts on trees to generate new and updated findings on the current limits and potentials of measures to improve vehicle and traffic safety. To make further efforts in reducing the figures of victims of "tree impacts" the intensification of well-known conventional solutions " for example implementation of guard rails and reduction of speed - is an option. Measures related to vehicle safety technology especially in the field of primary (active) safety will have additional benefit within the physically imposed limits. With this background it can be seen that the subject "tree impacts" should be analysed with a holistic approach taking into account the entire system of driver, vehicle, road, the environment and a social consensus as well.
In 2011 399 cyclists died in road accidents in Germany and another 76.351 cyclists have been injured. Since 2000 the number of injured or fatally injured cyclists remained on the same high level. Cyclists form 19% of all casualties in German road traffic, although the modal split rate of this transport mode in 2008 was only 10% of trips and resp. 3% of kilometres per day. The high proportion of fatally and seriously injured shows the high vulnerability of cyclists. The demographic shift towards an older population in Germany and the governmental recommendation of increased bicycle use as an ecological, economical and healthy alternative to other modes of transport lead to the assumption that bicycle use especially of elderly people will increase. Based on these facts about the German cyclists' situation a representative survey of 2.000 cyclists was conducted. Results display use patterns and accident involvement on a descriptive level. Overall 7.7% of cyclists report to have been involved in at least one road traffic accident within the last three years. The performed path model analysis reveals an acceptable model fit. Though the explained variance of accident involvement of the applied psychological factors was low, significant relations between several of these factors and especially risky behaviour could be found.
Do learner gain sufficient braking capabilities at the end of education for collision avoidance?
(2013)
The paper describes a test design to evaluate the braking behaviour in the course of the driver education. The results show that the braking capabilities increased during the driver education and the learning effects are the same for males and females. The evaluation limit is set to 6 m/s-². At the beginning of education, 50% of the drivers do not reach this limit, although the driver education car is equipped with an emergency brake assist, which is regularly installed in all vehicles since 2009. After the education, 100% of the drivers can reach the limit. The results are mapped to a collision avoidance scenario.
At the beginning of the year 2000 the European Commission set the goal to halve the number of road deaths till the year 2010. The main focus are passenger car and lorry traffic. A significant reduction of the accident data could be reached in these groups. The advancement of active vehicle safety systems is an important issue of the programme. The safety of the motorcycle traffic has been disregarded till now. Since 1991 the number of killed motorcycle riders per year has been constant. The number of killed passenger car occupants has been more than halved in the same period. This is why initiatives are caused for the increase of the motorcycle safety. A great safety potential is expected for the Antilock Brake System (ABS). ABS for motorcycles is considered from the economic view in this study. A cost-benefit analysis shall clarify whether the economic benefit of ABS for motorcycles is greater than the consumed resources. Moreover, a sensitivity analysis will determine the maximal justifiable consumption in resource for which ABS is worthwhile. After the sensitivity analysis is done a break-even analysis will determine the market price respectively the annual mileage from which on ABS is worthwhile on user level. For this the fair end consumer market price is calculated which the user is ready to pay. For the considered market prices the annual mileage is determined from which on ABS is worthwhile for the user. The considered time horizon for this analysis are the years 2015 and 2020. For each of these years the accident data is forecasted. At this, it is assumed that the frequency of having an accident per million registered motorcycles decreases based on the present trend. Thus, riding motorcycle gets safer. Hence, the accident data in the years 2015 and 2020 is lower than the accident data today. The cost-benefit analysis is done for each year for four scenarios. Two scenarios handle the market penetration. The first one is the trend scenario, the second one is the mandatory equipment from the year 2010 on. The other scenarios describe the effectiveness of ABS. The effectiveness rates are determined by a literature review. The only potential which can be considered due to the available data is the potential due to an avoiding of the downfall just before the real accident happens. According to this the number of accidents will decrease by 2.4 %. The number of fatalities will decrease by 12.1 %. The number of severe injuries decreases by 11.7 %. However, the number of slight injuries increases by 2.1 %. The mentioned effectiveness rates are valid for the scenarios with the high effectiveness. Even these figures underestimate the actual effectiveness because there are only considered the avoided accidents with downfall. The necessary consumption in resources depends on the produced volume. The more ABS systems are produced, the lower are the costs per system. This is due to realised effects of scale and effects out of learning curves. The system costs depend on the penetration rate. In the trend scenario the system costs for ABS are 120 Euro for the year 2015 respectively 105 Euro for the year 2020. In the mandatory scenario the system costs are 115 Euro for the year 2015 respectively 100 Euro for the year 2020. The benefit-cost ratios are all over the critical barrier of 1.0. Thus, ABS is worthwhile on economic level. In the scenarios with high effectiveness the benefit-cost ratios range between 4.6 and 4.9. Thus, the values are even above the barrier of 3.0. The result of the break-even analysis is that ABS is worthwhile on user level. The considered market prices are 400 Euro in 2015 and 300 Euro in 2020. They are clearly below the determined fair end consumer market prices. The fair end consumer price for the year 2015 is 701 Euro respectively 622 Euro for the year 2020. Thus, ABS is worthwhile for motorcycle riders with an annual mileage higher than 2,200 km (year 2015) respectively 1,900 km (year 2020). The annual mileage of a motorcycle rider is 3,900 km on average. Thus, ABS is worthwhile for most of the motorcycle riders. The mentioned results are valid for the high effectiveness scenarios.
