Transport Safety Research Centre
Key interests
Accident and Injury Investigation
The TSRC is amongst the world leaders in accident investigation and analysis, it has conducted accident and injury causation studies since 1983 and the results of its work have influenced many of the most important safety regulations and technologies.
The Centre conducts both on-scene and retrospective accident investigations across the East Midlands region of the UK and is responsible for leading the development of accident data systems to support safety policy at European level.
On-scene investigations
Our crash investigation team works with the support of the Nottinghamshire Police Force to access the scenes of crashes normally within 15 minutes of the crash occurring. The team is able to gather volatile data to reveal new insights into the causes of accidents in terms of road user decisions and behaviour, gather data about the pre-crash movements of vehicles and pedestrians and conduct structured interviews with witnesses and crash participants.
Vital knowledge can be gained to support research into road user behaviour, infrastructure performance, pre-crash vehicle technologies and pedestrian injuries. The results have been used by government to inform road safety policy and by industry to support performance evaluations of active safety systems.
Retrospective investigations
A controlled sampling plan is used by our crash investigation team for retrospective examinations of vehicles and crash scenes. Detailed information can be gathered about the performance of vehicle secondary safety stems such as seatbelts, airbags, child restraints as well as vehicle structures.
Knowledge of impact conditions is vital to the development of crash test procedures and the team is able to build a comprehensive understanding of the collision. This data has been used in support of new front and side impact crash test procedures and has contributed to the in-house crash performance criteria used by many vehicle manufacturers.
Special investigations
Special investigations can be conducted on behalf of industry, government or other safety stakeholders who wish to obtain specific feedback on the performance of vehicles, systems or regulations. These can focus on specific groups of crashes, vehicle or road user types according to the research needs.
Expert witness investigations
The Transport Safety Research Centre (TSRC) at Loughborough University offers forensic investigation services and expert reports for road traffic collisions and crash injury causation cases where expert opinion is required.
In particular, the TSRC can offer expert opinion in a number of aspects of road traffic collisions including vehicle crash investigation issues, physical evidence, vehicle examination, highway inspection, crash severity assessment (including speed), witness reporting, occupant kinematics and biomechanics, injury causation and accident reconstruction.
Through 27 years experience of real world accident research the TSRC can investigate different kinds of road traffic collisions, including crashes involving passenger vehicles, pedestrians, cycles, motorcycles, light and heavy commercial vehicles.
The TSRC can also offer expert opinion on injury causation in a number of different situations including transport accidents, industrial and commercial accidents and agricultural accidents. The collective trauma knowledge of the VSRC project team acquired over years of real world research enables us to investigate and analyse injury outcomes from a variety of different accident circumstances.
For more information on the TSRC Expert Witness Service please contact us.
Featured projects
Co-operative Crash Injury Study
The TSRC was a founder member of the Co-operative Crash Injury Study which investigated crashes involving car occupant injury continuously from 1983 - 2010.
Retrospective methods were used to investigate over 20,000 crashes with full details of the vehicle damage, safety systems, occupant contacts and injuries sustained. The project was funded by the UK Department for Transport and a consortium of industry partners including Ford Motor Co Ltd, Toyota, Nissan, Autoliv.
On the Spot Study
The Centre was also a founder of On-The-Spot study which ran from 1999 - 2010, the objective was to investigate the causes of accidents and injuries by attending the scene of the crash to gather volatile evidence and to interview crash participants.
Over 8,000 crashes were investigated with extensive details of pre-crash road user behaviour and vehicle movements recorded together with full information about the road and traffic environment. Details of the injuries of pedestrians, cyclists and motor-cyclists were also collected.
CASPER
The CASPER project (Child Advanced Safety Project for European Roads) is a European 7th Framework funded project to continue the development of better crash test dummies, child biomechanical models and child restraints. It runs between 2009 and 2012 and has 15 international partners.
The TSRC team conducts in-depth investigations of specific types of crash involving children as restrained car occupants. It builds on the work of the EU CREST and CHILD projects which together ran between 1996 and 2006.
ECBOS
The team has also conducted specialist investigations of bus and coach collisions for the purposes of developing new safety systems.
The TSRC study was funded under the EU 5th Framework Programme and the TSRC team examined UK crashed vehicles and reviewed a large number of European crash cases.
It continues to investigate crashes involving these vehicles as part of the continuing on-scene studies.
People
TSRC team members conducting research in this area include: