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Automated driving will provide many kinds of benefits - some direct and some indirect. The benefits originate at the individual level, from changes in the behaviour of drivers and travellers with regard to driving and mobility, ending up with benefits at the social level via changes in the whole transport system and society, where many of the current planning and operations paradigms are likely to be transformed by automated driving. There may also be disbenefits, particularly at a social level, for example in intensity of travel which could result in additional congestion and increased use of natural resources. There may also be unintended consequences. For example, we do not know the impacts on public transport: driverless vehicles could provide a means to a lower cost service provision, but the availability of automated cars could lead to more car travel at the expense of collective transport.
Motorcycling is a fascinating kind of transportation. While the riders' direct exposure to the environment and the unique driving dynamics are essential to this fascination, they both cause a risk potential which is several times higher than when driving a car. This chapter gives a detailed introduction to the fundamentals of motorcycle dynamics and shows how its peculiarities and limitations place high demands on the layout of dynamics control systems, especially when cornering. The basic principles of dynamic stabilization and directional control are addressed along with four characteristic modes of instability (capsize, wobble, weave, and kickback). Special attention is given to the challenges of braking (brake force distribution, dynamic over-braking, kinematic instability, and brake steer torque induced righting behavior). It is explained how these challenges are addressed by state-of-the-art brake, traction, and suspension control systems in terms of system layout and principles of function. It is illustrated how the integration of additional sensors " essentially roll angle assessment " enhances the cornering performance in all three categories, fostering a trend to higher system integration levels. An outlook on potential future control systems shows exemplarily how the undesired righting behavior when braking in curves can be controlled, e.g., by means of a so-called brake steer torque avoidance mechanism (BSTAM), forming the basis for predictive brake assist (PBA) or even autonomous emergency braking (AEB). Finally, the very limited potential of brake and chassis control to stabilize yaw and roll motion during unbraked cornering accidents is regarded, closing with a promising glance at roll stabilization through a pair of gimbaled gyroscopes.
In line with the new definition introduced by the European Commission (EC), the number of seriously injured road casualties in Germany for 2014 is assessed in this study. The number of MAIS3+ casualties is estimated by two different methodological approaches. The first approach is based on data from the German Inâ€Depth Accident Study (GIDAS), which is closely related to the German Road Traffic Accident Statistics. The second approach is based on data from the German TraumaRegister DGU-® (TRâ€DGU), which includes many more hospitals but not all MAIS3+ injuries.
Cycling and designing for cyclist in Germany: an overview of road safety, research and guidelines
(2016)
Cycling is considered a social, eco-friendly, pollution-free, low noise and healthy activity and mode of transportation. There are currently around 67 million bicycles in Germany. This number is expected to increase in the near future with greater use of electromotive assisted bicycles. Regarding the expected increase, there should be additional attention given to road traffic accidents involving cyclists. In 2014, 396 cyclists were killed in road accidents in Germany, which is 12 % of all road fatalities. Also in 2014, Germany reported over 78,000 injuries to cyclists. The majority of the fatalities (about 58 %) and 83 % of the serious injuries to cyclists occurred in urban areas. This paper will examine three aspects concerning cyclists. First, the paper will show the main current developments, for example the National Cycling Plan 2020, the effects of the road safety programme and provide an analysis of the German national accident statistics. Second, the paper will give an overview of the regulations, guidelines for road traffic and designing of cycling facilities. Lastly, this study will detail the current and completed research in Germany addressing cyclist. For example, the paper will discuss the topic "Accidents between Turning-off Trucks and Cyclists" Accidents between right turning trucks and straight riding cyclists often show massive consequences. Accident severity is much higher than in other accidents. The situation is critical especially due to the fact that, in spite of the six mirrors that are mandatory for ensuring a minimum field of sight for the truck drivers, cyclists in some situations cannot be seen or are not seen by the driver. Either the cyclist is overlooked or is in a blind spot area that results from the turning manoeuvre of the truck. At present driver assistance systems are discussed that can support the driver in the turning situation by giving a warning when cyclists are riding parallel to the truck just before or in the turning manoeuvre. The paper will describe the requirements for turning assist systems for trucks. The outcome of the study is an overview of the accident situation between right turning trucks and straight driving cyclists in Germany as well as a corresponding test procedure for driver assistance systems. Below are several other projects which will be investigated, too: Accident Risk and Acceptance of Traffic-Rules by Cyclists ; Safety Improvement in Terms of Using Bicycle Paths in the Opposite Direction ; Cycling in Mixed-Traffic ; Observation of Pedal Electric Cycles Riders to Identify Safety Concerns. These three aspects will provide the current situation on the topic of cyclist safety in Germany.
Established in 1997, the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP) provides consumers with a safety performance assessment for the majority of the most popular cars in Europe. Thanks to its rigorous crash tests, Euro NCAP has rapidly become an important driver safety improvement to new cars. After ten years of rating vehicles, Euro NCAP felt that a change was necessary to stay in tune with rapidly emerging driver assistance and crash avoidance systems and to respond to shifting priorities in road safety. A new overall rating system was introduced that combines the most important aspects of vehicle safety under a single star rating. The overall rating system has allowed Euro NCAP to continue to push for better fitment and higher performance for vehicles sold on the European market. In the coming years, the safety rating is expected to play an important role in the support of the roll-out of highly automated vehicles.
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.
Risk-based approach for the protection of land transport infrastructure against extreme rainfall
(2016)
The aim of the research project "Risk based approach for the protection of transport infrastructure against extreme rainfall RAINEX" is the development of a practical methodology for the identification and assessment of both vulnerable as well as critical transport infrastructures towards extreme rainfall events consequences. The developed methodology is based on expert knowledge and includes qualitative and semi-quantitative analyses regarding the assessment of the vulnerability and criticality of relevant transport infrastructures. The process chain from the spatial rainfall to the concentrated runoff in the river channel was shown to assess the local hazard resulting in the local risk. The main result of the project is a practice-oriented and applicable methodology and a comprehensive and well-developed security handbook.
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.
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.
Research to inform policy is often challenged with how to genuinely use and implement research findings in decision-making and policy-planning. To begin with, the dialogue between researchers and decision-makers is essential to ensure profound understanding and legitimate interpretations of the results. Furthermore, the step to drawing practical conclusions and processing them into actions can only succeed if research findings are diffused to decision-making levels with influence on the matter, and mechanisms to knowledge transfer in the presence of a stable, favourable policy environment exist. Research investments into the topic of electromobility in Europe are substantial, and subtopics aiming to inform national policy-makers address a complex set of aspects from environmental and societal to technological and economic. This paper has a two-fold objective, the first of which is to present the results of scenarios to explore electromobility deployment in Finland, Germany and the European Union. The second is to discuss the challenges and solutions to bridge the gap from research findings towards decision-making and policy-planning, using the authors' electromobility scenario work as an example. The electromobility scenarios were built using the VECTOR21 model (Mock, 2010), and the rationale was to simulate vehicle sales and markets under different policy settings and calculate the most economical solution to fulfill regulation on COâ‚‚ emissions as set by the European Commission (2009). The model allows calculating the market diffusion of alternative powertrain technologies to the European market until 2030, taking into account different taxation schemes, incentives and other country-specific characteristics. The authors also present the cost-benefit-analysis of the modelling results to assess the different scenarios and to show variation between regions regarding profitability of alternative technological or political support and interventions. To proceed from research findings towards decision-making and policy-planning, the authors made observations relating to transfer of research knowledge and interpretation of their electromobility scenario results in national policy contexts. An evaluation of how the function of research to inform policy in this case succeeded is provided. In addition, the influence of expert opinions on the political decision-making process will be discussed through experiences from an expert questionnaire conducted to survey the importance of costs, time requirement, acceptance and other criteria of promotion measures of electromobility.
Estimation of the effects of new emission standards on motorcycle emissions by means of modeling
(2016)
Road traffic is, in addition to the energy sector and the industry, one main source of air pollution and carbon dioxide emissions. Although most countries and manufacturers agreed to environmental regulations to reduce the pollutant emissions, particularly in urban areas with high traffic density, the impact of road traffic emissions on the environment and human health has been growing in importance steadily. Due to stricter emission standards and the binding use of emission-reducing systems (e.g. three-way catalyst) hydrocarbon emissions from passenger cars have been reduced significantly since the last two decades. Unlike to passenger cars the emissions standards of powered two-wheelers have not been adjusted since 2006 although their share of hydrocarbon emissions to the total amount of hydrocarbon emissions of road traffic is estimated to be disproportionately high. Due to the new regulation (EU) No. 168/2013 powered two-wheelers have to fulfill new emission standards from 2016 (Euro 4) and 2020 (Euro 5) onwards. Besides new limits for the tailpipe emissions the evaporative emissions are regulated separately for the first time, as they make up a high proportion to the total hydrocarbon emissions in this vehicle class. In this context, the calculation and forecast of road traffic emissions is an important tool to verify compliance of climate targets and to assess the reduction potential of emission-reducing systems. For that purpose the Federal Highway Research Institute (BASt) uses the emission- and calculation tool TREMOD (Transport Emission Model) which provides baseline data and calculated results for pollutants in almost every differentiation e.g. vehicle category, traffic situation and road type. Moreover, estimations of future emission trends, stock information and mileage distribution can be made. The main objective is to illustrate the impact of the upcoming emission standards Euro 4 and Euro 5 on the operational hydrocarbon emissions of powered two-wheelers based on statistical estimations. The significant aspect is to generate scenarios to show the reduction potential of hydrocarbon emissions of powered two-wheelers, differentiated into motorcycles and small motorcycles, in relation to the total share of hydrocarbon emissions in this vehicle class and to the total hydrocarbon emissions from road traffic. As a part of their research, the authors can make initial statements about the possible effect of the new emission standards of regulation (EU) No. 168/2013 by means of modeling with TREMOD.
The first version of German Highway Capacity Manual was published in 2001. Now, a new version is published in 2015 (HBS 2015). For the new German Highway Capacity Manual, most major chapters are revised and some of them are totally rewritten. The chapter for merge, diverge, and small weaving segments is rewritten in accordance with forthcoming developments in the past 10 years. In this paper, an overview of the chapter in the new German Highway Capacity Manual is presented. Procedures dealing with performance analyses and level of service (LOS) of those segments are introduced both for freeways and rural highways. Differences between the former version and the new version of the chapter in the German Highway Capacity Manual are indicated and discussed. In most of the existing highway capacity manuals, LOS of merge, diverge, and small weaving segments is traditionally defined by speed, volume, or density in critical areas. In that traditional concept several capacity values of different critical areas (merge, diverge, and weaving) as well as upstream and downstream basic segments within the influence areas are evaluated separately. In the new HBS 2015, a new model which considers the total merge, diverge, and weaving segment as an entire object is incorporated. A combined volume-to-capacity ratio (freeways) or a combined density (rural highways) is used for defining the LOS of the total segment. The parameters of the new procedure are functions of the number of lanes of the major road, the number of lanes in the on-ramp or off-ramp, and the predefined geometric design of those segments. The coefficients are calibrated with field data or defined by experts" experiences within a matrix of coefficients. With those procedures, the traffic quality (LOS) can be obtained directly as a function of the volumes or densities on the major road and on the on-ramp or off-ramp respectively. The new procedure has the following advantages: a) a uniform function for all types of merge, diverge, and small weaving segments, b) traffic quality assessment for all critical areas under investigation in one step, and c) the procedure can easily be calibrated. For applications in practice, a set of graphs is provided.
There is considerable evidence for the negative effects of driver distraction on road safety. In many experimental studies, drivers have been primarily viewed as passive receivers of distraction. Thus, there is a lack of research on the mediating role of their self-regulatory behavior. The aim of the current study was to compare drivers' performance when engaged in a system-paced secondary task with a self-paced version of this task and how both differed from baseline driving performance without distraction. Thirty-nine participants drove in a simulator while performing a secondary visual"manual task. One group of drivers had to work on this task in predefined situations under time pressure, whereas the other group was free to decide when to work on the secondary task (self-regulation group). Drivers' performance (e.g., lateral and longitudinal control, brake reaction times) was also compared with a baseline condition without any secondary task. For the system-paced secondary task, distraction was associated with high decrements in driving performance (especially in keeping the lateral position). No effects were found for the number of collisions, probably because of the lower driving speeds while distracted (compensatory behavior). For the self-regulation group, only small impairments in driving performance were found. Drivers engaged less in the secondary task during foreseeable demanding or critical driving situations. Overall, drivers in the self-regulation group were able to anticipate the demands of different traffic situations and to adapt their engagement in the secondary task, so that only small impairments in driving performance occurred. Because in real traffic drivers are mostly free to decide when to engage in secondary tasks, it can be concluded that self-regulation should be considered in driver distraction research to ensure ecological validity.