Police records about traffic accidents like used by IRTAD (International Road Traffic and Accident Database) and CARE (Community Road Accident Database) do not represent all road injuries. For instance, road accidents of bicyclists without a counterpart are usually not reported. Furthermore, IRTAD-like data contains hardly any information on injury outcome and accident circumstances. This information gap leads to an under-representation of the safety concerns of the most vulnerable road users like children and the elderly both in accident research and safety promotion. Injury registration for the European Injury Database (IDB), in turn, combines details of accident causation with diagnostic information that can be used to assess injury severity and long term consequences. The IDB is collecting data from hospital emergency department patients and is being implemented in a growing number of countries. In this article IDB results on mode of transport and injury outcome are presented from a sample of nine EU member states.
The UN Regulation No. 79 is going to be amended to allow automatically commanded steering functions (ACSF) at speeds above 10 km/h. Hence, requirements concerning the approval of automatically performed steering manoeuvres have to be set in order to allow safe use of automatic steering on public roads as well as improve overall road safety for the driver and the surroundings. By order of the German Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BMVI), BASt developed and verified physical test procedures for automatic steering to be implemented in UN Regulation No. 79. The usability of currently available test tools was examined. The paper at hand describes these test procedures and presents results from verification tests. The designated tests are divided in three sections: functionality tests, verifications for the transition of control and emergency tests. System functionality tests are auto matic lane keeping, automatic lane change and an automatic abort of an initiated lane change due to traffic. Those tests check if the vehicle remains in its lane (under normal operating conditions), is able to perform safe automatic lane change manoeuvres and if it considers other road users during its manoeuvres. Transition tests examine the vehicle's behaviour when the driver fails to monitor the system and in situations when the system has to hand over the steering control back to the driver. For instance these tests provoke driver-in-the-loop requests by approaching system boundary limitations, like missing lane markings, surpassing maximum lateral acceleration in a bend or even a major system failure. Even further the driver and his inputs are monitored and if the system detects that he is overriding system actions or contrary want to quit the driving task and unfastens the seat belt, it has to shut down and put the human back into manually control and the responsibility of driving. The last series of test consists of two emergency situations in which the system has to react to a time critical event: A hard decelerating vehicle and a stationary vehicle in front both with no lane change possibility for the ACSF vehicle. Some of the tests, especially the emergency manoeuvres, require special target vehicles and propulsion systems. Since no fully automatic steering vehicles are available, a current Mercedes E-Class with Mercedes' "drive pilot" system was used. It was shown that the vehicle is automatically able to brake to a full stop towards a static Euro NCAP target from partial-automatic driving at 90 km/h, that it could brake towards a rapidly decelerating lead vehicle when travelling at 70 km/h, that it was able during partially automatic driving to remain in its lane in normal operation conditions and to perform a automatic (driver initiated) lane change while surveilling the driver- activities.
