Transport Safety Research Centre
Key interests
Vehicle Safety Research
The Transport Safety Research Centre has been conducting research into the safety of vehicles and their systems for over 20 years.
Our team of specialist researchers has developed wide ranging expertise to enable them to evaluate the performance of in-vehicle primary safety systems - systems intended to prevent the crash occurring - and secondary safety systems - systems to mitigate injuries.
The results have been used to support many safety policy developments both at national and at EU level as well as providing direct feedback to vehicle manufacturers on the performance of their safety systems.
The team will conduct research into the safety of all types of vehicle and all types of road users from car occupants to pedestrians and from motor-cyclists to bus and coach passengers.
Accident avoidance systems
In-vehicle systems to prevent crashes are rapidly entering the vehicle fleet and key research questions concern the development, functionality and evaluation.
The Centre's vehicle safety researchers conduct accident analysis to support system specifications and help predict the likely casualty reduction and they conduct expert evaluations of the system interface and human-machine interaction.
Controlled small scale field trials are used to provide early evaluations of the effect of vehicle systems on driving behaviour and identify any introduced risks while large scale trials of the systems under naturalistic conditions are used to provide overall benefits assessments on safety, and measure the impact on transport efficiency and the environment.
Accident mitigation systems
Improvements in vehicle crashworthiness have been highly successful in reducing deaths and injuries on the road. Advanced vehicle structures which integrate with seatbelts and airbags have resulted in considerably safer vehicles. Vehicle safety researchers in the Centre work closely with the accident investigation team to provide detailed evaluations of crash safety systems and to measure the effects on injuries.
Underpinning the research is the field of impact biomechanics which relates the magnitude and nature of impacts to the human body to resulting injuries.
The research team is able to conduct research to evaluate the changes in the nature and severity of injuries, measured in terms of threat to life, economic cost, impairment and disability, and relate them to the characteristics of safety systems.
It will study the impact of regulatory changes on injuries and support the prioritisation of further safety measures. Areas of emphasis include car occupant protection, child restraint performance, and motor-cyclist injuries.
Featured projects
Accident avoidance systems
The TSRC has conducted a wide range of research projects addressing new crash avoidance technologies.
Using national accident data it has evaluated the impact of Electronic Stability Control systems on crashes showing a significant and large reduction while in-depth accident causation data is used to develop test programmes for active safety systems on behalf of car manufacturers.
The Centre was also a partner in the recently completed EU 6th Framework Traffic Accident Causation in Europe project TRACE. With other international partners the team developed new ways to predict and to measure the safety impact of new vehicle technologies. The project identified the most important technologies for casualty reduction using real world accident data.
The On-The-Spot project data has also been used to identify the benefits of Enhanced Brake Assist systems and subsequent user trials developed a new approach to the deployment algorithms. (Exploitable Characteristics of Driver Braking, Nick Gkikas, John H. Richardson, Julian R. Hill. 21 Enhanced Safety Vehicle Conference, 2009).
The application of crash avoidance to motor-cycles has been evaluated within the EU 6 Framework project Powered Two Wheeler Integrated Safety (PISA). Experimental motor-cycles are being equipped with crash detection and automatic braking and distance support systems to evaluate the impact on riding and on collision avoidance.
Injury Mitigation
An extensive programme of research was conducted on behalf of the UK Department for Transport to examine side collisions to cars in order to develop new test standards. The Team used UK national and in-depth accident data together with similar data from Germany, Sweden and France to identify key priorities.
The results were published by the European Enhanced Safety Vehicles Committee and at international conferences (Priorities for Enhanced Side Impact Protection in Regulation 95 Compliant Cars, P. Thomas, R. Welsh, E. Langerrand, G. Vallet, D. Otte, J. Strandroth, 21st ESV conference; Car To Car Struck Side Impacts - A Comparison Between European Accident Data and Directive 96/27/EC, R. Welsh, A. Morris, P. Thomas, J. Lenard, J Barnes, D. Otte).
The UK Department for Transport supported a research project BOSCOS - Bone Scanning for Occupant Safety. The project developed a new sensing system, integrated into the car, which automatically measured the relative bone density of the driver.
The airbag deployment algorithm was then adjusted so that older, more frail drivers would be exposed to a less severe seat belt load. Using a combination of crash modelling and accident analysis the researchers were able to predict the likely benefits to society.
People
TSRC team members conducting research in this area include:
- Nick Gkikas