Fitting advanced driver assistance systems to all UK cars could prevent 24% of road accidents

Proportion of contextual variables in UK road safety reports for the year 2019 in crashes involving only light and heavy vehicles (UK Department for Transport, 2021a). Left: proportion of road types; center: proportion of meteorological conditions; right: proportion of lighting conditions. Total number of accidents: 79,656. Credit: Interdisciplinary Perspectives in Transportation Research (2022). DOI: 10.1016/j.trip.2022.100670

Fitting advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) to all cars in the UK could reduce car accidents by 24%, researchers from Ireland and Luxembourg have found.

Researchers from Lero, the Science Foundation Ireland software research center at the University of Limerick (UL), Ireland, and Motion-S, Luxembourg, also found that automatic emergency braking ( AEB) is the most impactful technology, reducing three of the four most frequent crash categories – intersection (by 28%), rear (by 27.7%) and pedestrian crashes (by 28.4%).

Based on publicly available road safety reports from the United Kingdom (UK) for 2019, the research team estimates that a full deployment of ADAS would reduce crash frequency in the UK by 23.8 %, which represents an annual reduction of 18,925 accidents.

Dr Barry Sheehan of Lero at UL said: “Our research suggests that introducing ADAS in all vehicles would reduce the number of traffic accidents by almost a quarter (23.8%). In addition, accidents occurring in the two most frequent contexts can be reduced by 29%. This means a reduction of 7,020 accidents on urban roads in clear weather and daylight and 3,472 on rural roads in clear weather and daylight. »

Existing research shows that connected and automated vehicles (CAVs) are expected to significantly improve road safety, including reducing crash frequency and severity. According to the American Automobile Association, in May 2018, 92.7% of new vehicles in the United States had at least ADAS.

In the UK and EU, vehicles with ADAS, including Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB), are becoming more common. Although these systems provide considerable societal benefits, this research, published by the journal of Interdisciplinary Perspectives in Transportation Research (TRIP), revealed their potential impact on the number of accidents in various driving contexts.

Lead author Leandro Masello, Data Scientist at Motion-S and Ph.D. Candidate from the Emerging Risk Group, UL, said that while ADAS offers significant traffic safety benefits, its performance is often limited by difficult conditions, such as adverse weather conditions.

“The driving environment affects vehicle dynamics and sensor capabilities. A system that brakes suddenly to avoid an accident will work better in dry weather than in adverse conditions like heavy rain and ice, which reduce traction on vehicles. tires and can cause the vehicle to skid.

“Similarly, bad weather also impairs the ability of sensors to accurately perceive the environment. For example, a snowstorm could obstruct the camera’s vision system or cover lane boundaries,” Masello added. .

Dr. German Castignani, co-author and CEO of Motion-S SA, said road safety reports are a fundamental source of information for the continuous development of the automotive industry as they help to study the distribution of conditions environmental of accidents.

“They provide information about the vehicles and victims involved and the circumstances of the crash (e.g. geographic, time and road information). Our work leverages this data to estimate the potential crash reductions that ADAS can mitigate,” he added.

Provided by Lero