Potential of ITS to improve safety and mobility of VRUs

ITS Applications have in recent years assisted in reducing the number of fatalities in Europe. However, Vulnerable Road Users (VRUs) have not benefited as much as vehicle users. The EU-sponsored VRUITS project assesses the safety and mobility impacts of ITS applications for VRUs, assesses the impacts of current and upcoming ITS applications on the safety and mobility of VRUs, identifies how the usability and efficiency of ITS applications can be improved, and recommends which actions have to be taken at a policy level to improve ITS safety and mobility. This paper describes the results of the first phase of the project, in which the critical scenarios for VRUs are identified starting from accident data analysis, and following a user needs based on focus groups and expert interviews. From this basis, the most promising ITS applications for VRUs are selected according to their potential to address the specific needs of VRUs

Current and future trends in VRU accidents in Europe - why we need ITS solutions

Vulnerable Road Users (VRUs) is a collective term used to describe cyclists, motorcyclists, moped riders and pedestrians. This paper describes work undertaken within the EC’s VRUITS project which focuses on reducing VRU accidents through the use of ITS solutions. The paper determines the current accident numbers within Europe for VRUs between the years 2002 and 2012 using the CARE database. Accident forecasting is then applied to predict future accident numbers if current trends continue and no successful countermeasures including ITS solutions are introduced into the Road Transport System. This shows the number of VRU fatalities in 2030 to be almost comparable to those of car accidents since car fatality rates are reducing at a far increased proportion compared to VRUs. The results of the study emphasise why the introduction of effective ITS solutions are necessary to improve the overall safety of VRUs

A headway to improve PTW rider safety within the EU through three types of ITS

Introduction: The current safety situation for Powered Two Wheelers (PTW) within the EU is alarming. According to EU statistics, PTW riders account for 17% of all fatal road injuries in the region and twice as many fatalities per hundred thousand registered vehicles compared with occupants of cars. In recent years, too little attention has been given to Vulnerable Road Users (VRUs), including PTW users, in the development of Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS). Therefore, ITS should be developed that consider PTW riders an integral part of traffic; we focus on three systems that we believe have the potential to improve safety among PTW riders, namely Intersection Safety (INS), the Powered Two Wheeler oncoming vehicle information system (PTW2V), and the Vulnerable road user Beacon System (VBS). The present study aims to estimate quantitatively the safety impacts of the selected ITS for PTW riders in the EU-28, once the systems are fully adopted and meet selected future scenarios for 2020 and 2030. Method: An ex-ante method suggested by Kulmala [1] was further developed and applied to assess the safety impacts of ITS specifically designed for VRUs. As suggested by the method, the analysis started by determining the impact mechanisms through which the selected ITS systems affect the safety of PTW riders. Results: According to the main results, all the systems we studied have a positive impact on PTW rider safety by preventing fatalities and injuries. The greatest effects, based on 2012 accident data and full penetration, could be attained by implementing PTW2V (283 fewer yearly fatalities) and INS (261 fewer yearly fatalities). The weakest effect was found with VBS (216 fewer yearly fatalities). Forecasts for 2030, also based on estimated accident trends and penetration rates, confirm an expected edge for INS and PTW2V in terms of safety

Are intelligent transport systems effective in improving the safety of vulnerable road users?

This paper presents the results of safety impact assessment, providing quantitative estimates of the safety impacts of ten ITS which were designed to improve safety, mobility and comfort of VRUs. The evaluation method originally developed to assess safety impacts of ITS for cars was now adapted for assessing safety impacts of ITS for VRUs. The main results of the assessment showed that nine services included in the quantitative safety impact assessment affected traffic safety in a positive way by preventing fatalities and injuries. At full penetration the highest effects were obtained for the systems PCDS+EBR, VBS and INS. The estimates for PCDS+EBR showed the maximum reduction of 7.5% on all road fatalities and 5.8% on all road injuries, which came down to an estimate of over 2,100 fatalities and over 62,900 injuries saved per year in the EU-28 when exploiting the 2012 accident levels adjusted with the estimated accident trends

Impact assessment of its applications for vulnerable road users

The EU-sponsored VRUITS project has prioritized ITS applications which have a potential to improve the safety, mobility and comfort of vulnerable road users (VRUs) and performed a quantitative safety, mobility and comfort assessment for the 10 most promising systems. The assessment methodology addresses not only the direct effects of the systems, but also unintended effects and effects through changes in mobility patterns. The 10 selected ITS were: VRU beacon system, Powered Two Wheelers oncoming Vehicle information, Bicycle-to-vehicle communication, Cooperative Intersection safety, Green wave for cyclists, Pedestrian & Cyclist detection with Emergency Braking, Blind spot detection, Intelligent pedestrian traffic signal, Crossing adaptive lighting and Information on bike rack vacancy. The paper presents the quantitative estimates for the impact on safety, mobility and comfort. The outputs of the impact assessment are translated into socioeconomic indicators via a social cost-benefit analysis

