3 research outputs found
MUNDS: a new approach to evaluating safety technologies
Real-world evaluations of the safety benefits of
new integrated safety technologies are hampered by
the lack of sufficient data to assess early reliable
benefits. To address this, a new approach was
developed using a case-control, meta-analysis of
coordinated national police data from Australia,
Finland, Italy, New Zealand, Sweden and the UK,
in assessing the benefits of Electronic Stability
Control (ESC). The results showed that singlevehicle
injury crash reductions varied between 21%
and 54%, dependent on the speed zone of the crash
and the road condition (significantly more effective
in wet/icy road conditions than dry roads). For
injury crashes involving more than one vehicle,
ESC was twice as effective preventing crashes in
high speed than lower speed zones. The findings
using this new approach were consistent with those
published by various equivalent individual studies,
bearing in mind their wider international scope in
terms of driving conditions and vehicle fleets
studied. It was concluded that this new approach
using a “prospective” meta-analysis method has the
potential to expedite the process of evaluating
emerging vehicle safety technologies that would
otherwise be subject to much greater delays before
sufficient evidence could be collected
Evaluation of the benefits of vehicle safety technology: the MUNDS study
Real-world retrospective evaluation of the safety benefits of new integrated safety technologies is hampered by the lack of sufficient data to assess early reliable benefits. This MUNDS study set out to examine if a “prospective” case-control meta-analysis had the potential to provide more rapid and rigorous analyses of vehicle and infrastructure safety improvements. To examine the validity of the approach, an analysis of the effectiveness of ESC using a consistent analytic strategy across 6 European and Australasian databases was undertaken. It was hypothesised that the approach would be valid if the results of the MUNDS analysis were consistent with those published earlier (this would confirm the suitability of the MUNDS approach). The findings confirm the hypothesis and also found stronger and more robust findings across the range of crash-types, road conditions, vehicle sizes and speed zones than previous. The study recommends that while a number of limitations were identified with the findings that need be addressed in future research, the MUNDS approach nevertheless should be adopted widely for the benefit of all vehicle occupants
Effectiveness of low speed autonomous emergency braking in real-world rear-end crashes
This study set out to evaluate the effectiveness of low speed autonomous emergency braking
(AEB) technology in current model passenger vehicles, based on real-world crash experience. The
Validating Vehicle Safety through Meta-Analysis (VVSMA) group comprising a collaboration of
government, industry consumer organisations and researchers, pooled data from a number of
countries using a standard analysis format and the established MUND approach. Induced exposure
methods were adopted to control for any extraneous effects. The findings showed a 38 percent overall
reduction in rear-end crashes for vehicles fitted with AEB compared to a comparison sample of similar
vehicles. There was no statistical evidence of any difference in effect between urban (≤60km/h) and
rural (>60km/h) speed zones. Areas requiring further research were identified and widespread
fitment through the vehicle fleet is recommended