1 research outputs found
Reconsidering accident causation analysis and evaluating the safety benefits of technologies: final results of the TRACE project
The objectives of the EU-funded project TRACE
(TRaffic Accident Causation in Europe, 2006-2008)
are the up-dating of the etiology of road accidents
and the assessment of the safety benefits of
promising technology-based solutions.
The analyses are based on available, reliable and
accessible existing databases (access to which has
been greatly facilitated by a number of partners
highly experienced in safety analysis, coming from 8
different countries and having access to different
kinds of databases, in-depth or regional or national
statistics in their own country).
Apart from considerable improvements in the
methodologies applicable to accident research in the
field of human factors, statistics and epidemiology, allowing a better understanding of the crash
generating issues, the TRACE project quantified the
expected safety benefits for existing and future safety
applications.
As for existing safety functions or safety packages,
the main striking results show that any increment of a
passive or active safety function selected in this
project produces additional safety benefits. In general,
the safety gains are even higher for higher injury
severity levels. For example, if all cars were Euro
NCAP five stars and fitted with EBA and ESC,
compared to four stars without ESC and EBA, injury
accidents would be reduced by 47%, all injuries
would be mitigated by 68% and severe + fatal
injuries by 70%. As for future advanced safety functions, TRACE
investigated 19 safety systems. The results show that
the greatest additional safety gains potential are
expected from intelligent speed adaptation systems,
automatic crash notification systems, and collision
warning and collision avoidance systems. Their
expected benefits (expected reduction in the total
number of injured persons if the fleet is 100%
equipped) are between 6% and 11%. Safety benefits
of other systems are more often below 5%. Some
systems have a very low expected safety benefit
(around or less than 1%)