Assessing Safety Impacts of Advanced Crash Avoidance Technologies

This paper describes the Advanced Crash Avoidance Technologies (ACAT) program which was established to develop Safety Impact Methodology (SIM) tools with the capability to assess the benefits of vehicle crash avoidance technologies. Four project teams were selected to develop a SIM to assess safety benefits of the following technologies: Advanced Collision Mitigation Braking System; Lane Departure Warning Technologies; Backing Crash Countermeasures; and Forward Pre- Collision Safety Systems. Safety impact assessment for these vehicle crash avoidance systems will utilize a combination of national crash databases; data gathered from previous projects, data that will be collected from test track and driving simulator experiments, and data that will be generated from computer simulation. During the first year of the ACAT program, the project teams generated a preliminary framework for the SIM, carried out detailed crash data analysis on the safety area(s) to be addressed, and began to develop objective test procedures that will be used to gather important technology evaluation data. Work focus for the second year of the ACAT program will be conducting objective tests and finalizing development of SIMs.