As of July 2022, multiple ADAS have become mandatory for all new vehicle models within the EU. A Master’s thesis carried out at VTT has assessed the potential impact of these systems on traffic safety in the region. The study is particularly focused on projections for the year 2030, aligning with the EU’s goal of reducing traffic accidents resulting in injuries or fatalities by 50% in that year, from the 2019 baseline.
The study focused on four mandatory ADAS (EU General Safety Regulation 2019/2144): Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB), Lane Keeping Assistance (LKA), Intelligent Speed Assistance (ISA) and reversing detection systems with camera. The safety impact was estimated based on market penetration rate estimates until year 2030, literature review findings of effect sizes, and the target accidents per ADAS.
ADAS can contribute to reaching the EU traffic safety goals
The EU has set the goal to halve the number of road deaths and serious injuries from 2019 to 2030. The results of the study suggest that the four mandatory systems investigated are likely to contribute to reaching this target. AEB would be the most effective of all four mandatory ADAS investigated, as it was estimated to account for a 5.6% accident reduction in the region in 2030, compared to the 2019 baseline. Advisory ISA was the second most effective system, bringing an estimated 0.8% accident reduction. LKA was the third most effective system, estimated to reduce accidents by 0.4%. Finally, reverse cameras were estimated to reduce the number of injury and fatal accidents in the EU-27 in 2030 by 0.2%.
AEB, LKA, ISA, and reverse cameras could, combined, reduce injury and fatal accidents by approximately 6.8% in the EU-27 in 2030, compared to the 2019 baseline. The combined impact result is lower than the sum of each ADAS’ safety impacts, since one accident type can be targeted by multiple ADAS simultaneously.
Measures to reduce road accidents with injuries or fatalities
To reach the target of halving the number of road deaths and serious injuries from 2019 to 2030 in the EU, ADAS deployment should be coupled with other measures capable of producing an impact on traffic safety. As approximately 68% of all injury and fatal accidents involving passenger cars in 2019 in the EU-27 happened on urban roads, possibly effective measures could be to reduce speed limits in urban areas and promote a modal shift towards public transport.
The thesis is available at https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:aalto-202401281961.
The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Commission European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the project Hi-Drive, grant agreement No 101006664.
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