Improving the safety and mobility of vulnerable road users through ITS applications [VRUITS] D2.3 Implementation Scenarios

ITS Applications have in recent years assisted in reducing the number of fatalities in Europe. Howev-er, Vulnerable Road Users (VRUs) have not benefited as much as car users. The EU-sponsored VRUITS project assesses the safety and mobility impacts of ITS applications for VRUs, assesses the impacts of current and upcoming ITS applications on the safety and mobility of VRUs, identifies how the usability and efficiency of ITS applications can be improved, and recommends which actions have to be taken at a policy level to accelerate deployment of such ITS. This report describes general scenarios for the years 2020 and 2030 providing developments focused on road safety trends over time at the EU-level, as well as mobility and comfort trends of VRUs. Be-sides a thorough market analysis has been performed on existing ITS as well as relevant trends and market penetrations, for the applications, identified in VRUITS D2.1. Information has been collected about the likelihood of applying these systems in future years, through questionnaires sent to public administrations in charge of road infrastructure and manufacturers of ITS systems

Improving the safety and mobility of vulnerable road users through ITS applications [VRUITS] D4.1 Usability assessment of selected applications

n recent years ITS applications have assisted in reducing the number of road traffic accident fatalities in Europe. However, Vulnerable Road Users (VRUs) have not benefited to the same extent as vehicle users. The EU-sponsored VRUITS project assesses the safety and mobility impacts of ITS applica-tions for VRUs. This process involves assessing the impacts of current and upcoming ITS applications on the safety and mobility of VRUs, identifying how the usability and efficiency of ITS applications can be improved and recommending which actions have to be taken at a policy level to accelerate de-ployment of such ITS. This deliverable reports the work performed during the second period of activity focusing on a number of selected existing ITS which are already present on the market. In particular, user-acceptance and usability of existing ITS services for VRUs, have been assessed, focusing on comfort/mobility and ef-fectiveness of related information (the HMI) for special user groups, such as elderly subjects. In Chapter 1 the Project and the objectives of the deliverable are described. The concept of the Vul-nerable Road Users and ITS interfaces are then presented. In chapter 2 the method for evaluation and screening of existing ITS systems is described. The usabil-ity assessment has been performed by experts, which were provided a detailed description of several ITS systems for VRUs. Starting from the inventory of ITS systems in D2.1, the most suitable systems for usability assessment were selected. The selection of the ITS systems to be assessed has been conducted following the feedback received from the activity carried out in WP 2. A questionnaire has been developed for the evaluation of interfaces, based on the literature work already carried out in the past. The selected ITS systems have been studied in detail in order to develop sufficient material to distrib-ute to interviewees together with the questionnaire. This aimed to support the interface usability pro-cess even in situations where the actual systems were not available. The 4 selected systems are mainly dedicated to pedestrians, drivers of PTWs, cyclists and drivers, and are: Intelligent pedestrian traffic signal Cyclist digital rear-view mirror PTW oncoming vehicle information assistance system Blind spot detection system his process led to the development of a substantial amount of material and information (mainly in the form of links to video and on-line demonstrations of ITS) that were made available to interviewees to support their evaluation process. The complete set of material, i.e., the questionnaire and supporting material, for 4 different ITS have been distributed to a number of interviewees. In Chapter 3 the VRUITS questionnaire used for usability is presented and explained together with the data collection findings. Chapter 4 discusses the actual survey results about ITS usability. A total of 152 individual replies were collected, and each of the system was assessed by 35-42 persons. This data has been collected and analysed, utilising standard statistical tools, mainly SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) for data mining and data analysis. Finally Chapter 5 and 6 a discussion about the results as well as the research conclusions are report-ed. The overall findings of the investigation revealed that it was possible to discriminate and identify areas of improvement for usability issues on all the four ITS systems under investigation. In general, the results revealed common usability patterns across the four ITS systems. In particular, the Perception of risk avoidance (given by the ITS system) and Communication of Risk (risk warning by the ITS) were rated the best usability properties of the various ITS systems. Providing feed-forward information about incoming hazardous situations and subsequent appropriate perception of risk avoid-ance are the best properties among all the four ITS systems. Also, the highest rated usability features across all ITS systems were the clarity of the system functions (Explicitness), the way the systems work and operate (Functionality) and the degree of control by the user (User Control). Some major areas of improvement were revealed also. Firstly, the lowest rated usability features across all four ITS systems were System Monitoring, Flexibility and Consistency. This latter finding could suggests the evidence that all four ITS systems might need more focus on adaptability to road context, consistency of functions in difficult weather conditions and finally a more active monitoring of human behaviour in response to the ITS (where this is applicable). Secondly, Trust in the ITS system, and the perception of Safety Improvement revealed to be weak ITS properties overall. Some work on trust in safety and ITS automation and safety improvement perception (in using such systems) could be brought forward as the aim of the ITS system for VRUs is exactly to increase Safety. In fact, a user attitude of trust in the systems and belief that such systems could improve their safety is a substantial desirable scenario to strive for. Notably, younger people (62). Nevertheless the rating is on the same direction for both sub-samples of respondents. Finally, the replies from experts in the sample did not differ from the overall group for the general usability and the for usability scales except for minor differences