With the introduction of the German Highway Capacity Manual (HBS) in January 2002 (FGSV, 2002), all methods for the evaluation of the performance of highway facilities were, for the first time in Germany, simultaneously updated and consolidated in a single work following the ideas of the American Highway Capacity Manual (HCM). This paper gives an overview of the new 2015 edition of the German HBS and describes the changes as for example the addition of chapters for freeway, rural roads, and major urban street facilities, comprising segments and intersections.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The case study "Digital Test Area Autobahn" is presented. A new built (September 2016) pre-stressed concrete bridge is equipped with different monitoring systems for the detection of traffic load, climatic influence and the reaction of the bridge. Possibilities for the implementation of a VoI (Value of Information) analyses are presented.
In future, additional and more detailed data are needed about the current conditions of bridges for preventive maintenance management. Monitoring procedures are not merely able to provide key performance indicators for a specific point in time, but also over a period. These KPIs must be selected in such a way as to permit substantiated statements about the present and future condition of bridges. For this reason, greater efforts must be made to define the significant KPIs for the various types of bridges, and show how these figures can be reliably determined. Both the COST Action TU1402, and TU1406 offer important approaches which, properly combined, can deliver substantial added value to the calculation and description of the condition of bridges in the interest of proactive maintenance management.
The levels of continuous vehicle automation have become common knowledge. They facilitate overall understanding of the issue. Yet, continuous vehicle automation described therein does not cover "automated driving" as a whole: Functions intervening temporarily in accident-prone situations can obviously not be classified by means of continuous levels. Continuous automation describes the shift in workload from purely human driven vehicles to full automation. Duties of the driver are assigned to the machine as automation levels rise. Emergency braking, e.g., is obviously discontinuous and intensive automation. It cannot be classified under this regime. The resulting absence of visibility of these important functions cannot satisfy " especially in the light of effect they take on traffic safety. Therefore, in order to reach a full picture of vehicle automation, a comprehensive approach is proposed that can map out different characteristics as "Principle of Operation" at top level. On this basis informing and warning functions as well as functions intervening only temporarily in near-accident situations can be described. To reach a complete picture, levels for the discontinuous, temporarily intervening functions are proposed " meant to be the counterpart of the continuous levels already in place. This results in a detailed and independent classification for accident-prone situations. This finally provides for the visibility these important functions deserve.
PROSPECT (Proactive Safety for Pedestrians and Cyclists) is a collaborative research project involving most of the relevant partners from the automotive industry (including important active safety vehicle manufacturers and tier-1 suppliers) as well as academia and independent test labs, funded by the European Commission in the Horizon 2020 research program. PROSPECT's primary goal is the development of novel active safety functions, to be finally demonstrated to the public in three prototype vehicles. A sound benefit assessment of the prototype vehicle's functionality requires a broad testing methodology which goes beyond what has currently been used. Since PROSPECT functions are developed to prevent accidents in intersections, a key aspect of the test methodology is the reproduction of natural driving styles on the test track with driving robots. For this task, data from a real driving study with subjects in a suburb of Munich, Germany was used. Further data from Barcelona will be available soon. The data suggests that intersection crossing can be broken down into five phases, two phases with straight deceleration / acceleration, one phase with constant radius and speed turning, and two phases where the bend is imitated or ended. In these latter phases, drivers mostly combine lateral and longitudinal accelerations and drive what is called a clothoid, a curve with curvature proportional to distance travelled, in order to change lateral acceleration smoothly rather than abrupt. The data suggests that the main parameter of the clothoid, the ratio distance travelled to curvature, is mostly constant during the intersections. This parameter together with decelerations and speeds allows the generation of synthetic robot program files for a reproduction of natural driving styles using robots, allowing a much greater reproducibility than what is possible with human test drivers. First tests show that in principle it is possible to use the driving robots for vehicle control in that manner; a challenge currently is the control performance of the robot system in terms of speed control, but it is anticipated that this problem will be solved soon. Further elements of the PROSPECT test methodology are a standard intersection marking to be implemented on the test track which allows the efficient testing of all PROSPECT test cases, standard mobile and light obstruction elements for quick reproduction of obstructions of view, and a concept for tests in realistic surroundings. First tests using the PROSPECT test methodology will be conducted over the summer 2017, and final tests of the prototype vehicles developed within PROSPECT will be conducted in early 2018
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.
Europe has benefited from a decreasing number of road traffic fatalities. However, the proportion of older road users increases steadily. In an ageing society, the SENIORS project aims to improve the safe mobility of older road users by determining appropriate requirements towards passive vehicle safety systems. Therefore, the characteristics of road traffic crashes involving the elderly people need to be understood. This paper focuses on car occupants and pedestrians or cyclists in crashes with modern passenger cars. Ten crash databases and four hospital statistics from Europe have been analysed to answer the questions on which body regions are most frequently and severely injured in the elderly, and specific injuries sustained by always comparing older (65 years and above) with midâ€aged road users (25â€64 years). It was found that the body region thorax is of particularly high importance for the older car occupant with injury severities of AIS2 or AIS3+, where as the lower extremities, head and the thorax need to be considered for older pedestrians and cyclists. Further, injury risk functions were provided. The hospital data analysis showed less difference between the age groups. The linkage between crash and hospital data could only be made on a general level as their inclusion criteria were quite different.
Accidents between right turning trucks and straight driving cyclists often show massive consequences. Accident severity in terms of seriously or fatally injured cyclists that are involved is much higher than in accidents of other traffic participants in other situations. It seems clear that adding additional mirrors will very likely not improve the situation. At ESV 2015, a methodology to derive test procedures and first test cases as well as requirements for a driver assist system to address blind spot accidents has been presented. However, it was unclear if and how testing of these cases is feasible, to what extent characteristics of different truck concepts (e.g. articulated vehicles, rigid vehicles) influence the test conduction and outcome, and what tolerances should be selected for the different variables. This work is important for the acceptance of a draft regulation in the UN working group on general safety. In the meantime, three test series using a single tractor vehicle, a tractor-semitrailer combination and a rigid vehicle have been conducted. The test tools (e.g. surrogate devices) have been refined. A fully crashable, commercially available bicycle dummy has been tested. If used correct, this dummy does follow a straight line quite precisely and it does not cause any damage to the truck under test in case of accidental impact. The dummy specifications are freely available. During testing, the different vehicle categories resulted in different trajectories being driven. Articulated vehicle combinations did first execute a turn into the opposite direction, and on the other hand, single tractor vehicles did behave comparable to passenger cars. A possible solution to take these behaviors into account is to require the vehicles to drive through a corridor that is narrow for a precise straight-driving phase and extends during the turn. Other investigated parameters are the dummy and vehicle speed tolerances. The results from this research make it possible to draft a regulation for a driver assistance system that helps to avoid blind spot accidents: test cases have been refined, their feasibility has been checked, and corridors for the vehicles and for important parameters (e.g. test speeds) have been set. The test procedure is applicable to all types of heavy goods vehicles. In combination with the accidentology (ESV 2015 paper), the work provides the basis for a regulation for such an assistance system.
Advancing active safety towards the protection of vulnerable road users: the PROSPECT project
(2017)
Accidents involving Vulnerable Road Users (VRU) are still a very significant issue for road safety. According to the World Health Organisation, pedestrian and cyclist deaths account for more than 25% of all road traffic deaths worldwide. Autonomous Emergency Braking Systems have the potential to improve safety for these VRU groups. The PROSPECT project (Proactive Safety for Pedestrians and Cyclists) aims to significantly improve the effectiveness of active VRU safety systems compared to those currently on the market by expanding the scope of scenarios addressed by the systems and improving the overall system performance. The project pursues an integrated approach: Newest available accident data combined with naturalistic observations and HMI guidelines represent key inputs for the system specifications, which form the basis for the system development. For system development, two main aspects are considered: advanced sensor processing with situation analysis, and intervention strategies including braking and steering. All these concepts are implemented in several vehicle prototypes. Special emphasis is put on balancing system performance in critical scenarios and avoiding undesired system activations. For system validation, testing in realistic scenarios will be done. Results will allow the performance assessment of the developed concepts and a cost-benefit analysis. The findings within the PROSPECT project will contribute to the generation of state -of-the-art knowledge, technical innovations, assessment methodologies and tools for advancing Advanced Driver Assistance Systems towards the protection of VRUs. The introduction of a new generation safety system in the market will enhance VRU road safety in 2020-2025, contributing to the "Vision Zero" objective of no fatalities or serious injuries in road traffic set out in the Transport White Paper. Furthermore, the test methodologies and tools developed within the project shall be considered for the New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP) future roadmaps, supporting the European Commission goal of halving the road toll in the 2011-2020 timeframe.
The presence and performance of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) has increased over last years. Systems available on the market address also conflicts with vulnerable road users (VRUs) such as pedestrians and cyclists. Within the European project PROSPECT (Horizon2020, funded by the EC) improved VRU ADAS systems are developed and tested. However, before determining systems" properties and starting testing, an up-to-date analysis of VRU crashes was needed in order to derive the most important Use Cases (detailed crash descriptions) the systems should address. Besides the identified Accident Scenarios (basic crash descriptions), this paper describes in short the method of deriving the Use Cases for car-to-cyclist crashes. Method Crashes involving one passenger car and one cyclist were investigated in several European crash databases looking for all injury severity levels (slight, severe and fatal). These data sources included European statistics from CARE, data on national level from Germany, Sweden and Hungary as well as detailed accident information from these three countries using GIDAS, the Volvo Cars Cyclist Accident database and Hungarian in-depth accident data, respectively. The most frequent accident scenarios were studied and Use Cases were derived considering the key aspects of these crash situations (e.g., view orientation of the cyclist and the car driver- manoeuvre intention) and thus, form an appropriate basis for the development of Test Scenarios. Results Latest information on car-to-cyclist crashes in Europe was compiled including details on the related crash configurations, driving directions, outcome in terms of injury severity, accident location, other environmental aspects and driver responsibilities. The majority of car-to-cyclist crashes occurred during daylight and in clear weather conditions. Car-to-cyclist crashes in which the vehicle was traveling straight and the cyclist is moving in line with the traffic were found to result in the greatest number of fatalities. Considering also slightly and seriously injured cyclists led to a different order of crash patterns according to the three considered European countries. Finally the paper introduced the Use Cases derived from the crash data analysis. A total of 29 Use Cases were derived considering the group of seriously or fatally injured cyclists and 35 Use Cases were derived considering the group of slightly, seriously or fatally injured cyclists. The highest ranked Use Case describes the collision between a car turning to the nearside and a cyclist riding on a bicycle lane against the usual driving direction. A unified European dataset on car-to-cyclist crash scenarios is not available as the data available in CARE is limited, hence national datasets had to be used for the study and further work will be required to extrapolate the results to a European level. Due to the large number of Use Cases, the paper shows only highest ranked ones.
A reduction of around 48% of all road fatalities was achieved in Europe in the past years including a reduced number of fatalities with an older age. However, among all road fatalities, the proportion of elderly is steadily increasing. In an ageing society, the European (Horizon2020) project SENIORS aims to improve the safe mobility of older road users, who have different transportation habits compared to other age groups. To increase their level of safe mobility by determining appropriate requirements for vehicle safety systems, the characteristics of current road traffic collisions involving the elderly and the injuries that they sustain need to be understood in detail. Hereby, the paper focuses on their traffic participation as pedestrian, cyclist or passenger car occupant. Following a literature review, several national and international crash databases and hospital statistics have been analysed to determine the body regions most frequently and severely injured, specific injuries sustained and types of crashes involved, always comparing older road users (65 years and more) with mid-aged road users (25-64 years). The most important crash scenarios were highlighted. The data sources included European statistics from CARE, data on national level from Germany, Sweden, Italy, United Kingdom and Spain as well as in-depth crash information from GIDAS (Germany), RAIDS (UK), CIREN and NASS-CDS (US). In addition, familiar hospital data from Germany (TraumaRegister DGU-®), Italy (Italian Register of Acute Traumas) and UK hospital statistics (TARN) were included in the study to gain further insight into specific injury patterns. Comprehensive data analyses were performed showing injury patterns of older road users in crashes. When comparing with mid-aged road users, all databases showed that the thorax body region is of particularly high importance for the older car occupant with injury severities of AIS 2 or AIS 3+, whereas the body regions lower extremities, head and thorax need to be considered for the older pedestrians and cyclists. Besides these comparisons, the most frequent and severe top 5 injuries were highlighted per road user group. Further, the most important crash configurations were identified and injury risk functions are provided per age group and road user group. Although several databases have been analysed, the picture on the road safety situation of older road users in Europe was not complete, as only Western European data was available. The linkage between crash data and hospital data could only be made on a general level as their inclusion criteria were quite different.