Beside numerous information about vehicles injuries and environmental data the GIDAS database contains detailed reconstruction data. This data is calculated by a reconstruction engineer who handles about 1000 accidents per year. The spectrum of one reconstruction ranges from simple crossing accidents to complex run-off accidents with rollover events. Especially for complex accident scenarios there is a large effort to design the environment of the accident scene within PC-Crash ®. To reduce the reconstruction time by maintaining the high quality of reconstruction 3D-geodata can be useful. Geodata is available for nearly every area in Germany and can be used for a fast and detailed creation of complex accident environments. In combination with the accident sketch areal images of the accident scene can be created and the participants are implemented in the new-built 3D-reconstruction environment. As a consequence, the characteristics of the terrain can be considered within the reconstruction which is especially important for run-off accidents.
Analysis of pedestrian leg contacts and distribution of contact points across the vehicle front
(2015)
Determining the risk to pedestrians that are impacted by areas of the front bumper not currently regulated in type-approval testing requires an understanding of the target population and the injury risk posed by the edges of the bumper. National statistics show that approximately 10% of all accident casualties are pedestrians, with 20% to 30% of these pedestrian casualties being killed or seriously injured. However, the contact position across the front of the bumper is not recorded in national statistics and so in-depth accident databases (OTS, UK and GIDAS, Germany) were used to examine injury risk in greater detail. The results showed that some injury types and severities of injuries appear to peak around the bumper edges. Although there are sometimes inconsistencies in the data, generally there is no evidence to suggest that the edges of the bumper are less likely to be contacted or cause injury.
In-depth road traffic accident research in Spain is a fairly recent activity. In the past, only accident data that had been retrospectively processed by the national and regional traffic police forces was available. In 1999 Applus+IDIADA set up a permanent accident research unit to carry out indepth analysis of road accidents in Spain. Since then accidents involving cars, motorcycles, coaches and vulnerable road users have been thoroughly studied. The Applus+IDIADA accident research team has carried out work for the various traffic polices in Spain and it is currently involved in several research projects in which accidentology is one of the main tasks. The working methodology of the team is presented in the first part of the paper. In the framework of the European research project "Rollover" (GRD2-2001-50086), Applus+IDIADA has collected data, inspected scenarios and performed virtual reconstructions of twenty-six of the total seventy-six rollover accidents studied. The second half of the paper describes how these accident investigations were used to develop a test procedure for identifying possible improvements to the vehicle structure which augment occupant protection in a rollover scenario. In particular, a proposal for a new drop test for rollover assessment is presented. The cases were analysed for severity, in terms of injury to the occupants and damage to the vehicle, and taking into account whether a seatbelt was worn or not. The worst possible cases were identified as those that had severe occupant injuries and sizable damage to the occupant compartment when seatbelts had been worn. The most severe cases were then analysed further for impact position (roll and pitch angles) and the impact velocity. With these parameters taken into account, the most representative combinations could be found. This resulted in a series of configurations for possible drop tests. The results of the tests indicate where passenger vehicle structures need to be improved in order to increase occupant safety in the event of a rollover crash.
The aim of this study is to investigate the differences in car occupant injury severity recorded in AIS 2005 compared to AIS 1990 and to outline the likely effects on future data analysis findings. Occupant injury data in the UK Cooperative Crash Injury Study Database (CCIS) were coded for the period February 2006 to November 2007 using both AIS 1990 and AIS 2005. Data for 1,994 occupants with over 6000 coded injuries were reviewed at the AIS and MAIS level of severities and body regions to determine changes between the two coding methodologies. Overall there was an apparent general trend for fewer injuries to be coded at the AIS 4+ severity and more injuries to be coded at the AIS 2 severity. When these injury trends were reviewed in more detail it was found that the body regions which contributed the most to these changes in severity were the head, thorax and extremities. This is one of the first studies to examine the implications for large databases when changing to an updated method for coding injuries.
