Evaluation of the effectiveness of active safety systems in vans with respect to real world accident analysis

Abstract

This paper belongs to "F08: Vehicle Controls on Handling and Stability" topic. It is aimed to assess the potential influence of three active safety systems - the Antilock Brake System (ABS), the Brake Assist System (BAS) and the Electronic Stability Programme (ESP) - in collisions with vans involved, through the analysis of fatal real world accidents occurred in Spain. The methodology follows during this study is based on a retrospective accident analysis of the technical reports of the Spanish Traffic Directorate (DGT). A detailed database has been compiled by the INSIA - UPM accident analysis department, comprising 254 fatal accidents with vans involved, occurred in rural roads during 2009 and 2010. In case of fatal accidents, these reports prepared by the Spanish Traffic Police show a high quality data. This information has been analysed to identify major accidents and causes of accidents (HFF method), in order to identify reference accident scenarios, which take into account the active safety systems proposed. A sample of these accidents, selected from the most representative scenarios, has been re-analyzed and re-evaluated considering the assumed effect of each specific active safety system. Although the performance of active safety systems explains basically their behaviour in test conditions, they are not sufficient to assess their success in each real world situation. Active Safety systems interact with the driver, the vehicle and the environment. A full forecast of their potential is only possible by modelling the driver-vehicle-system-environment. This methodology has already been applied by authors to evaluate the effectiveness of active safety systems in case of pedestrian accidents. This study continues the same research line based on real world accidents analysis, applied to accidents involving vans. The findings show that a number of the collisions could have been avoided by implementing these systems. Even though comprising a small number of cases, it is an invaluable resource for monitoring real world performance of active safety systems. © Springer-Verlag 2013.