Supported by field accident data and monitoring results of European Regulation (EC) No. 78/2009, recent plans of the European Commission regarding a way forward to improve passive safety of vulnerable road users include, amongst other things, an extension of the head test area. The inclusion of passive cyclist safety is also being considered by Euro NCAP. Although passenger car to cyclist collisions are often severe and have a significant share within the accident statistics, cyclists are neither considered sufficiently in the legislative nor in the consumer ratings tests. Therefore, a test procedure to assess the protection potential of vehicle fronts in a collision with cyclists has been developed within a current research project. For this purpose, the existing pedestrian head impact test procedures were modified in order to include boundary conditions relevant for cyclists as the second big group of vulnerable road users. Based on an in-depth analysis of passenger car to cyclist accidents in Germany the three most representative accident constellations have been initially defined. The development of the test procedure itself was based on corresponding simulations with representative vehicle and bicycle models. In addition to different cyclist heights, reaching from a 6-year-old child to a 95%-male, also four pedal positions were considered. By reconstruction of a real accident the defined simulation parameters could be validated in advance. The conducted accident kinematics analysis shows for a large portion of the constellations an increased head impact area, which can reach beyond the roof leading edge, as well as high average values for head impact velocity and angle. Based on the simulation data obtained for the different vehicle models, cyclist-specific test parameters for impactor tests have been derived, which have been further examined in the course of head and leg impact tests. In order to study the cyclist accident kinematics under real test conditions, different full scale tests with a Polar-II dummy positioned on a bicycle have been conducted. Overall, the tests showed a good correlation with the simulations and support the defined boundary test conditions. Typical accident scenarios and simulations reveal higher head impact locations, angles and velocities. An extended head impact area with modified test parameters will contribute to an improved protection of vulnerable road users including cyclists. However, due to significantly differing impact kinematics and postures between the lower extremities of pedestrians and cyclists, these injuries cannot be addressed by the means of current test tools such as the flexible pedestrian legform impactor FlexPLI. Based on the findings obtained within the project as well as the existing pedestrian protection requirements a cyclist protection test procedure for use in legislation and consumer test programmes has been developed, whose requirements have been transferred into a corresponding test specification. This specification provides common head test boundary conditions for pedestrians and cyclists, whereby the existing requirements are modified and two parallel test procedures are avoided.
Test and assessment procedures for passive pedestrian protection based on developments by the European Enhanced Vehicle-safety Committee (EEVC) have been introduced in world-wide regulations and consumer test programmes, with considerable harmonization between these programmes. Nevertheless, latest accident investigations reveal a stagnation of pedestrian fatality numbers on European roads running the risk of not meeting the European Union- goal of halving the number of road fatalities by the year 2020. The branch of external road user safety within the EC-funded research project SENIORS under the HORIZON 2020 framework programme focuses on investigating the benefit of modifications to pedestrian test and assessment procedures and their impactors for vulnerable road users with focus on the elderly. Injury patterns of pedestrians and cyclists derived from the German In-Depth Accident Study (GIDAS) show a trend of AIS 2+ and AIS 3+ injuries getting more relevant for the thorax region in crashes with newer cars (Wisch et al., 2017), while maintaining the relevance for head and lower extremities. Several crash databases from Europe such as GIDAS and the Swedish Traffic Accident Data Acquisition (STRADA) also show that head, thorax and lower extremities are the key affected body regions not only for the average population but in particular for the elderly. Therefore, the SENIORS project is focusing on an improvement of currently available impactors and procedures in terms of biofidelity and injury assessment ability towards a better protection of the affected body regions, incorporating previous results from FP 6 project APROSYS and subsequent studies carried out by BASt. The paper describes the overall methodology to develop revised FE impactor models. Matched human body model and impactor simulations against generic test rigs provide transfer functions that will be used for the derivation of impactor criteria from human injury risk functions for the affected body regions. In a later step, the refined impactors will be validated by simulations against actual vehicle front-ends. Prototyping and adaptation of test and assessment procedures as well as an impact assessment will conclude the work of the project at the final stage. The work will contribute to an improved protection of vulnerable road users focusing on the elderly. The use of advanced human body models to develop applicable assessment criteria for the revised impactors is intended to cope with the paucity of actual biomechanical data focusing on elderly pedestrians. In order to achieve optimized results in the future, the improved test methods need to be implemented within an integrated approach, combining active with passive safety measures. In order to address the developments in road accidents and injury patterns of vulnerable road users, established test and assessment procedures need to be continuously verified and, where needed, to be revised. The demographic change as well as changes in the vehicle fleet, leading to a variation of accident scenarios, injury frequencies and injury patterns of vulnerable road users are addressed by the work provided by the SENIORS project, introducing updated impactors for pedestrian test and assessment procedures.
Chronic non-cancer pain (CNCP) is a major health problem. Patients are increasingly treated with chronic opioid therapy (COT). Several laboratory studies have demonstrated that long-term use of opioids does not generally impair driving related skills. But there is still a lack of studies investigating on-the-road driving performance in actual traffic. The present study assessed the impact of COT on road-tracking and car-following performance in CNCP patients. Twenty CNCP patients, long-term treated with stable doses of opioid analgesics, and 19 healthy controls conducted standardized on-the-road driving tests in normal traffic. Performance of controls with a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of 0.5 g/L was used as a reference to define clinically relevant changes in driving performance. Standard Deviation of Lateral Position (SDLP), a measure of road-tracking control, was 2.57 cm greater in CNCP patients than in sober controls. This difference failed to reach statistical significance in a superiority test. Equivalence testing indicated that the 95% CI around the mean SDLP change was equivalent to the SDLP change seen in controls with a BAC of 0.5 g/L and did not include zero. When corrected for age differences between groups the 95% CI widened to include both the alcohol reference criterion and zero. No difference was found in car-following performance. Driving performance of CNCP patients did not significantly differ from that of controls due to large inter-individual variations. Hence in clinical practice determination of fitness to drive of CNCP patients who receive opioid treatments should be based on an individual assessment.
As bearing capacity measurements become more and more important, the necessity of assuring quality by establishing a QA system becomes more relevant. Within this context, the FGSV recommends the introduction of comparative measurements. Since 2015, two pilot events took place, with the main aim of introducing repetitive comparative measurements, in which all FWD operators shall participate. The results of the comparative measurements show that the basic principles behind comparative measurements (of the FWD), elaborated as a Europe-wide consensus and put into practice in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, are valid, but still there is a variety of questions to be answered concerning certain details of the measuring system itself, e. g. measurement of the temperatures (air, pavement) and the impact of load introduction. All in all, the two pilot events in 2015 and 2016 proved that the comparability of the different FWD measuring devices is satisfactory.
Measuring and characterizing airborne particulate matter (PM) is an important research area because PM can lead to impacts on health and to visibility reduction, material damage and groundwater pollution. In regard to road dust, suspension and re-suspension and the contribution of non-exhaust PM to total traffic emissions are expected to increase as a result of predicted climate scenarios. European environmental regulations have been enforced to reduce exhaust particle emissions from road traffic, but little attention has been paid to reducing non-exhaust coarse particle emissions due to traffic. Therefore, a monitoring program for coarse PM has been initiated in early 2013 to assess the predicted increase in the abundance of non-exhaust particles. Particle sampling was performed with the passive-sampler technique Sigma-2. The subsequent single-particle analysis allows for characterization of individual particles, determination of PM size distribution, and calculation of PM mass concentrations. Two motorways n ear Cologne (Koeln), Germany were selected as sampling sites, and the experimental setup in the field was realized with a so-called twin-site method. The present study reports single-particle analysis data for samples collected between May 31, 2013 and May 30, 2014. Coarse PM, generated through multi-source mechanisms, consists of, e.g., tire-wear, soot aggregates, and mineral dust. The highest mass concentration occurs at both motorways in spring, and the observed PM mainly contains traffic-abrasion particles. The field measurements show that the minimum PM concentration was found in the 5 to 12-°C temperature range, whereas the maximum concentration was observed in both the "5 to 5-°C and the 12 to 24-°C ranges, in agreement with previous laboratory measurements. Correlation between super-coarse (d p 10"80 μm, geometric equivalent diameter) PM concentration and precipitation displays a significant increase in concentration with decreasing number of precipitation events (dry weather periods).
Urban runoff is known to transport a significant pollutant load consisting of e.g. heavy metals, salts and hydrocarbons. Interactions between solid and dissolved compounds, proper understanding of particle size distribution, dissolved pollutant fractions and seasonal variations is crucial for the selection and development of appropriate road runoff treatment devices. Road runoff at an arterial road in Augsburg, Germany, has been studied for 3.5 years. A strong seasonal variation was observed, with increased heavy metal concentrations with doubled and tripled median concentrations for heavy metals during the cold season. Correlation analysis showed that de-icing salt is not the only factor responsible for increased pollutant concentrations in winter. During the cold period, the fraction of dissolved metals was lower compared to the warm season. In road dust, the highest metal concentrations were measured for fine particles. Metals in road runoff were found to show a significant correlation to fine particles SS63 (<63 μm). Therefore, it is debatable whether treatment devices only implementing sedimentation processes provide sufficient removal rates.
Road authorities, freight, and logistic industries face a multitude of challenges in a world changing at an ever growing pace. While globalization, changes in technology, demography, and traffic, for instance, have received much attention over the bygone decades, climate change has not been treated with equal care until recently. However, since it has been recognized that climate change jeopardizes many business areas in transport, freight, and logistics, research programs investigating future threats have been initiated. One of these programs is the Conference of European Directors of Roads (CEDR) Transnational Research Programme (TRP), which emerged about a decade ago from a cooperation between European National Road Authorities and the EU. This paper presents findings of a CEDR project called CliPDaR, which has been designed to answer questions from road authorities concerning climate-driven future threats to transport infrastructure. Pertaining results are based on two potential future socio-economic pathways of mankind (one strongly economically oriented "A2" and one more balanced scenario "A1B"), which are used to drive global climate models (GCMs) producing global and continental scale climate change projections. In order to achieve climate change projections, which are valid on regional scales, GCM projections are downscaled by regional climate models. Results shown here originate from research questions raised by European Road Authorities. They refer to future occurrence frequencies of severely cold winter seasons in Fennoscandia, to particularly hot summer seasons in the Iberian Peninsula and to changes in extreme weather phenomena triggering landslides and rutting in Central Europe. Future occurrence frequencies of extreme winter and summer conditions are investigated by empirical orthogonal function analyses of GCM projections driven with by A2 and A1B pathways. The analysis of future weather phenomena triggering landslides and rutting events requires downscaled climate change projections. Hence, corresponding results are based on an ensemble of RCM projections, which was available for the A1B scenario. All analyzed risks to transport infrastructure are found to increase over the decades ahead with accelerating pace towards the end of this century. Mean Fennoscandian winter temperatures by the end of this century may match conditions of rather warm winter season experienced in the past and particularly warm future winter temperatures have not been observed so far. This applies in an even more pronounced manner to summer seasons in the Iberian Peninsula. Occurrence frequencies of extreme climate phenomena triggering landslides and rutting events in Central Europe are also projected to rise. Results show spatially differentiated patterns and indicate accelerated rates of increases.
Efficient and widely available transport infrastructure is one of the most important prerequisites for sustainable economic development to meet the demand for mobility. In this context, being able to manage traffic growth forecasts is of particular importance. In Germany, current forecasts indicate a 40% increase in rail and road transport in the country. However, about 60% of bridges (as measured by bridge area) on the national German highway system that are suitable for freight transport were built before 1985. In other transport sectors as well, aging infrastructure is one of the key challenges for the availability and the resilience of European transport infrastructure. Many bridges in the national German highway system are already at their load-bearing limit. Furthermore, required maintenance measures have not been adequately carried out in the past due to limited budgets, leading to overall bridge deterioration. Further challenges for owners and operators of transport infrastructure result from the effects of climate change, associated climate extremes, natural catastrophes, and possible criminal and terrorist threats. To ensure that future infrastructure challenges can be successfully addressed, strategies and solutions must be developed and implemented in a timely manner to enable holistic and sustainable life-cycle management. The concepts of Resilience Management as well as Resilience Engineering are essential building blocks in this process. Resilience is the ability to survive in the face of a complex, uncertain, and ever-changing future. It is a way of thinking about both short-term cycles and long-term trends. Using this concept, owners and operators can reduce the risk of disruption in the face of shocks and stresses. Resilience requires cyclical, proactive, and holistic risk management practices.