Improving the safety and mobility of vulnerable road users through ITS applications [VRUITS] D2.2 assessment methodology

ITS Applications have in recent years assisted in reducing the number of fatalities in Europe. However, Vulnerable Road Users (VRUs) have not benefited as much as vehicle users. The EU-sponsored VRUITS project assesses the safety and mobility impacts of ITS applications for VRUs, assesses the impacts of current and upcoming ITS applications on the safety and mobility of VRUs, identifies how the usability and efficiency of ITS applications can be improved, and recommends which actions have to be taken at a policy level to accelerate deployment of such ITS. This deliverable reports on the needed modification and development of methodologies to assess the impacts of ITS applications for VRUs in the domains of safety, mobility and comfort and cost-benefit analysis (CBA). Safety assessment estimates the potential reduction in fatalities and injuries to VRU as a result of ITS applications for VRUs. Mobility and comfort are relatively new impact areas for study. The definition of mobility used in VRUITS is: Mobility is considered any form of outside (out of house) movement based on the identified soft transport modes: walking, cycling or motorcycling. These forms of movement are defined by trips from a starting point to a destination in order to conduct an out of house activity. Thus, the mobility impact assessment investigates the changes in the movement out of house (trips, length of trips, etc.) that are the result of the use of an ITS applications for VRUs. VRUITS uses the definition of comfort from Slater: “(...) a pleasant state of physiological, psychological, and physical harmony between a human being and the environment” (Slater, 1985: p. 4). Thus, the challenge in VRUITS is to assess comfort impacts as a result of the use of ITS applications by VRUs. Finally, the CBA monetises the quantified impacts (safety, mobility and comfort) to calculate the Benefit-Cost ratios. An analysis of the sub-groups of VRUs, presented in this report, forms the basis for determining which criteria the impact assessment methodologies must meet. This analysis also illuminates the data necessary as inputs to the impact assessment methodologies. For each impact assessment area, the state-of-the-art is presented. Each impact assessment area describes the required modifications to the methodology selected for use in the VRUITS project, to meet the demands of the VRU sub-groups as well as the ITS applications selected for analysis in the VRUITS project

Improving the safety and mobility of vulnerable road users through ITS applications [VRUITS] D7.3 Final Exploitation Plan

This document is the final version of the “Final Exploitation Plan” as created in WP7: Dissemination and Exploitation. The document gives an overview of the exploitable results of the project, analyses the stakeholders interested in the results, and gives the preliminary plans for several partners to ex-ploit the results. Chapter 2 briefly gives an overview of the project results as produced in the other work packages. Chapter 3 lists the stakeholders of the VRUITS project result exploitation. Based on these chapters, in chapter 4 the exploitation details are explored based on three target areas for exploitation of the re-sults; being industrial activities, academic interests, and regulatory norms and standards. From the perspective of industrial activities, one of the benefits of the VRUITS project is the extensive cost-benefit analysis, which can guide specific development activities. In the conclusion, a link is made to the Impact Analysis describing a collection of systems with a positive benefit-cost ratio, as potential starting point for such development activities. Combined with the results from the pilots in the Nether-lands and Spain this leads to technical research and developments for devices specifically targeting vulnerable road users. Examples mentioned of concrete developments triggered by the VRUITS pro-ject include technologies for portable beacons for VRU’s, and VRU-prepared traffic management equipment. From the academic point of view, the expertise gained will be used by the partners through scientific publications, offered as expertise in future offerings, and used when developing future products. The pilot analysis and measurement tools as created in WP3 and WP4 will not be offered as separate products, but these and the setup and results as reported in WP5 also can be used in subsequent (fol-low-up) projects. Norms and standards are relevant for all stake holders, as to enable a sufficiently large market to make developments economically feasible. The VRUITS project has triggered several initiatives with respect to standardisation, however the process of standardisation will continue beyond the life time of the VRUITS project. Here both follow-up projects (e.g. XCYCLE) and industry interest are expected to be sufficient to drive the progress of the standards beyond VRUITS. Next to norms and standards, also other actions at EU level are identified in the VRUITS project, helping towards exploitation of the VRUITS results. These are not covered in this deliverable, but are detailed in deliverable D6.2 “Rec-ommendations for actions at EU level and their assessment”