FTG-S05 Benefit potential of Driver Assistance Systems

The variety in accident causation has led to the development of several different traffic safety systems (TSS) for collision avoidance or reduction of collision severity. Hence, a question of prioritisation for the market introduction of these systems arises. The project describes a method which investigates the benefit potential of different systems. The in-depth accident database ZEDATU, including fatal accidents, in Austria is used. The pre-collision phase was investigated with numerical accident reconstruction using PC-Crash. The efficiency of safety systems is calculated either by integration of intervention systems in the simulation (ESC, ABS, Brake Assist and Evasive Manoeuvre Assistant) or by subjective evaluation of the pre-collision situation. The main advantage of the presented method is that many different traffic safety systems are analysed in detail using the same representative sample with comparatively high case numbers, thereby leading to improved comparability. The present study weights the selected sample (n = 217) to make it statistically representative. For each of the selected 43 systems, the potential for collision avoidance or the reduction of fatalities is analysed. The results are compared with findings in the literature and the authors propose a prioritisation for traffic safety systems. The results especially indicate that systems effective in lateral vehicle dynamics (Evasive Manoeuvre Assistant, Lane Keeping Assist, ESC) offer a significant potential to avoid fatal injuries, in addition to autonomous Brake Assist, Collision Warning Systems and Driver Vigilance Monitoring. Introduction Due to the variety of traffic accident causations, many different countermeasures for traffic accidents have been developed and will be developed in the future. Countermeasures for traffic accidents can operate on the primary (collision avoidance and mitigation), secondary (reduction of injury risk) or tertiary (post-crash treatment) safety level of the involved traffic element (human, vehicle or environment).