The aging structure as well as the considerable increase of heavy-traffic load on Germany's motorways and trunk roads encourages the use of innovative, sound and reliable methods for the structural assessment on network level as well as on project level. Essential elements for this are data, which allow a reliable assessment. For a holistic approach to structural pavement assessment performance orientated measurements will be necessary. In combination with functional parameters as well as write-down models, strategically motivated decision making processes will be useful combined with technically motivated decision processes. For the application at the network level, the available methods for performance orientated measurements are still challenging, as they are based either on testing drill-cores or on non traffic speed methods. In recent years significant innovation steps have been made to bring traffic speed bearing capacity measurements and methods for evaluating pavement structures on the road. The paper summarizes the actual assessment procedures in Germany as well as the ongoing work on the development and implementation of new methods and techniques.
A sociological perspective on different strategies of reward in urban traffic law enforcement
(1996)
In order to enhance road safety, it is necessary to make road users change their behaviour. There are two forms of police enforcement: punishment for breaking traffic regulations and rewards for rule-conformist behaviour. Punishment does not appear to produce long term changes. There are two main reward strategies: individual and group dependent rewards. Individuals who are members of a clearly defined group have good prospects of winning prizes in a lottery. The strategy of the delegated group dependent reward is based on a donation to a social institution. Traffic safety is a conflict of interests, and game theory considerations can be applied. Results of German and Dutch studies confirm hypotheses based on the game theory concept. Traffic behaviour mostly depends on expectation of others' behaviour. Successful strategies of reward should always be based on individual settlements of the rewards. More investigations are needed. Strategies of group dependent reward are not recommended. The size of reward and probability of winning it should be linked to rate of participation: the greater the participation, the greater the value of reward and probability of winning it. Every driver has a threshold from which he is prepared to change his traffic behaviour for a reward.
The field of safety in road tunnels has always been an important issue for operators, owners and the responsible authorities. After the tunnel accidents in 1999 the subject gained however in importance. On European level the Directive 2004/54 EC on "Minimum safety requirements for tunnels in the Trans European Road network" has been published. This guideline has to be implemented into national law by all Member States. According to the guideline all Member States of the European Community shall develop a methodology for risk analyses to be applied in certain cases. For Germany, a standardized methodology for a probabilistic quantitative risk assessment has been worked out.
A very high service availability is important for the operator and for the user of road tunnels, too. The service availability of a structure is directly related to its quality. The earlier quality assurance measures are being considered during the life cycle, the better a structure of high quality can be guaranteed. Problems which occur during the operation period of a structure often result from design errors or from inadequate realisation during the construction phase. They may also occur as a result of wrongly planned maintenance and refurbishment works. Thus, the transfer of specific data, information and experiences through the whole life cycle is very important. In this context methods of facility management can provide efficient assistance when they have already been used throughout all three classic phases of a structure's life cycle - planning, construction and operation. Finally the tunnel drainage system of German road tunnels is considered as an example as practical application possibility.
This paper deals with the determination of test criteria for the durability assessment of polyvinyl chloride (PVC)-based geosynthetic barriers (GBR-P) products in tunnel sealing systems. In the project different products for road tunnel application are investigated by systematic long time storage in hot water using a new test procedure based on SIA V 280 standard (test no. 13) and EN 14415. The objective of this research project is to derive suitable exposure conditions and criteria for a practical testing procedure with regard to service lifetimes of up to 100 years. For that test temperature and time as well as the best suitable test medium have been investigated in a structured way. To verify the results of the new test procedure the material properties of GBR-P samples removed from older road tunnels are investigated. Based on the presented results of the still on-going research program some preliminary conclusions regarding the updating of the German regulations for road tunnel sealing systems (ZTV-ING part 5 section 5 and TL/TP KDB) are given.
The Federal Highway Network of Germany represents considerable fixed assets. Construction and maintenance activities not only require a high budget, but also influence the traffic infrastructure and, thus, the economy and society as a whole. The present safety of the network has to be ensured under consideration of environmental aspects. At the same time the network owner has to make sure that the civil works are carried out in the most efficient way. Considering the fact that financial resources are restricted, the costs have to be spent in a way to obtain the greatest possible benefit. This task is supported by the application of a comprehensive Asset Management, which is subdivided into operational and controlling tasks respectively. The paper describes the current management procedures.
The first stage of the work has been to collate information on bridge assessment from the participating countries. In the later stages, the aim is to provide guidelines that reflect the current best practices, a methodology that will allow for future development and sufficient flexibility to accommodate variations in national priorities as the process of harmonisation is pursued. The following tasks fall within the scope of the project: (1) a review of current procedures and standards used for bridge assessment in Europe; (2) the development of models for taking into account the bridge specific traffic conditions and material properties; (3) the use of reliability methods based on a probabilistic approach for bridge assessment including the use of measurements for updating the reliability of structural elements; and (4) the provision of recommendations for methods and procedures that can be adopted for the assessment module of the management framework highlighting where further development will be beneficial.
Germany's road infrastructure grew over centuries to become the arteries and lifelines of our society. The present safety of the infrastructure has to be ensured under consideration of environmental aspects. At the same time the owner has to make sure that the maintenance activities are carried out in the most efficient way. Considering the fact that financial resources are restricted, maintenance costs have to be spent in a way to obtain the greatest possible benefit. In the case of bridges, which are one of the most important parts of the road infrastructure in Germany, this task is supported by the application of a bridge management system (BMS). The existing German BMS contains assessment and optimization procedures on object and network level and is the basis for advancements to meet future demands. Developments concern life cycle and quality-oriented, holistically optimized procedures. Reasonable infrastructure management will contribute to meeting efficiency and sustainability objectives and to achieving interoperability. Here holistic network infrastructure management methods are required. There is a strong need for management solutions during the whole service life of a structure. The definition of criteria for evaluation of the relevance of failure mechanisms, including acceptance thresholds, requires the availability of relevant data for management procedure. Tools for innovative investigation methods and an effective data management will help in meeting the requirements. Relevant fields of research are improved maintenance strategies to meet future demands concerning heavy goods traffic, application and further development of nondestructive testing methods for efficient and sustainable management structures, and the improvement of analytic management tools to meet future demands.
The goal of the project FIMCAR (Frontal Impact and Compatibility Assessment Research) was to define an integrated set of test procedures and associated metrics to assess a vehicle's frontal impact protection, which includes self- and partner-protection. For the development of the set, two different full-width tests (full-width deformable barrier [FWDB] test, full-width rigid barrier test) and three different offset tests (offset deformable barrier [ODB] test, progressive deformable barrier [PDB] test, moveable deformable barrier with the PDB barrier face [MPDB] test) have been investigated. Different compatibility assessment procedures were analysed and metrics for assessing structural interaction (structural alignment, vertical and horizontal load spreading) as well as several promising metrics for the PDB/MPDB barrier were developed. The final assessment approach consists of a combination of the most suitable full-width and offset tests. For the full-width test (FWDB), a metric was developed to address structural alignment based on load cell wall information in the first 40 ms of the test. For the offset test (ODB), the existing ECE R94 was chosen. Within the paper, an overview of the final assessment approach for the frontal impact test procedures and their development is given.
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.
Bus or heavy vehicle passenger accidents are rare events, compared with car accidents, but sometimes leads to a large number of victims especially in rollover crash scenarios. Two accidents occurred in Portugal in 2007 and 2013 in which 28 people died and more than 50 are injured, shown the importance of the investigation of such accidents. For the investigation of these accidents multidisciplinary teams are constituted with engineers and police officers. All the factors involved are taken into consideration including road design, traffic signs, maintenance and hardware, human factors, and vehicle factors. In this work a methodology to an accurate collection of the data is proposed. From the information collected the accident is reconstructed using the PC-CrashTM software. From this all the contribution factors are determined and recommendations to mitigate these crashes are listed. These two accidents are rollover accidents and the analysis of the injuries and its correlation with the use of retention systems is very important. From the medical data and with the dynamics of the accident determined simulations of the occupants with biomechanical models are carried out in order to evaluate the effect of the retention systems in the injuries. This analysis is based on injury criteria (such as Abbreviated Injury Score (AIS) or Injury Severity Scale (ISS)). With this it is possible to determine if the seat belt was worn or not.
Since its creation in 2011 the Pre-Crash-Matrix (PCM) offers the possibility to observe the pre-crash phase until five seconds before crash for a wide range of accidents. Currently the PCM contains more than 8.000 reconstructed accidents out of the GIDAS (German In-Depth Accident Study) database and is enlarged continuously by more than 1.000 cases per year. Hence, a detailed investigation of active safety systems in real accident situations has been made feasible. The PCM contains all relevant data in database format to simulate the pre-crash phase until the first collision of the accident for a maximum of two participants. This includes the definition of the participants and their characteristics, the dynamic behavior of the participants as time-dependent course for five seconds before crash as well as the geometry of the traffic infrastructure. The digital sketch of the accident and information from GIDAS as well as from supplementary databases represent the main input for the simulation of the pre-crash phase of an accident with the VUFO simulation model VAST (Vufo Accident Simulation Tool). This simulation in turn embodies the foundation of the PCM. The PCM underlies continual improvements and enhancements in consultation with its users. In addition to collisions of cars with other cars, pedestrians, bicycles and motorcycles the PCM now also covers car to object and car to truck collisions. The paper illustrates car to truck collisions as a showcase and explains perspectives for further developments. In 2016 a more detailed definition of the contour of the vehicle was added. Furthermore, the geometrical surroundings of the accident site will be provided in a new structure with a higher level of detail. Thus, a precise classification of road marks and objects is possible to further improve the support of developing and evaluating ADAS. This paper gives an overview about the latest developments of the PCM with its innovations and provides an outlook to upcoming enhancements. Besides potential areas of application for the development of ADAS are shown.
The advent of active safety systems calls for the development of appropriate testing methods. These methods aim to assess the effectivity of active safety systems based on criteria such as their capability to avoid accidents or lower impact speeds and thus mitigate the injury severity. For prospective effectivity studies, simulation becomes an important tool that needs valid models not only to simulate driving dynamics and safety systems, but also to resolve the collision mechanics. This paper presents an impact model which is based on solving momentum conservation equations and uses it in an effectivity study of a generic collision mitigation system in reconstructed real accidents at junctions. The model assumes an infinitely short crash duration and computes output parameters such as post-crash velocities, delta-v, force directions, etc. and is applicable for all impact collision configurations such as oblique, excentric collisions. Requiring only very little computational effort, the model is especially useful for effectivity studies where large numbers of simulations are necessary. Validation of the model is done by comparison with results from the widely used reconstruction software PC-Crash. Vehicles involved in the accidents are virtually equipped with a collision mitigation system for junctions using the software X-RATE, and the simulations (referred to as system simulations) are started sufficiently early before the collision occurred. In order to assess the effectivity, the real accident (referred to as baseline) is compared with the system simulations by computing the reduction of the impact speeds and delta-v.
Causation of traffic accidents with children from the perspective of all involved participants
(2017)
In the year 2014 about 2,800 children between zero and 14 years got injured due to traffic accidents in Austria. More than 50% were taking part in traffic as active road users like cyclists or pedestrians. Within this study 46 real world traffic accidents between vehicles and children as pedestrians were analysed. In 39 cases, car drivers hit the crossing children. In the other cases, the collision opponents were busses, trucks or motorcycles. Most of the children got hit while crossing a road at urban sites. By analysing the traffic accidents from the perspectives of all involved participants, vehicle drivers and injured children, it is possible to identify factors for each participant, which led to the accident and factors that contributed the accident. The main task is to find patterns in the behaviour of crash victims (children and driver) before the collision. One important fact is that in more than 50% of the analysed cases sight obstructions were an important contributing factor for both, the driver and the child. From drivers view situations in which the child moved unexpected into the driven road lane were often found. For the injured child, factors like: no attention to the road traffic or no sufficient traffic observation were found to be relevant. Further it- possible to sensitise children and adults to possible source of critical traffic situations according to the findings of this study.
