RISER - roadside infrastructure for safer European roads

A new resource exists for anyone who has responsibility for making our roadside infrastructure safer. New guidelines, drawn up as a result of the RISER project, are publicly available and provide a rich source of information on the design and maintenance of a safer road environment

Development and implementation of the UK on the spot accident data collection study - phase I

The ‘On The Spot (OTS) Accident Data Collection Study’ has been developed to overcome a number of limitations encountered in earlier and current research. Most accident studies (such as the UK Co-operative Crash Injury Study, CCIS) are entirely retrospective, in that investigations take place a matter of days after the accident and are therefore limited in scope to factors which are relatively permanent, such as vehicle deformation and occupant injuries. They do not, in general, record information relating to evidence existing at the crash site, such as post-impact locations of vehicles, weather and road surface conditions; nor do they consider events leading up to the accident, such as the driving conditions encountered as the protagonists approached the crash site and their behaviour. It is these factors which give an insight into why the accident happened. The police, who do attend the scenes of accidents while such ‘volatile’ data is still available to be collected, tend to have other priorities, such as ensuring the injured receive help, clearing the scene to restore the flow of traffic and looking for indications that any of the parties involved has broken the law. The philosophy of the OTS project was to put experienced accident researchers at the crash scene at the same time as the police and other emergency services. The study is thus still retrospective, in that the accident has already happened, but the timing is such that it should be possible to gather information on the environmental and behavioural conditions prevailing just before the crash. This provides valuable in-depth data on the causes as well as the consequences of crashes, and allows counter-measures to be developed in the fields of human behaviour and highway engineering as well as vehicle crashworthiness. This is potentially a major improvement on the data currently available from other studies. A study of this type had not been conducted in the UK for over 20 years, and comparison of the results of the current study with those of the previous one should provide interesting insights into the changes which have taken place over that period

Interaction of road environment, vehicle and human factors in the causation of pedestrian accidents

The UK On-the-Spot project (OTS) completed over 1500 in-depth investigations of road accidents during 2000-2003 and is continuing for a further 3 years. Cases were sampled from two regions of England using rotating shifts to cover all days of the week and all hours of the day and night. Research teams were dispatched to accidents notified to police during the shifts; arrival time to the scene of the accident was generally less than 20 minutes. The methodology of OTS includes sophisticated systems for describing accident causation and the interaction of road, vehicle and human factors. The purpose of this paper is to describe and illustrate these systems by reference to pedestrian accidents. This type of analysis is intended to provide an insight into how and why pedestrian accidents occur in order to assist the development of effective road, vehicle and behavioural countermeasures

A statistical analysis of visual detection failures for active safety function evaluation

The objective of this study is to understand the visual detection failure sequences that result in traffic accidents. An accident causation analysis was used to interpret and group causal factors for 5 distinct detection failure types that caused traffic accidents. Principal component analysis was used to interpret in-depth, on spot, accident causation data. Several scenarios were identified describing combinations of context, contributory and precipitating accident risk factors. These scenarios are discussed with regards to the functionality active safety technologies and automotive systems designs with special emphasis on the driver’s needs, the safety functions needed to fulfil these needs and contextual constraints

Getting back to basics: using road accident investigation to identify the desirable functionality of longitudinal control systems

ABS (antilock brake system), EBA (emergency brake assist), ACC (adaptive cruise control) and alternative examples of intelligent vehicle control systems aspire to support the driver in controlling the vehicle and alleviate the incidents that would lead to collisions and injuries. This paper considers some requirements for such systems based on a study of accidents occurring in the real-world. While systems are rationally developed in the engineering laboratory, on the test track and through use of simulations, the need for a through understanding of the design needs as observed in the real-world of current day accidents is increasingly recognized. This paper overviews the range of data available on the causes of accidents in the UK. A fresh look is taken at some issues relating to braking by specific reference to data from the On-The-Spot (OTS) accident research study in an attempt to consider the necessary functionality of active safety systems pertinent to longitudinal control failures. The road user interactions file from 3024 road accidents in Thames Valley and South Nottinghamshire regions of the UK, as covered by OTS study, were analysed. Significant contributory factors where “failure to stop the vehicle” was identified as the accident precipitating factor were seen to be “following too close”, “disobeyed automatic traffic signal”, “careless/reckless/in a hurry”, “failure to look” and “failure to judge other person’s path or speed”. On the other hand, where “sudden braking” is identified as the accident precipitating factor, contributory factors included “sudden braking” (as a contributor), distraction, aggressive driving, failure to judge other person’s path, “masked road markings”, “excessive speed”, “following too close”, and “road layout”. Current systems address some of these issues, while possibly overlooking others; recommendations for future safety engineering designs are made accordingly

