The European road safety decision support system on risks and measures.

The European Road Safety Decision Support System (roadsafety-dss.eu) is an innovative system providing the available evidence on a broad range of road risks and possible countermeasures. This paper describes the scientific basis of the DSS. The structure underlying the DSS consists of (1) a taxonomy identifying risk factors and measures and linking them to each other, (2) a repository of studies, and (3) synopses summarizing the effects estimated in the literature for each risk factor and measure, and (4) an economic efficiency evaluation instrument (E3-calculator). The DSS is implemented in a modern web-based tool with a highly ergonomic interface, allowing users to get a quick overview or go deeper into the results of single studies according to their own needs.

Driving style indicator using UDRIVE NDS data.

OBJECTIVE: In order to analyze specific events while driving (such as a safety critical event [SCE] or secondary task), we were interested in studying whether driving behavior was unusual around the event. An indicator characterizing driving style (driving style indicator [DSI]) was estimated for each driver by using naturalistic data. The analysis of the gap in driving style could be calculated for a specific trip or even a time window and could help characterize events: a more risky situation when DSI was above average, increase in safety margins when under average. METHODS: Lateral acceleration and longitudinal acceleration were used for DSI calculation. The first step consisted in filtering the signal acquired by the inertial measurement unit (60 Hz). The noise was filtered out with an eighth order, phase-compensated digital low-pass Butterworth filter with a cut-out frequency of 5 Hz and offsets were compensated for. The second step consisted in calculating the jerk of the acceleration in lateral and longitudinal directions for each trip. The third step summarized the distribution of these jerks for all trips of each driver. Finally, the DSI was defined as the standard deviation of this distribution. A driver was represented by lateral DSI and longitudinal DSI. RESULTS: The indicator was used on French pilot data (10 drivers) and on UK data (30 drivers) from the UDRIVE project. To assess this indicator, tests on track were conducted by professional drivers simulating two opposite driving style. The first results were promising and discriminated a smooth from a rough driving style. Indeed, in the pilot data, the classification was in accordance with our expectations and confirmed by videos. The same kind of distribution was observed in the UK data and needs to be confirmed when the UDRIVE database is complete. CONCLUSION: DSI is a new parameter that will be used to define clusters of drivers and study variation of driving parameters in each class during selected events (SCE, secondary task, etc.) in the UDRIVE project.

A comprehensive overview of the frequency and the severity of injuries sustained by car occupants and subsequent implications in terms of injury prevention.

The objective of the paper is to give an overview of the road injuries issues in France in the 2010's by determining the frequency and the severity of injuries sustained by car occupants, and to infer the implications in terms of vehicule safety. Three types of analysis are conducted. First, we present a time series analysis at a macro statistical level showing a dramatic decrease of injured and fatally injured occupants in passenger cars compared to other modes of road transport. Secondly, we propose a descriptive statistical analysis of the injuries (frequency and severity) sustained by car occupants, by body regions, using the AIS. Finally we propose some insights into the effectiveness of some safety features. French National crash census (BAAC) is used for a general overview of injury frequencies and raw severity scores (fatal, hospitalized, slighty injured) in car crashes. In-depth crash investigations data are used to specify the body regions and the severity of the injuries sustained by car occupants. Data show that car occupants mortality and morbidity decreased more over the last decade than other road modes: -58 % fatalities and -64 % hospitalized (compared to -39% and -55% for pedestrians, and -21% and -44% for motorcyclists for example). In crashes for which at least one person has been injured, 19 % of occupants are uninjured, 49 % of occupants sustain MAIS 1 injuries, 15 % MAIS2, 8% MAIS 3, and 9 % MAIS 4+. Regardless of seat belt use, the body regions most often injured are head, upper and lower extremities and thorax. However, at least two third up to 92% of involved persons sustain no injury at each of these body regions. The frequency of severe injuries is low, often less than 10 % and concern head and thorax mainly. Finally, the frequency and severity of injuries decrease for belted occupants in newer cars compared to older cars, whatever body regions. The frequency of severe injuries decreased by almost 50 % in these newer cars.

How Safe is Vehicle Safety? The Contribution of Vehicle Technologies to the Reduction in Road Casualties in France from 2000 to 2010.

In France, over the last 10 years, road fatalities have decreased dramatically by 48%. This reduction is somewhat close to the target fixed by the European Commision in 2001 for the whole of Europe (-50 %). According to the French govnerment, 75% of this reduction was due to the implementation of automatic speed cameras on the roadsides from 2003 onwards. Yet, during this period, there was also a significantly increase in safety technology, new regulations in front and side impacts, and developments in Euro NCAP to improve passive safety in the vehicles. This paper set out to estimate the extent that vehicle safety technologies contributed to the road safety benefits over this decade. Using a combination of databases and fitment rates, the number of fatalities and hospitalized injuries saved in passenger car crashes was estimated for a number of safety technologies, individually and as a package including a 5 star EuroNCAP rating. The additional benefits from other public safety measures were also similarly estimated. The results showed that overall safety measures during this decade saved 240,676 fatalities + serious injuries, of which 173,663 were car occupants. Of these, 27,365 car occupants and 1,083 pedestrian savings could be attributed directly to vehicle safety improvements (11% overall). It was concluded that while public safety measures were responsible for the majority of the savings, enhanced vehicle safety technologies also made a significant improvement in the road toll in France during the last decade. As the take-up rate for these technologies improves, is expected to continue to provide even more benefits in the next 10-year period.

The evaluation of the safety benefits of combined passive and on-board active safety applications.

One of the objectives of the European TRACE project (TRaffic Accident Causation in Europe, 2006-2008) was to estimate the proportion of injury accidents that could be avoided and/or the proportion of injury accidents where the severity could be mitigated for on-the-market safety applications, if 100 % of the car fleet would be equipped with them. We have selected for evaluation the Electronic Stability Control (ESC) and the Emergency Brake Assist (EBA) applications. As for passive safety systems, recent cars are designed to offer overall safety protection. Car structure, load limiters, front airbags, side airbags, knee airbags, pretensioners, padding and non aggressive structures in the door panel, the dashboard, the windshield, the seats, and the head rest also contribute to applying more protection. The whole safety package is very difficult to evaluate separately, one element independently segmented from the others. We decided to consider evaluating the effectiveness of the whole passive safety package, This package,, for the sake of simplicity, was the number of stars awarded at the Euro NCAP testing. The challenges were to compare the effectiveness of some safety configuration SC I, with the effectiveness of a different safety configuration SC II. A safety configuration is understood as a package of safety functions. Ten comparisons have been carried out such as the evaluation of the safety benefit of a fifth star given that the car has four stars and an EBA. The main outcome of this analysis is that any addition of a passive or active safety function selected in this analysis is producing increased safety benefits. For example, if all cars were five stars fitted with EBA and ESC, instead of four stars without ESC and EBA, injury accidents would be reduced by 47.2% for severe injuries and 69.5% for fatal injuries.