For more than a decade, ADAC accident researchers have analysed road accidents with severe injuries, recording some 20,000 accidents. An important task in accident research is to determine the causative factors of road accidents. Apart from vehicle engineering and human factors, accident research also focuses on infrastructural and environmental aspects. To find out what accident scenarios are the most common in ADAC accident research and what driver assistance systems can prevent them, our first task was to conduct a detailed accident analysis. Using CarMaker, we performed a realistic simulation of accident scenarios, including crashes, with varying parameters. To begin with, we made an initial selection of driver assistance systems in order to determine those with the greatest accident prevention potential. One important finding of this study is that the safety potential of the individual driver assistance systems can actually be examined. It also turned out that active safety offers even much more potential for development and innovation than passive safety. At the same time, testing becomes more demanding, too, as new systems keep entering the market, many of them differing in functional details. ADAC will continue to test all driver assistance systems as realistically as possible so as to be able to provide advice to car buyers. Therefore, it will be essential to develop and improve test conditions and criteria.
The proportion of older road users is increasing because of demographic change (in the group 65+ from current 18% to about 24% by 2030). The mobility needs of people 65+ often differ from those of younger people. Seniors (65+) are already more involved in fatal accidents than younger road users. According to the age development, the senior share of road deaths in the EU of today is increasing nearly one-fifth to one-third. From the in-depth analysis of accidents generic simulation models were developed. Attention has been paid both to psycho-physical characteristics as well as on the social and physical environment and their specifics in conjunction with seniors. By simulating the defined scenarios and varying the defined relevant parameters, accident influencing factors were examined as a basis for avoidance. In addition, the parameters were varied to show the influence from the vehicle, the pedestrian and the infrastructure to avoid the accident or to characterize the conditions for which the accident is inevitable.
Twenty-eight percent of traffic accidents in Japan are rear-end collisions, and of these, 13% are multiple collisions (three or more vehicles and/or roadside objects). A post-crash braking system enables the driver to stop the vehicle in a short distance after a rear-end collision to prevent secondary collisions. In this study, the effectiveness of a post-crash braking system was examined using a drive recorder database. In 64% of rear-end collisions, the driver's braking was interrupted after the collision. The stopping distance was estimated with time data from the drive recorder. We predict that the brake assist would be effective in preventing secondary collisions in 21% of cases.
For the determination of the road surface roughness common methods have been established, like Skid Resistance Tester (SRT) or the Sideway-force Coefficient Routine Investigation Machine (SCRIM). Both methods are used to measure a comparable and reliable maximum friction potential value and to assess the quality of the road surface. However, the comparison of the measurements under real conditions and the results of measurements with SRT and SCRIM showed only minor correlations. The paper shows the comparison between these standardised methods and real vehicle braking tests and discusses the results.
In this study, the mean profile depth (MPD) that expresses roughness of road pavements was calculated using the road survey equipment vehicle and the calculated MPD was compared with the real number of traffic accidents. The analysis method used in this study was to classify the appropriate clustering in relation to traffic accidents using the K-means clustering and to compare this with the presence of traffic accidents via the MPDs to derive the result. K-means clustering was used in the analysis method and four clusters were found using the clustering analysis results. The center of each cluster was 0.627, 0.850, 1.118, and 1.237, respectively. The result of this study is expected to be utilized as foundational research in the traffic safety area.
Powered Two Wheeler (Motorcycle) crashes are overrepresented in EU, England, and United States casualty statistics for both fatal and serious injuries. While regional geographic differences are evident for motorcycle size, type, and engine displacement, the casualty statistics consistently indicate significantly higher injury rates for all motorcycle riders when compared to car occupants. Accident analysis and reconstruction of these motorcycle crashes is a necessary process to gain further understanding of potential injury mitigation strategies. This paper focuses on the analysis of the rider post impact trajectory in the immediate moments following a crash. The rider and motorcycle, while loosely coupled by seating position leading up to a crash, quickly decouple as the crash forces develop. As a result, the rider moves relative to the motorcycle and relative to the collision partner. This movement, or trajectory, is primarily influenced by the type and configuration of the impact, the type and configuration of the motorcycle and collision partner, and the speeds involved. Understanding the rider's post impact trajectory will assist in the development of injury mitigation strategies. Both the free flight trajectory of the rider and the rider's trajectory as influenced by interaction with the motorcycle and collision partner are examined. Rider trajectories in full scale crash testing and real world motorcycle crashes are both studied and presented. The resulting physical evidence that can be observed by an accident analyst is discussed. The application of projectile motion physics is analyzed and the necessary input parameters, such as initial launch angle, are studied. This study will assist in understanding the post-impact dynamics of a motorcyclist, and will provide useful information to analysts evaluating real world crashes.
Cyclists are more likely to be injured in fatal crashes than motorised vehicles. To gain detailed and precise behavioural data of road users, i.e. trajectories, a measuring campaign was conducted. Therefore, a black-spot for accidents with cyclists in Berlin, Germany was selected. The traffic has been detected by a fully automated traffic video analysis system continuously for twelve hours. The video surveillance system is capable of automatically extracting trajectories, classifying road user types and precise determining and positioning of conflicts and accidents. Additionally, pre-conflict and pre-accident situations could be analysed to provide further in-depth understanding of accident causation. The evaluation of the measuring campaign comprised the investigation of traffic parameters, e.g. traffic flow, as well as traffic-safety related parameters based on Surrogate Safety Measures (SSM). Furthermore, the spatial and temporal distributions of conflicts involving cyclists were determined. As a result, three possible conflict clusters could be identified, of which one cluster could be confirmed by detailed video analysis, showing conflicts caused by right turning vehicles.
Car occupants have a high level of mortality in road accidents, since passenger cars are the prevalent mode of transport. In 2013, car occupant fatalities accounted for 45% of all road accident fatalities in the EU. The objective of this research is the analysis of basic road safety parameters related to car occupants in the European countries over a period of 10 years (2004-2013), through the exploitation of the EU CARE database with disaggregate data on road accidents. Data from the EU Injury Database for the period 2005 - 2008 are used to identify injury patterns, and additional insight into accident causation for car occupants is offered through the use of in-depth accident data from the EC SafetyNet project Accident Causation System (SNACS). The results of the analysis allow for a better understanding of the car occupants' safety situation in Europe, thus providing useful support to decision makers working for the improvement of road safety level in Europe.
Injury probability functions for pedestrians and bicyclists based on real-world accident data
(2017)
The paper is focusing on the modelling of injury severity probabilities, often called as Injury Risk Functions (IRF). These are mathematical functions describing the probability for a defined population and for possible explanatory factors (variables) to sustain a certain injury severity. Injury risk functions are becoming more and more important as basis for the assessment of automotive safety systems. They contribute to the understanding of injury mechanisms, (prospective) evaluation of safety systems and definition of protection criteria or are used within regulation and/or consumer ratings. In all cases, knowledge about the correlation between mechanical behavior and injury severity is needed. IRFs are often based on biomechanical data. This paper is focusing on the derivation of injury probability models from real world accident data of the GIDAS database (German In-depth Accident Study). In contrast to most academic terms there is no explicit term definition or definition of creation processes existing for injury probability models based on empirical data. Different approaches are existing for such kind of models in the field of accident research. There is a need for harmonization in terms of the used methods and data as well as the handling with the existing challenges. These are preparation of the dataset, model assumptions, censored/unknown data, evaluation of model accuracy, definition of dependent and independent variable, and others. In the presented study, several empirical, statistical and phenomenological approaches were analyzed regarding their advantages and disadvantages and also their applicability. Furthermore, the identification of appropriate prediction parameters for the injury severity of pedestrians has been considered. Due to its main effect on injuries of pedestrians and bicyclists, the importance of the secondary impact has also been analyzed. Finally, the model accuracy, evaluated by several criteria, is the rating factor that gives the quality and reliability for application of the resulting models. After the investigation and evaluation of statistical approaches one method was chosen and appropriate prediction variables were examined. Finally, all findings were summarized and injury risk functions for pedestrians in real world accidents were created. Additionally, the paper gives instructions for the interpretation and usage of such functions. The presented results include IRFs for several injury severity levels and age groups. The presented models are based on a high amount of real world accidents and describe very well the injury severity probability of pedestrians and bicyclists in frontal collisions with current vehicles. The functions can serve as basis for the evaluation of effectiveness of systems like Pedestrian-AEB or Bicycle-AEB.
When assessing the consequences of accidents normally the injury severity and the damage costs are considered. The injury severity is either expressed within the police categories (slight injury, severe injury or fatal injury) or the AIS code that rates the fatality risk of a given injury. Both injury metrics are assessing the consequences of the accident directly after the accident. However, not all consequences of accidents are visible directly after the accident and the duration of the consequences are different. Besides a physiological reduction of functionality social and psychological implications such as reduced mobility options, problems to continue the original job etc. are happening. In order to assess long term consequences of accidents the MHH Accident Research Unit established a brief questionnaire that is distributed to accident involved people of the Hannover subset of the GIDAS data set approx. one year after the accident beginning with the accident year 2013. The basic idea of using a brief questionnaire (in fact only one page) is to obtain a relatively large return rate because the questionnaire appears to be simple and quickly answered. This appears to be important because it is believed that the majority of accident involved people will not report long term consequences. In order to allow a more detailed survey amongst those responders that are reporting long term consequences they are asked for a written consent for the additional questionnaire that will be distributed at a time that is not yet defined. Long term consequences are reported for all addressed areas, medical, physiological, psychological and sociological by people without injuries, with minor injuries and with severe injuries.
[Introduction:] A large number of road users involved in road traffic crashes recover from their injuries, but some of them never recover fully and suffer from some kind of permanent disability. In addition to loss of life or reduced quality of life, road accidents carry many and diverse consequences to the survivors such as legal implications, economic burden, job absences, need of care from a third person, home and vehicle adaptations as well as psychological consequences. Within an EU funded project MOVE/C4/SUB/2011-294/SI2.628846 (REHABIL AID) these consequences were analyzed more detailed.
The objectives of this paper are the analysis of the accident risk of drivers brain pathologies (Mild Cognitive Impairment, Alzheimer- disease, and Parkinson- disease), and the investigation of the impact of driver distraction on the accident risk of patients with brain pathologies, through a driving simulator experiment. The three groups of patients are compared to a healthy group of similar demographics, with no brain pathology. In particular, 125 drivers of more than 55 years old (34 "controls"" and 91 "patients") went through a large driving simulator experimental process, in which incidents were scheduled to occur. They drove in rural and urban areas, in low and high traffic volumes and in three distraction conditions (undistracted driving, conversation with a passenger and conversation through a mobile phone). The statistical analyses indicated several interesting findings; brain pathologies affect significantly accident risk and distraction affects more the groups of patients than the control one.
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.
In most of developed countries, the progress made in passive safety during the last three decades allowed to drastically reduce the number of killed and severely injured especially for occupants of passenger cars. This reduction is mainly observed for frontal impacts for which the AIS3+ injuries has been reduced about 52% for drivers and 38% for front passengers. The stiffening of the cars' structure coupled with the generalization of airbags and the improvement of the seatbelt restraint (load limiter, pretension, etc.) allowed to protect vital body regions such as head, neck and thorax. However, the abdomen did not take advantage with so much success of this progress. The objective of this study is to draw up an inventory on the abdominal injuries of the belted car occupants involved in frontal impact, to present adapted counter-measures and to assess their potential effectiveness. In the first part the stakes corresponding to the abdominal injuries will be defined according to types of impact, seat location, occupants' age and type of injured organs. Then, we shall focus on the abdominal injury risk curves for adults involved in frontal impact and on the comparisons of the average risks according to the seat location. In the second part we will list counter-measures and we shall calculate their effectiveness. The method of case control will be used in order to estimate odds ratio, comparing two samples, given by occupants having or not having the studied safety system. For this study, two type of data sources are used: national road injured accident census and retrospective in-depth accident data collection. Abdominal injuries are mainly observed in frontal impact (52%). Fatal or severe abdominal occupant- injuries are observed at least in 27% of cases, ranking this body region as the most injured just after the thorax (51%). In spite of a twice lower occupation rate in the back seats compared to the front seats, the number of persons sustaining abdominal injuries at the rear place is higher than in the front place. In recent cars, the risk of having a serious or fatal abdominal injury in a frontal impact is 1.6% for the driver, 3.6% for the front passenger and 6.3% for the rear occupants. The most frequently hurt organs are the small intestine (17%), the spleen (16%) and the liver (13%). The most common countermeasures have a good efficiency in the reduction of the abdominal injuries for the adults: the stiffness of the structure of the seats allows decreasing the abdominal injury risk from 54% (driver) to 60% (front occupant), the seatbelt pretensioners decrease also this risk from 90% (driver) to 83% (front passenger).