Reset to zero and specify active safety systems according to real world needs

Emergency Brake Assist (EBA), Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) and alternative instantiations of intelligent vehicle control systems aspire to support the driver in controlling the vehicle and alleviate the incidents that would lead to collisions and injury. This paper resets to zero and based on data from the On-The-Spot (OTS) accident study challenges the capability of active safety systems to aim at the sources of longitudinal control failures. The road user interactions file from 3024 road accidents in Thames Valley and Nottinghamshire in UK was analysed. Interactions where “failure to stop” or “sudden braking” is the precipitating factor are analysed and the main contributory factors are identified. Some of those factors are addressed by current and coming technologies – like low road friction, excessive speed and close following, but other common ones are significantly neglected – like distraction, failure to judge other person’s path, failure to look, and “look but did not see” instances

Towards a driver-centred brake assist system

Active safety systems relevant to longitudinal control like Emergency Brake Assist (EBA) have been developed and specified based on assumptions about the differentiation of driver’s input between “normal” and emergency events. The consequence of these assumptions is a system that does not accommodate for driver variability and can be engaged when it is not intended to and not engaged when it is necessary. The present paper presents data from an empirical study that examined differences in driver braking response in normal and “emergency” situations. 24 participants drove an instrumented vehicle on open roads and on a closed track. Participants were first asked to drive 10km on public roads as an indication of their “normal” braking responses. When they arrived at the closed track they were instructed to follow “at their preferred distance” another car towing a trailer at 48kmph/30mph. After 322m (0.2 mile) the trailer was released and automatically braked. Throttle pedal angle and brake pedal pressure were measured and foot/pedal movements were videorecorded. Results indicate patterns in driver responses that an intelligent brake system could “learn” from, in order to accommodate driver variability and achieve effective augmented braking

Exploitable characteristics of driver braking

Previous work (Perron et al., 2001) on emergency brake application concluded that driver population diversity and “the overlap of braking parameter distributions between normal conditions and emergency situations” is such, that triggering criteria cannot both detect all emergency braking actions and never activate the assistance in situations where it is not necessary. The objective of this study was to investigate driver-braking characteristics, in order that future systems might achieve greater effectiveness. 48 drivers drove an instrumented vehicle on a public road section before arriving at a test track, where they were instructed to follow at their preferred distance another vehicle towing a trailer. They were told the aim was to measure their preferred car-following distance. They were naïve to the fact that 0.2 miles down the track the trailer would be released and rapidly decelerate to a stop. The main variables analysed included “throttle-off” rate, brake pedal pressure/force, and clutch pedal pressure/operation. The results indicate a series of relationships exploitable by an intelligent brake assist system. An intelligent brake assist system could take advantage of those characteristics and adapt its performance to individuals’ braking style. Limitations of the study include resource constraints (use of a single instrumented vehicle, time-limited access to the test track)and the contrived nature of the emergency braking scenario (need for surprise element, practically a one-off study, limitation of speed to 30mph/48kmph). The study provides evidence of a background for a customisable brake assist system that learns from the driver and adjusts its full-brake trigger accordingly

Reset to zero and specify safety systems according to real world needs

Emergency Brake Assist (EBA), Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) and alternative instantiations of intelligent vehicle control systems aspire to support the driver in controlling the vehicle and alleviate the incidents that would lead to collisions and injury. This paper resets to zero and based on data from the On-The-Spot (OTS) accident study challenges the capability of active safety systems to aim at the sources of longitudinal control failures. The road user interactions file from 3024 road accidents in Thames Valley and Nottinghamshire in UK was analysed. Interactions where “failure to stop” or “sudden braking” is the precipitating factor are analysed and the main contributory factors are identified. Some of those factors are addressed by current and coming technologies – like low road friction, excessive speed and close following, but significantly neglect to address other common ones – like distraction, failure to judge other person’s path, failure to look, and “look but did not see” instances

The UK on the spot accident data collection study – phase II report

The aims and objectives of the On the Spot (OTS) Phase II project are summarised below. • The aim of the OTS Accident Data Collection Study is to provide a uniquely valuable information resource concerning real-world road accidents. The OTS Accident Data Collection Study provides the data to enable the development of evidence-led innovative policy and countermeasures to reduce road traffic casualties. • The objective of the project was to investigate 1,500 road traffic accidents in the OTS-defined Nottinghamshire and Thames Valley Police areas in order to collect high-quality crash data to improve the understanding of human involvement, vehicle design and highway design in accident causation and injury mechanisms. This was achieved by experienced researchers attending the scenes of a known sample of road traffic accidents notified to the emergency services. It is necessary to attend the scene of the road traffic accident while the vehicles, and possibly victims, are still in place to enable the capture of ‘perishable’ information that is only available for a very short time. Capture of the ‘perishable’ or ‘volatile’ information provides a more complete picture of the accident, potentially allowing for a greater understanding. Further data required to provide a complete understanding of the accident are collected later, through follow-up visits and other information collection procedures. During Phases I and II of the OTS project, the Transport Research Laboratory (TRL) and the Vehicle Safety Research Centre (VSRC) at Loughborough University attended and investigated over 3,000 accidents within the Nottinghamshire and Thames Valley regions