Partner News: DLR accident analysis

Date: 01 June 2007

ERTICO Partner analyses deliver approaches for Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS).

Scientists of the Institute of Transportation Systems of the ERTICO – ITS Europe Partner German Aerospace Center (DLR) have analysed more than 4,000 accidents on behalf of the German Federal Highway Research Institute (BASt). Police reports of the region around Braunschweig, Germany, give information about course and cause of accident events. Out of this, the scientists can deduce approaches for the development of Advanced Driver Assistance systems (ADAS).

According to the data of the German Federal Statistical Office 336,619 car accidents with personal damage happened in Germany in 2005. The accident cause is almost always an error of the driver. To support the driver in difficult situations, assistance systems are developed. The Institute of Transportation Systems investigates causes of driver problems and develops and tests ADAS.

The accident analyses show three focuses, where drivers need to be supported:

• Intersections: Drivers frequently don’t realise other prior vehicles or cyclists because they are inattentive or looking to something else. An assistance system should detect these vehicles and inform or warn the driver in time.
• Rear-end collisions: Rear-end collisions often happen at intersections or in grade-separated traffic, while cars are driving in a row and one of them abruptly brakes. An assistance system should request the driver at an early stage to adjust the distance and the speed to the situation on the road. It should furthermore support the driver during an emergency brake.
• Single car accident: At single car accidents only one vehicle is involved. Causes are mostly high speed, wet and slick road or inebriated drivers. A supporting system should e.g. adjust the vehicle speed to the situation.

ADAS can help to prevent more than 70 percent of serious accidents of the delineated accident types. Scientists investigate in a dynamic driving simulator, if the causes identified by the accident analyses are reflected by drivers’ behaviour. In a next step prototypes of assistance systems can be implemented in the driving simulator and tested concerning their accident avoiding effects.

For further information, please contact Birgit Pattberg at birgit.pattberg@dlr.de or visit http://www.dlr.de/fs/en/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-1218/