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.
To elucidate the risk of pedestrians, bicycle and motorbike users, data of two accident research units from 1999 to 2014 were analysed in regard to demographic data, collision details, preclinical and clinical data using SPSS. 14.295 injured vulnerable road users were included. 92 out of 3610 pedestrians ("P", 2.5%), 90 out of 8307 bicyclists ("B", 1.1%) and 115 out of 4094 motorcycle users ("M", 2.8%) were diagnosed with spinal fractures. Thoracic fractures were most frequent ahead of lumbar and cervical fractures. Car collisions were most frequent mechanism (68, 62 and 36%). MAIS was 3.8, 2.8 and 3.2 for P, B and A with ISS 32, 16 and 23. AIS-head was 2.2, 1.3 and 1.5). Vulnerable road users are at significant risk for spine fractures. These are often associated with severe additional injuries, e.g. the head and a very high overall trauma severity (polytrauma).
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.
A study on knowledge and practices of first aid and CPR among police officers in Colombo and Gampaha
(2017)
Around 85% of deaths in developing countries have been found to be due to road traffic accidents (RTAs), which cost the countries around 1-2% of their gross national product (GNP). In Sri Lanka there were 2,436 deaths reported from 36,045 RTAs in 2014. This study aimed at assessing first aid and cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) knowledge among police officers and identifying its relationship to their first aid and CPR practices. A study was done on 493 police officers from Colombo and Gampaha who were selected using convenience sampling through a self-administered questionnaire. The results showed that the police officers had unsatisfactory knowledge and practices of CPR and interventions for bleeding and fractures. These should therefore be focused in their further training.
In this study, we compared the injury severity of occupants according to the seating position and the crashing direction in motor vehicle accidents. In the driver's point of view, it was separated the seating position as "Near-side" and "Far-side". The study subjects were targeted by people who visited 4 regional emergency centers following motor vehicle accidents. Real-world investigation was performed by direct and indirect methods after patient- consent. The information of the damaged vehicle was informed by Collision Deformation Classification (CDC) code and the information of the injury of patients was informed by using the Abbreviated Injury Score (AIS) and Injury Severity Score (ISS). When the column 3 in CDC code was P, damaged at the middle part of lateral side, the average point of AIS 3 was 1.91-±1.72 in near-side and 1.02-±1.31 in far-side (p<0.01). The average point of maximum AIS (MAIS) was 2.78-±1.39 in near-side and 2.02-±1.11 in far-side (p<0.01). The average point of ISS was 15.74-±14.71 in near-side and 8.11-±8.39 in far-side (p<0.01). Also, when the column 3 in CDC code was D, damaged at the whole part of lateral side, it was significant that the average point of AIS 3 and MAIS in near-side was bigger than in far-side (p=0.02).
For the avoidance of traffic accidents by means of advanced driver assistance systems the knowledge of failures and deficiencies a few seconds before the crash is of increasing importance. This information e.g. is collected in the German accident survey GIDAS by an interview derived from the ACAS methodology. However to display the whole range of accident causation factors additional information is needed on enduring factors of the system components "human", "infrastructure" and "machine". On the strategic level these accident moderating factors include long term influences such as medical preconditions or a general higher risk taking behavior as well as influences on the immediate conflict level such as an aggressive response to a perceived previous traffic conflict. This study was conducted to examine the feasibility of collecting such causation information in the scope of an in-depth accident investigation like GIDAS. Due to the comprehensive amount of information necessary to estimate the moderating factors the collection of the information is distributed to different methods. 5 cases of real world crashes have been investigated where information was collected on-scene and retrospective by interviews. The identified moderating factors of the accidents and the method for collecting the information are displayed.
Motorcycle crashes in Austria: Analysis of causes and contributing factors based on in-depth data
(2017)
From CEDATU, the in-depth accident database run by the Vehicle Safety Institute at Graz University of Technology, a representative sample of 101 crashes involving at least one motorcycle was selected. The analysis focused on causes for crashes as well as on contributing factors, but also included parameters of road, riders and vehicles. Own riding speed and "unexpectable action by another road user" were the most frequent causes for accidents. Inappropriate safety distance or delayed reaction were frequent, both as causation factors and as contributing factors. Infrastructure issues never cause an accident, but they are very frequent as contributing factors; road geometry and road guidance are by far most frequent among these. This paper also discusses accidents by type and other parameters (e.g. injury severity by body region, collision speed, age and others), and compares accident causes to previous studies as well as the police reported accident statistics.
Driver distraction
(2017)
This report for the Institute of Advanced Motorists (IAM) summarises recent research and knowledge from scientific studies about distracted driving. The report defines what it means to be "distracted" when driving, discusses the impact of distraction on driver behaviour and safety, and what can be done to reduce distracted driving. The focus of distraction discussed here relates to how drivers engage with technology when driving. The report begins with a background to driver distraction, followed by discussion about what is actually meant by driver distraction. It is then considered why humans cannot successfully do two things at the same time, particularly within the context of driving. The subsequent section summarises the scientific research findings to date with regard to driver distraction and technology, and how this affects different types of road user. Recommendations for how driver distraction can be mitigated in the real world and a summary conclude the report. Responses to common questions raised by drivers are presented in Appendix A.
From an automotive safety occupant protection standpoint, effective occupant restraint requires a system capable of providing non-injurious occupant ride down of anticipated crash forces. This is not only the case for frontal collisions, where occupant restraint is provided primarily by seatbelts and airbags, but is also critical for other crash modes such as side impacts, rear impacts, rollovers, as well as multiple impact events. In the rear impact crash mode, occupant restraint is provided primarily by the seatbacks and to some extent the seatbelts. Foundationally, therefore, what becomes fundamental to the seatback's role in rear occupant protection is its ability to contain the occupant within the seat, preventing occupant ramping, as well as preventing the seat's, and/or its occupant's, dangerous intrusion into the rear occupant's survival space where contact with rear compartment components and/ or rear seated occupants can present a significant injury risk. An analysis is presented of a series of rear impact sled testing conducted by the authors that evaluates the timing, position and extent of the front seatback's reward displacement toward and into the rear occupant compartment as well as consideration of the front seat occupant' ramping potential and its injury potential relative to the rear compartment. Additionally, three other series of testing are presented which assess various seat designs occupant retention capabilities. Lastly, a matched-pair comparison test series is presented which evaluates occupant motion in rear impact with and without use of a typical vehicle body mounted 3-point seatbelt. Discussion of restraint system performance observed in all the testing is included along with ATD biofidelity and thigh-gap considerations. The data collected and presented includes accelerometer instrumentation and high speed video analysis.
The incidence of side impacts was investigated from GIDAS data. Both vehicle-fixed object and vehicle-vehicle collisions were analysed as these are enclosed within the consumer testing program. Vehicle-fixed object collisions were stratified according to ESC availability. Results indicated that vehicles equipped with ESC rarely have pure-lateral impacts. An increase in oblique collisions was seen for the vehicles with ESC whereby most vehicle were driving in left curves. The analysis of vehicle-vehicle collisions developed injury risk curves were developed at the AIS3+ injury severity for the vehicle-vehicle side impacts. Results suggested that greatest injury risk occurred when a Pre Euro NCAP vehicle was struck by a Post Euro-NCAP vehicle. The remaining curves did not show different behaviour, indicating that stiffness increased have been equally combated. This was attributable to the few Post Euro-NCAP vehicles that had a deployed curtain airbag available in the sample. The integration of Euro NCAP testing has shown to improve vehicle crashworthiness for pole collisions, as those vehicles with ESC rarely incur lateral impacts.
Recently, EuroNCAP updated the upper legform test protocols. The main objective of this study is to establish the upper legform test in KIDAS (Korean In-depth Accident Study) taking into account domestic pedestrian accident data as well as anthropometric data to protect elderly pedestrians whose average height and weight is much smaller and lighter than other age groups, especially compared to Europeans. Therefore 230 cases of pedestrian accidents from KIDAS were investigated to explore the injury severity of body regions as well as age related injury patterns. Injuries of all body regions were examined, with a special focus on injuries of abdomen and pelvic area. On the other hand, in order to explore Korea's pedestrian accident environment, national police data and KIDAS (Korean In-depth Accident Study) data were compared. The results should be taken into account in future analyses and possible improvements, such as regulations and KNCAP test protocols, of the pedestrian safety policy in Korea.
The Decision Support System (DSS) is one of the key objectives of the European co-funded research project SafetyCube in order to better support evidence-based policy making. Results will be assembled in the form of a DSS that will present for each suggested road safety measure: details of risk factor tackled, measure, best estimate of casualty reduction effectiveness, cost-benefit evaluation and analytic background. The development of the DSS presents a great potential to further support decision making at local, regional, national and international level, aiming to fill in the current gap of comparable measures effectiveness evaluation. In order to provide policy-makers and industry with comprehensive and well-structured information about measures, it is essential that a systems approach is used to ensure the links between risk factors and all relevant safety measures are made fully visible. The DSS is intended to become a major source of information for industry, policy-makers and the wider road safety community.
In 2016 the seventh ESAR conference (Expert Symposium on Accident Research) was held in Hannover. ESAR is an international convention of experts, who analyze traffic accidents all over the world and discuss their results in this context, conducted at the Medizinische Hochschule Hannover every 2 years. It connected representatives of public authorities, engineers in automotive development and scientists and offers a forum with particular emphasis on In-Depth-Analyses of accident statistics and accident analyses. Special focus is placed on research on the basis of so-called "In-Depth-Accident-Investigations" [data collections at the sites of the accidents], which are characterized by extensive documentations of the sites of the accidents, of the vehicles as well as of the injuries, encompassing several scientific fields. ESAR aims at a multi-disciplinary compilation of scientific results and at discussing them on an international, scientific level. It is thus a scientific colloquium and a platform for exchanging information for all accident researchers. Experiences in accident prevention as well as in the complex field of accident reconstruction are stated and new research fields are added. Existing results of long-term research work in Europe, the US, Australia and Japan include different infrastructural correlations and give findings on population, vehicle population and driver characteristics, which offer a basis for recommendations to be derived and measures for increasing road safety.
High demands on exhaust emissions of passenger cars and light commercial vehicles require complex technologies. The three-way catalytic converter is an essential part of state of the art emission control systems. If a catalytic converter is damaged or its effectiveness deteriorates, it can be replaced by a replacement converter. Replacement catalytic converters from the aftermarket are approved on the basis of Regulation No 103 of the UNECE - United Nations Economic Commission for Europe. According to this regulation the replacement catalytic converter shall be designed, constructed and capable of being mounted so as to enable the vehicle to comply with the provisions taken as a basis for its type approval. Furthermore the pollution emissions must be effectively limited throughout the entire normal service life of the vehicle under normal operating conditions. In the context of the research project, the durability of replacement catalytic converters was examined. A VW Golf with emission standard Euro 4, 1.4 l petrol engine (55 kW) was selected as a test vehicle. At the start of the examinations, the vehicle showed a mileage of 75,000 km. The selected vehicle was regularly serviced in accordance with the manufacturer's specifications. No emission-relevant faults were recorded by the OBD system. The initial control measurement of the vehicle in as-delivered condition with the originally installed catalytic converter showed that the corresponding emissions of the regulated pollutants were considerably below the Euro 4 emission limits to be applied. Subsequently, an original replacement catalytic converter, which was purchased from an authorised dealer, and 4 catalytic converters purchased in the independent aftermarket, were examined. The replacement catalytic converters were conditioned according to the specifications of ECE Regulation No 103 and then measured in new condition. The catalytic converters were then aged on a burner test rig. Here a total mileage of 80,000 km was simulated. After 10,000 km and 40,000 km, the ageing was interrupted and the exhaust gas emissions of the test vehicle with the aged catalytic converters were measured. The examination was ended as soon as a limit value had been exceeded. The results of the project indicate that with the replacement systems for the after-treatment of exhaust gases available in the independent aftermarket, considerable quality differences can occur. At the end of the ageing over a distance of 80,000 km only the original replacement catalytic converter and one replacement catalytic converter from the independent aftermarket complied with the Euro 4 emission limits. With one replacement catalytic converter, the Euro 4 emission limits were already exceeded in new condition. With another replacement catalytic converter, the examination was aborted after 10,000 km ageing and with a further catalytic converter after 40,000 km ageing due to the Euro 4 emission limits being exceeded. The ECE Regulation No 103 provides for a test of durability of such systems over 80,000 km, but also alternatively enables the use of fixed deterioration factors. In practice, the durability of the replacement systems for the after-treatment of exhaust gases is guaranteed by their manufacturers. However, replacement catalytic converters are rarely inspected as part of the approval. In-use compliance provisions for replacement systems for the after-treatment of exhaust gases are not mentioned in the corresponding specifications. The results of this study indicate that the requirements in the ECE Regulation No 103 are not adequate to ensure the durability of replacement catalytic converters.