The Centre for Automotive Safety Research (formerly the Road Accident Research Unit) at the University of Adelaide in South Australia has a history of in-depth crash investigation going back to the 1970s. In recent years, our focus has been on studying factors that contribute to road crashes, with an emphasis on the role of road infrastructure. Our method involves crash notification by the South Australian Ambulance Service and detailed investigation of the crash scene usually before the crash-involved vehicles have been moved. This at-scene data collection is supplemented with police crash reports, Coroner- reports including autopsy findings for fatal crashes, case notes from hospitals for all injured persons, structured interviews with crash participants and witnesses, and computerised reconstruction of the events of the crash. One of the most notable research findings to emerge from our in-depth work has been the relationship between travelling speed and the risk of crash involvement. By comparing the calculated free speeds of crash-involved vehicles (cases) with the measured speeds of non-crash-involved vehicles travelling on the same roads at the same time of day (controls), we were able to establish that an exponential relationship exists between travelling speed and the likelihood of involvement in a casualty crash. This was the case for both metropolitan and rural areas. This research prompted the reduction of some speed limits in Australia, which has resulted in notable decreases in crash numbers. Another finding of interest in our recent investigation of 298 mostly daytime crashes in metropolitan Adelaide was that medical conditions make a sizeable contribution to the occurrence of road crashes. We found that almost half of the drivers, riders and pedestrians involved in the collisions had at least one pre-existing medical condition, and half of these individuals had two or more such conditions. We found that a medical condition was the direct causal factor in 13% of the casualty crashes investigated and accounted for 23% of all hospital admission or fatal crash outcomes. A follow-up study of all hospital admissions for road crashes in Adelaide is now going ahead to look further at this problem. The paper also describes studies looking specifically at pedestrian crashes. These include studies of the relationship between travelling speed and the risk of a fatal pedestrian crash, and studies utilising real crash data to validate headforms and test dummies used in the assessment of the safety of new vehicles in the event of a collision with a pedestrian.
While it is important to track trends in the number of road accidents in different countries using national statistics, there is a need for data with more detailed information, so called in-depth accident data. For this reason, several accident data projects emerged worldwide in recent years. However, also different data standards were established and so comparative analysis of international in-depth data has been very hard to conduct, so far. This is why the project iGLAD (Initiative for the Global Harmonization of Accident Data) was established and created the prerequisites for building up a standardized dataset out of the common denominator of different in-depth accident databases from Europe, USA and Asia. In the first phase, the project received funding from ACEA to compile an initial database. To accomplish this, a suitable data scheme has been defined, a pilot study has been conducted as proof of concept and the recoding of the first common data base has been initiated. Also, to prepare the project for its self-supporting continuation in the next years, a business model has been developed. This paper reports the history and status of the project, the current challenges and the creation of a capable consortium to maintain the data. In mid-2014, the initial database containing 1550 cases from 10 different countries will be completed and a first detailed view on this data will be possible.
Many safety-relevant tasks in control or diagnostics require binary choices such as "conflict versus separation" in air traffic control, "normal versus pathological" when interpreting x-ray pictures, or "permitted versus forbidden" when inspecting airport security scans. Deciders often are uncertain, but nevertheless required to decide between two alternatives, that is, they have not only to decide upon an action, but also about the admissible level of uncertainty. If the accepted level of judgment certainty is not taken into account, the sequence of decisions does not capture the full picture of the underlying decision process. Differences in judgment certainty are relevant, because they reflect not only the adequacy of the human-machine interface that is evaluated, but also the differences in expertise of the decider and the requirements of the actual situation or task. Therefore, capturing both judgment certainty and discrimination performance is essential. A comparison of different human-machine-interfaces (for air traffic control) is used to illustrate a methodological approach, which allows for integrated analyses of decision processes based on receiver-operator-characteristics and practical guidelines for the evaluation of human-machine-interfaces for safety-relevant operation procedures are provided.
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.
This study updates previous IIHS studies comparing estimated delta Vs for crash tested vehicles to the distribution of estimated delta Vs in the National Automotive Sampling System (NASS) Crashworthiness Data System (CDS). The delta V estimates for 232 frontal crash tests at 64.4km/h into a deformable barrier with 40 percent overlap are compared with estimates from frontal offset crashes in the 1997-2004 NASS database. All delta V estimates were based on SMASH, the delta V estimating program used by NASS since 1997. Results indicated that for all vehicles tested by IIHS, SMASH delta Vs were, on average, 32 percent lower than impact speeds and about 28 percent lower than the expected delta V. Almost 80 percent of all real-world frontal crashes resulting in AIS 3+ injuries and just over 60 percent of all fatal crashes occur at or below the average estimated delta V calculated for crash tested vehicles.