Potential of heavy goods vehicle countermeasures to reduce the number of fatalities in crashes with vulnerable road users in Sweden
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.55329/dpjc9540Keywords:
active safety system, heavy goods vehicle, passive safety system, safety performance, Vision Zero, vulnerable road userAbstract
Heavy Goods Vehicles (HGVs) are involved in a large share of all serious and fatal collisions. Among these, about 30% are collisions involving Vulnerable Road Users (VRUs). The aim of the present study was to evaluate the potential of Heavy Goods Vehicle countermeasures to prevent fatalities with vulnerable road users in Sweden. Both the General Safety Regulation (GSR) and coming Euro NCAP test program were taken into account. Furthermore, elaboration on existing passive HGV safety systems were used to investigate any additive benefit. The Swedish Transport Administration carry out in-depth studies of all road fatalities. All in-depth studies for the period 2015–2020 were analysed retrospectively by a consensus group of three analysts, to assess the effectiveness of 22 active and passive safety systems. For each technology, target populations and boundary conditions were defined in order to facilitate the assessment. In total, 63 fatal crashes were found, compiled of 28 pedestrians, 13 bicyclists and 22 Powered Two Wheelers (PTWs, i.e. motorcyclists and moped riders). Overall, it was found that active and passive safety technologies could prevent up to 59% (37/63) of the included fatalities. For pedestrians, the potential of improved HGV driver vision, both with a surround view system and an improved direct vision, would have the larger potential to save lives. For bicyclists where the turn-right scenario is overrepresented, the implementation of Advanced Emergency Braking in junctions and Blind Spot Information Systems had the highest potential to save lives. For passive safety systems, HGV wheel protection had a potential to save many bicyclists by preventing them from being run over. Crash scenarios involving a PTW are the most challenging to address with HGV safety systems, mostly due to high PTW speed. Nevertheless, wheel protection on the HGV could save the lives of PTW drivers, by preventing them from being overrun. The present study showed that the included active and passive safety technologies for Heavy Goods Vehicles could prevent 59% of fatalities among vulnerable road users in Sweden. The fatalities not targeted by the HGV safety technologies included in the study would need other countermeasures such as connected safety technology (e.g. V2V or V2I), infrastructure, or education.
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Author Biographies
Tania Dukic Willstrand, DuWill AB, Sweden | Volvo Group Trucks Technology, Sweden
Tania Dukic Willstrand works within the field of traffic safety and sustainable transport with her own consulting company DuWill. She has a PhD from Chalmers University in Human Factors Engineering and she has been working with Human factors research and traffic safety for the last 20 years. Lately, she has focused on traffic safety as a tool to contribute to the global sustainable development goals, help organisation to measure their traffic safety footprint and to find countermeasures to decrease their impact.
CRediT contribution: Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Methodology, Writing—original draft, Writing—review & editing.
Kristian Holmquist, Volvo Group Trucks Technology, Sweden
Kristian Holmquist is a traffic safety researcher at the Accident Research Team at Volvo Group Trucks Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden. He has a Ph.D. in Machine and Vehicle systems from Chalmers University of Technology. Kristian has been working within injury biomechanics and traffic safety since 2003. His high interest topics are within traffic safety related to heavy goods vehicles.
CRediT contribution: Formal analysis, Writing—review & editing.
Rikard Fredriksson, Swedish Transport Administration, Sweden | Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden
Rikard Fredriksson is a Senior Advisor in Vehicle safety at the Swedish Transport Administration. He has a PhD in car pedestrian protection from Karolinska Institute and holds a position as Adjunct Professor at Chalmers University of Technology. He is also a board member of Euro NCAP. Rikard has been working with vehicle safety, biomechanics and crash analysis since 1995, first at Autoliv Research and then Apple Special Projects Group before joining the Swedish Transport Administration (Trafikverket) in 2019. His research interest is broadly vehicle safety with special interests in vulnerable road users, driver impairment, crash analysis, safety system effectiveness, commercial vehicles and vehicle automation.
CRediT contribution: Methodology, Writing—review & editing.
Matteo Rizzi, Swedish Transport Administration, Sweden
Matteo Rizzi has a long experience of working with road safety related research and analysis. He currently works as a road safety analyst at the Swedish Transport Administration. He has worked with crash investigation, road safety analysis and assessment of safety countermeasures. He has previously worked as a researcher at the insurance company Folksam and as a road safety analyst at Vectura. Matteo has a PhD from Chalmers University of Technology, where his research focused on motorcycle safety.
CRediT contribution: Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Methodology, Writing—review & editing.
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Copyright (c) 2024 Tania Dukic Willstrand, Kristian Holmquist, Rikard Fredriksson, Matteo Rizzi
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