Mobility plays an important role in the Federal Republic of Germany. Motorised private transport and, consequently, passenger vehicles are the crucial factor. Vehicles should be environmentally and socially compatible yet also economically efficient at the same time. The crucial factor for pollution of the environment from road traffic is the exhaust emissions of the vehicles on the road. This is why, with the Directive 98/69/EC and the related introduction of exhaust emission standard Euro 3, the testing of the conformity of passenger and light commercial vehicles (in-service conformity check) was introduced. Vehicles already on the roads are to be examined again under type examination conditions (Type I Test) after a statistical selection process. In this way it is to be ensured that the systems and components relevant for the exhaust emissions of a vehicle will also function after several thousand kilometres. This is why the vehicles are checked again during in-service conformity check with respect to their limited pollution components. Due to the ever greater significance of CO2 emissions, both the CO2 emissions and the fuel consumption were included in this research project. For the success of such a project the choice of vehicle is of critical importance. Since this is the only way it is possible to also obtain a representative result. Therefore, in addition to the selection criteria required by law, statistical and technical criteria are also considered. The vehicle owners were selected on a random basis. All test vehicles were checked with respect to their pollutant components in the emissions laboratory in accordance with their standard. By law the same testing conditions apply in an in-service conformity check as in the relevant type approval. In this research project a total of 17 vehicle types were examined. Six types were equipped with positive-ignition engines and 11 types with compression ignition engines. Both groups were to each include vehicles of the limits Euro 4 and Euro 5. For vehicle types with positive-ignition engines, there was one type with the exhaust emission standard Euro 5. All others satisfied the exhaust emission standard Euro 4. For the vehicle types with compression ignition engines, 4 types satisfied exhaust emission standard Euro 5 and 7 types fulfilled exhaust emission standard Euro 4. Among the vehicle types with compression ignition and exhaust emission standard Euro4, there were 4 types of category M1 and 3 types of category N1 of class III. The aim of the research project is to examine the exhaust emissions in-service conformity of passenger and light commercial vehicles in operation to draw conclusions concerning the durability of engine components and systems for exhaust emission treatment. Overall in this in-service conformity testing programme, we were able, in accordance with the statistical procedure, to assess all 17 of the vehicle types tested as "positive". With the exception of one vehicle type, it was possible to conclude the random test for all vehicle types tested with the minimum random sample. This means that all 3 vehicles of one type in as-delivered condition complied with or fell below the respective limits for pollutant emissions according to the criteria of the statistical procedure. In the case of one vehicle type, where the random sample had to be enlarged, it was necessary to examine a total of 8 vehicles. Furthermore, with all vehicle types the CO2-emissions and fuel consumption (Type I Test) were determined to subsequently compare the measured CO2 emissions with those of the manufacturers. Of the 17 vehicle types examined, eleven vehicle types complied with the relevant manufacturers" values or fell below them. With six vehicle types, the CO2 emissions were more than the permissible 4% above the manufacturer- value during the Type I Test.
This study was one part of the research activities of work package 5 "Rehabilitation" of the integrated EU DRUID project (6th Framework Programme). It aimed at gathering information about the cognitive"affective and behavioral processes that participants undergo while attending driver rehabilitation (DR) programs. The primary objective was to analyze the outcomes of group interventions for alcohol offenders in order to assess any cognitive, motivational and behavioral modifications within individual participants and to identify the relevant variables which initiate and support this change process. The general methodological concept of the study was a prospective cohort design of participants of group-based European driver rehabilitation programs, carried out via a participant feedback questionnaire survey. In total N=7.339 DUI offenders in 9 European countries (Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands and Poland) participated in the survey. The results indicate that DR participants feel such programs provide strong support for their cognitive and behavioral change processes. The findings suggest that participants feel encouraged to establish new behavioral goals and the commitment to stick to them. At the same time, the participants' ratings emphasize the important role of the course leader in encouraging such changes. The findings of this explorative questionnaire survey are promising. Although it is impossible to draw any conclusions regarding long-term behavioral changes or effects on recidivism rates, participants of DR courses express positive feedback on completion of the program. The positive outcomes of the study can motivate decisionmakers to launch DR measures and to regard them as an essential part of a comprehensive countermeasure system against DUI.
The use of alcohol interlocks for DUI offenders is widespread around the world. in North America and Australia alcohol interlocks are core elements in the countermeasure system against DUI recidivism. Based on a European experience exchange hosted by the Federal Highway Research Institute (BASt) in October 2013, key features of European alcohol interlock programmes are illustrated. In addition, key findings from international alcohol interlock research are presented. They point towards a need for an accompanying rehabilitative measure in order to achieve long-lasting behavioural changes in the offender. Data from the interlock recorder can be used as predictor for recidivism risk, but also as objective data to aid counselling. Finally, an example of an accompanying rehabilitative measure, which was specifically developed for interlock programmes within a BASt project, is given.
Camera-monitor systems (CMS) can be used in motor vehicles to display the driver's rear view on a monitor mounted inside the vehicle. This also offers the possibility of replacing conventional exterior mirrors with suitable CMS and thereby implementing new design concepts with aerodynamic advantages. However, as exterior mirrors are safety-relevant vehicle parts for securing the driver's indirect rear view (requirements specified in UN Regulation No. 46), the question arises whether CMS can provide an equivalent substitute for mirrors. In the scope of this study, CMS and conventional exterior mirrors were compared and assessed in test drives and static tests under different external conditions. On the one hand, the examination of technical aspects, and on the other hand, issues pertaining to the design of the human-machine interaction, were the objects of the study. Two vehicles were available for the trials with passenger vehicles: A vehicle, manufactured in small series, which is already equipped with CMS as sole replacement for the exterior mirrors, as well as a compact class vehicle which had a CMS retrofitted by the car manufacturer in addition to conventionally used exterior mirrors. The latter could be covered exclusively for trips with CMS. A tractor unit with semitrailer was available for the truck trials. The driver's cabin was equipped with a CMS system developed by the vehicle manufacturer. In general, it was shown that it is possible to display the indirect rear view sufficiently for the driver, both for cars and trucks, using CMS which meet specific quality criteria. Depending on the design, it is even possible to receive more information about the rear space from a CMS than is possible with mirror systems. It was also shown that the change from mirrors to CMS requires a certain period of familiarisation. However, this period is relatively short and does not necessarily result in safety-critical situations.
This paper presents findings of a laboratory experiment which aimed at evaluating the sensitivity and intrusiveness of Tactile Detection Response Task (TDRT) methodology. Various single-task, dual-task and triple-task scenarios were compared. The task scenarios included a surrogate of driving (tracking task) and different secondary tasks (N-back, surrogate reference task (SuRT)). The results suggest that the TDRT is sensitive to load levels of secondary tasks which primarily demand for cognitive resources (N-back). Sensitivity to variations of visual"manual load could not be shown (SuRT). TDRT seems also to be able to differentiate between modes of primary task which varies in terms of cognitive load (visual against auditory tracking task). Results indicated intrusiveness of TDRT on primary task performance and secondary task performance depending on the type of underlying task scenario. As a conclusion, TDRT can be recommended as a method to assess attentional effects of cognitive load of a secondary task, but should be used with caution for secondary tasks with strong motor demands.
In Germany road tunnels on major roads which are longer than 400 m have to be monitored permanently. For that purpose the tunnels are equipped with a multitude of monitoring and detection systems whose data and messages are transmitted to tunnel control centres. Due to the higher traffic density, the increasing number of tunnels to be monitored and road users" demand of higher safety and security levels, the strains on operating staff of tunnel control centres have continuously been growing. Therefore, innovative approaches have been developed in two recent German research projects: RETISS " Real Time Security Management System, and ESIMAS " Real-time Safety Management System for road Tunnels. Both systems are designed to allow faster and more efficient reaction of tunnel operators in order to maintain the capacity and availability of transport infrastructures but also to improve the safety and security of road users.
The market introduction and penetration of electric vehicles can be seen as a milestone in order to reduce the environmental burden imposed by the transport sector. The wide-spread use of electric vehicles powered by electricity from renewable sources promises a substantial reduction of local emissions in urban areas as well as greenhouse gas emissions. To be a successful mobility alternative several obstacles and challenges have to be overcome first. Especially the customers' purchase decision determines finally whether an innovation like electromobility will be successful. Therefore, this paper concentrates on demand-related obstacles and barriers for a broad market deployment of electric cars. Within the Electromobility+ project eMAP these issues are investigated via a consumer survey. It was designed to identify the awareness of potential consumers of electric cars as well as give an estimate of the attitude towards this new technology. In addition to the picture of potential demand-related obstacles the consumers were asked to evaluate the suitability of various promotion measures.
In 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.
In the European Project FIMCAR, a proposal for a frontal impact test configuration was developed which included an additional full width deformable barrier (FWDB) test. Motivation for the deformable element was partly to measure structural forces as well as to produce a severe crash pulse different from that in the offset test. The objective of this study was to analyze the safety performance of vehicles in the full width rigid barrier test (FWRB) and in the full width deformable barrier test (FWDB). In total, 12 vehicles were crashed in both configurations. Comparison of these tests to real world accident data was used to identify the crash barrier most representative of real world crashes. For all vehicles, the airbag visible times were later in the FWDB configuration. This was attributed to the attenuation of the initial acceleration peak, observed in FWRB tests, by the addition of the deformable element. These findings were in alignment with airbag triggering times seen in real world crash data. Also, the dummy loadings were slightly worse in FWDB compared to FWRB tests, which is possibly linked to the airbag firing and a more realistic loading of the vehicle crash structures in the FWDB configuration. Evaluations of the lower extremities have shown a general increasing of the tibia index with the crash pulse severity.
Rural roads (highways) in Germany have to provide both high road safety and an appropriate level of service in accordance with their function in the road network. Single carriageway rural roads often underperform these expectations. An analysis of severe accidents on rural roads found two main contributing factors. First, high or inappropriate speed leads to accidents caused by the loss of control of the vehicle. Second, unsafe passing manoeuvres related to a misjudgement of sight distance, speed of oncoming vehicles or a misjudgement of the driver vehicle's acceleration capability. On the five roads where unsafe passing manoeuvres were a main contributing factor to accident occurrence, single short passing lanes (600 m to 1.2 km) were built to provide safe passing. On the remaining two-lane sections passing was prohibited by road signs and road marking. This paper investigates the effect of this design change on the accident situation and on traffic flow. The research project is based on a before/after comparison of traffic and accident data. Traffic volume, vehicle types and their velocities as well as the time gaps between the vehicles were recorded at different cross-sections. The result shows a significant improvement in road safety. This improvement was especially noted for severe head-on crashes, which were reduced to almost zero. The analysis of traffic flow on these roads pointed out that the chosen lengths of passing lanes were sufficient for safe passing and thereby reduced the need for dangerous driving behaviour. The recommendations of this research were fundamental for the determination of the design parameters of the second highest design class (EKL 2) in the new German Rural Road Design Guideline (RAL) published in spring 2013.
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.
