Abstract
Keywords
Primary Safety, Benefit, Assessment, ESP, Brake Assist
Abstract
Within automotive development, primary safety (meaning accident prevention) systems are gaining more and more importance. The key issue is the identification of systems with the most possible benefit in real world traffic.
Todays accident data is concentrated on the technical and medical description of accident results. Parameters with regard to accident causation are not strongly represented. These parameters are needed for the evaluation of primary safety systems.
Accident surveys of automotive manufacturers are very much suited to collecting information about the whole accident because accidents are investigated and documented by experts of these companies. At Volkswagen accident research, the analyses are conducted by engineers, physicians and psychologists for current production vehicles.
After reconstruction of the accident event, it is possible to simulate the same accident with the influence of an additional primary safety system. Together with commonly used statistical methods, it is possible to evaluate the benefit of primary safety systems using the available accident data. A method for such an evaluation will be presented in this paper and underlined with examples (e.g. benefit analysis for Electronic Stability Programs, ESP). ESP is of special interest because benefit prediction can be compared with real world experiences. Other safety features, such as brake assistant systems, are also of interest.
Determination of accident risks, impact area and effectiveness of primary safety systems are of high relevance. This paper describes possible methods for such analyses using results of accident research. Several examples underline the described procedure.