Within the automotive context camera monitor systems (CMS) can be used to present views of the traffic situation behind the vehicle to the driver via a monitor mounted inside the cabin. This offers the opportunity to replace classical outside rearview mirrors and therefore to implement new design concepts, aerodynamically optimized vehicle shapes and to reduce the width of the vehicle. Further, the use of a CMS offers the potential to implement functionalities like warnings or situation-adaptive fields of view that are not feasible with conventional rearview mirrors. Despite these potential advantages, it is important to consider the possible technical constraints of this technology and its effect on driver perception and behavior. On the technical side next to the field of view and die robustness of die system, aspects as its functionality at day and night as well as under varying weather conditions should be object to scientific investigation. Concerning human machine interaction, it has to be considered, that the perception of velocities and distances of approaching vehicles might be different for CMS as compared to conventional rearview mirrors and potential influences of factors as the Position of the displays or drivers' age should be taken into account. In order to shed light on these and further open issues, BASt is currently conducting a study that will cover the use of CMS under controlled conditions as well in real traffic. The first part of the study will focus on passenger cars, while in a second step the empirical investigation will be extended to heavy goods vehicles, where the potentials as well as the limitations of CMS might differ considerably. The presentation will cover the first part, with regard to the experimental design, implementation and initial results if already available.
Various kinds of demerit point systems have been developed and implemented in European countries, aimed at tackling repeat offences in road transport by acting as a deterrent and providing sanctioning. The impact of a demerit point system on the number of crashes is often reported to be significant, but temporary. The objective of the EU BestPoint project was to establish a set of recommended practices that would result in a more effective and sustainable contribution of demerit point systems to road safety. A high actual chance of losing the licence and a high perceived chance of losing the licence are basic prerequisites for the effective operation of demerit point systems. For measures applied within the context of a demerit point system, a four-step-approach is recommended: warning letter, driver improvement course, licence withdrawal, rehabilitation course. Further recommendations concern issues like points and offences, e.g. which offences should lead to points, target groups, and the administration of demerit point systems. The final result of the EU BestPoint project is a handbook (van Schagen & Machata, 2012) which provides a concise overview of all recommended practices. The presentation/paper outlines how sustainable safety improvements can be achieved if national demerit point systems are implemented and maintained according to the recommended practices. In addition, potential further steps towards an EU-wide demerit point system (cross-border exchange on points and/or offences) are presented.
In Germany, courses for the restoration of the fitness to drive after licence revocation are provided for different offender groups (alcohol, drug and demerit point offenders). Providers of these courses are by law required to prove the effectiveness of the applied course programs. For the evaluation of effectiveness, the Federal Highway Research Institute (BASt) established specific "Reference Values" in 2002. The objective of the study at hand was to collect valid data in order to renew the old-established Reference Values from 2002. Additionally, data collection aimed at initializing Reference Values for drug offender programs. Over 66,000 drivers were analysed regarding their traffic probation in the three years after licence reinstatement. Offenders were assigned to an offender group (alcohol, drugs and demerit point offenders) based on the reason for prior licence revocation. Different indicators were used as criteria for re-offending: new alcohol or drug records, culpable accident involvement and repeated licence revocation. For each of the offender groups, frequency distributions regarding these indicators were calculated. Frequencies of recidivism are highest for the group of demerit point offenders. Compared to the Reference Values of this group from 2002, frequencies of re-offending increased. Conversely, re-offence frequencies of alcohol offenders are halved compared to the data from 2001. The analysis of the re-offence frequencies of drug offenders reveals an equal amount of re-offenders as in the alcohol offender group. The collected data serve as a good base for renewal of the old-established Reference Values and may be applicable as comparative data for future evaluations The results reveal significant differences between recent data and earlier studies. These may occur due to improvements of the applied programmes, but also due to situational changes, e.g. increased enforcement levels and expansion of the catalogue of offenses which lead to demerit points.
Trauma management (TM) covers two types of medical treatment: the initial one provided by Emergency Medical Services (EMS) and a further one provided by permanent medical facilities. There is a consensus in the professional literature that to reduce the severity and the number of road crash victims, the TM system should provide rapid and adequate initial care of injury, combined with sufficient further treatment at a hospital or trauma centre. Recognizing the important role of TM for reducing road crash injury outcome, it was decided, within the EU funded SafetyNet project, to develop road safety performance indicators (SPIs) which would characterize the level of TM systems" performance in European countries and enable country comparisons. The concept of TM SPIs was developed based on a literature study of performance indicators in TM, a survey of available practices in Europe and data availability examinations. A set of TM SPIs was introduced including 14 indicators which characterize five issues such as: availability of EMS stations; availability and composition of EMS medical staff; availability and composition of EMS transportation units; characteristics of the EMS response time, and availability of trauma beds in permanent medical facilities. Basic information on the TM systems was collected in close cooperation with the national expert group. A dataset with TM SPIs for 21 countries was created. It was demonstrated that the countries can be compared using selected TM SPIs. Moreover, a more general comparison of the TM systems' performance in the countries is possible, using multiple ranking and statistical weighting techniques. By both methods, final estimates were received enabling the recognition of groups of countries with similar levels of the TM system's performance. The results of various trials were consistent as to the recognition of countries with high or low level of the TM systems" performance, where in grouping countries with intermediate levels of the TM system's performance some differences were observed. The SafetyNet project's practice demonstrated that data collection for estimating TM SPIs is not an easy task but is realizable for the majority of countries. The TM SPIs" message is currently limited to the availability of trauma care services. Further development of the TM SPIs should focus on characteristics of actual treatment supplied, based on combined police and medical road crash related databases.
The 6th RFP project DRUID aimed at supporting European transport policy makers by suggesting scientifically based recommendations to combat impaired driving. The main DRUID objectives were: 1. In-depth analysis of the problem situation with regard to DUI/DUID in Europe; 2. Assessment of prevalence and accident risks of DUI/DUID on the basis of epidemiological and experimental studies; 3. Evaluation of oral fluid screening devices and cost-benefit analysis of a strengthened drug driving enforcement; 4. Development of a classification system for medicines; 5. Evaluation of driver rehabilitation schemes and strategies of licence revocation; 6. Assessment of the effectiveness of new prescribing and dispensing guidelines for medicines; 7. Ddevelopment of policy recommendations on the basis of DRUID results. All in all, the DRUID results revealed that prevalence of psychoactive substance consumption, DUI/DUID, enforcement levels and legal strategies are very heterogeneous in European countries. Nonetheless, DRUID derives general recommendations as base for national solutions.
The DRUID expert consensus established recommendations on how to define limits for psychoactive substance use in traffic. The European DRUID project established a group of experts who are members of national working groups for defining analytical and/or risk thresholds. This group evaluated the results of DRUID, scientific literature and the experience of representatives of several EU Member States and Norway in determining cut-off levels. 1. Cut-offs should be defined for the most frequently used psychoactive substances; 2. In order to achieve compliance of the population towards cut-off regulations, they should be clear and comprehensible, pointing out the risks when used in traffic; 3. Thus, the definition of cut-offs should be based on current scientific knowledge; 4. The lowest substance concentration exerting an effect on driving should be preferred instead of the lowest limit of quantification/ detection; 5. For all psychoactive substances including alcohol, the same risk should be accepted. When a country intends to determine per se cut-off levels, several considerations have to be taken into account. From a scientific point of view, the same risk should be anticipated for all psychoactive substances including alcohol. Nevertheless, every cut-off discussion should address the question if the DRUID approach, to determine risk thresholds equivalent to alcohol limits, is feasible for the respective case.
To improve vehicle safety in frontal collisions, the crash compatibility between the colliding vehicles is crucial. Compatibility aims to improve both the self and partner protection properties of vehicles. Although compatibility has received worldwide attention for many years, no final assessment approach has been defined. Within the Frontal Impact and Compatibility Assessment Research (FIMCAR) project, different frontal impact test procedures (offset deformable barrier [ODB] test as currently used for Economic Commission for Europe [ECE] R94, progressive deformable barrier test as proposed by France for a new ECE regulation, moveable deformable barrier test as discussed worldwide, full-width rigid barrier test as used in Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard [FMVSS] 208, and full-width deformable barrier test) were analyzed regarding their potential for future frontal impact legislation. The research activities focused on car-to-car frontal impact accidents based on accident investigations involving newer cars. Test procedures were developed with both a crash test program and numerical simulations. The proposal from FIMCAR is to use a full-width test procedure with a deformable element and compatibility metrics in combination with the current offset test as a frontal impact assessment approach that also addresses compatibility. By adding a full-width test to the current ODB test it is possible to better address the issues of structural misalignment and injuries resulting from high acceleration accidents as observed in the current fleet. The estimated benefit ranges from a 5 to 12 percent reduction of fatalities and serious injuries resulting from frontal impact accidents. By using a deformable element in the full-width test, the test conditions are more representative of real-world situations with respect to acceleration pulse, restraint system triggering time, and deformation pattern of the front structure. The test results are therefore expected to better represent real-world performance of the tested car. Furthermore, the assessment of the structural alignment is more robust than in the rigid wall test.
Enhanced protection of pedestrians and cyclists remains on the focus. Besides infrastructural and behavioral aspects it is necessary to exploit technical solutions placed on motorized vehicles. Accident research needs reliable data as well as national road accident statistics. Changing the view on seriously injured road users is one of the challenges which will substantially contribute to the optimization on future traffic safety. The missing accuracy in the definition of personal injury has a detrimental effect on making cost efficient road safety policy which is not only focused on fatal accidents. The European commission requested that, starting in 2015, all EU member states provide more detailed data on the injury status of road casualties, with special regard to the group of seriously injured. Conventional accident data will always be essential. But to obtain detailed data about driver behavior in real traffic situations further data sources are required. These could be EDR data, data from electronic control units, data from traffic surveys and traffic counting, naturalistic diving studies and field operational tests. Gaining insight into normal as well as critical driver behavior will enable accident researchers to deduct functions estimating the increase or decrease of accident risk associated with certain behaviors or vehicle functions. Also with view to the introduction of highly automated driving functions in the future such data is urgently needed. Computer simulation based tools to estimate the benefits of active safety systems are another step on the way towards the safety assessment of automated driving. It is now the duty of the scientific community to ask the right questions, to develop a methodology and to merge all these data sources into a common framework for the assessment of future traffic safety innovations.
The current paper reports on the results of a pilot study aiming to investigate the effect of mobile telephone use on the driving performance of 5 amateur and 5 professional drivers. Their driving acuity was tested through a driving simulator. Analysis and interpretation of the results occurred comparing the drivers' driving performance while talking, reading messages and writing a message on the mobile phone (intervention time) with the drivers' driving performance engaged in no activity (control time). The variables affected by the mobile phone were the "steering", the "lane offset" and the "duration of lane offset". Moreover, the drivers involved in a car crash in the last five years appeared to differ from those who were not involved in a crash in both "lane offset" and "following distance". The results of this pilot study will inform the design of a large experimental study on 50 professional and 50 amateur drivers.
Although the annual traffic accident statistics published by the national police is available in public, the detailed traffic accident data has not been released in Korea. Recently the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport recognized the importance of in-depth accident data to enhance road traffic safety and initiated a research project to establish a collection of the detailed accident data. The main objective of the project is a feasibility study to establish KIDAS (Korea In-Depth Accident Study). Within this project, three university hospitals which are located in mid-size cities have been selected to collect accident data. Annually, more than 500 cases of accidents have been collected from the in-patient's interviews and diagnosis. Unlike GIDAS (German In-Depth Accident Study), currently on-site investigation can"t be performed by the Korean police. The only available data is patient medical records, patient's description of accident circumstances and the damaged vehicle. Occasionally the police provide the accident investigation reports containing very brief information on accident causation and vehicle safety. In a first step, the concept of KIDAS is to adopt the format of iGLAD (Initiative for the Global Harmonization of Accident Data) for harmonization. Since the currently collected accident information is extremely limited compared with GIDAS, the other sources of data and calculations such as KNCAP vehicle data, pc-crash simulations, vehicle registration information, insurance company data are utilized to complete the iGLAD template. Results from KIDAS_iGLAD and the cases of assessment of active safety devices such as AEBS, ESC, and LDWS will be evaluated.
Road accidents are typically analyzed to address influences of human, vehicle, and environmental (primarily infrastructure) factors. A new methodology, based on a "Venn diagram" analysis, gives a broader perspective on the probable factors, and combinations of factors, contributing both to the occurrence of a crash and to sustaining injuries in that crash. The methodology was applied to 214 accidents on the Mumbai-Pune expressway. Factors contributing to accidents and injuries were addressed. The major human factors influencing accidents on this roadway were speeding (30%) and falling asleep (29%), while injuries were primarily due to lack of seat belt use (46%). The leading infrastructure factor for injuries was impact with a roadside manmade structure (28%), and the main vehicle factor for injuries was passenger compartment intrusion (73%). This methodology can help identify effective vehicle and infrastructure-related solutions for preventing accidents and mitigating injuries in India.