Abstract The Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011–2020, officially proclaimed by the UN General Assembly in March 2010, sought to reduce morbidity and mortality due to road traffic injuries (RTI) significantly. While there is reasonable agreement internationally on safer designs of motor vehicles (except locally produced vehicles like three‐wheeled scooter taxis, tuk‐tuks, jeepneys, etc.), there is a lack of evidence based interventions in road and infrastructure design, police enforcement and post‐crash care. Researchers in the field of traffic safety have been aware of the existence of counterintuitive results in their area of work for more than four decades. The fact that many interventions do not result in reductions in RTI is mainly because a large number of studies only measure intermediate outcomes like change in behaviour or knowledge and not the actual results in the field. The scope of this evidence and gap map (EGM) is to cover relevant studies in road safety sector from all countries and present the effectiveness of interventions in terms of mainly traffic crash injuries as its outcome. The interventions adopted in this EGM are classified into five broad categories: Human factors, vehicle factors and protective devices, road design, infrastructure and traffic control, post‐crash pre‐hospital care and legal and institutional framework. In order to come closer to accomplishing targets for road safety, it is important to allocate resources to promote interventions that are effective in achieving outcomes in the context of road safety. A mapping will provide a comprehensive overview of existing knowledge in the area of road safety and its effectiveness across the world. The map will guide programme managers to high quality evidence and inform targeted commissioning of future research.

Abstract: As the “Decade of Action for Road Safety” reaches its final stages, the quest to look out for the next steps forward continues. The experiences from the Decade of Action will help us to define an effective roadmap for the next decade. Vehicle safety has been one the areas that has been subjected to significant changes over the past decade with advancements in technology, especially in the field of active safety. This change in the field has been more tangible in High Income Countries (HICs). This note suggests a path to determine the effect of vehicle safety in Iran as a Low/Middle Income Country (LMIC), considering the road safety management structure of the country and introduces the priorities that need to be the subject of focus in further stages. As the “Safe System Approach for Road Safety” focuses on reducing the fatalities and injuries, the interactions between human body and the surrounding area, the vehicle becomes an important issue. Therefore, vehicle designs that meet modern safety standards, with the goal of reducing the risk of occurrence of crashes and ensuing injuries become more prominent. As these advancements in active and passive safety features are being introduced in HICs, the nature of these technologies and limited resources in LMICs, require a deeper understanding of the effectiveness of these technologies would help us set more effective strategies in such countries. A profound understanding of the causes of crashes and the following injuries, is an essential step in setting precise strategies to continue reducing fatalities. This issue has been one of the targets during the decade of action, but a structured regime with independence from involved key stakeholders, must be established to precisely determine the role and details of the involvement of vehicle design and technical aspects in occurrence of the crashes and following injuries. As utilizing advanced technologies for upcoming future is a must to enhance the vehicle safety, considering the economic status of the country besides the evidences in the trend of crashes in Iran suggest effective interventions to achieve results in the shortest time, it would be important to examine the possibility of introducing some of the technologies in the shortest possible time, for example: a. New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) ratings for new car models. b. ABS/Combined Braking systems and daytime running lights for powered two-wheelers. c. Automatic Emergency Braking Systems for cars. d. Electronic stability control systems (ESC) Such interventions can also be considered as a platform that practices the utilization of new processes in LMICs that can improve in the next stages Keywords: Vehicle Safety, Decade of Action for Road Safety, New Car Assessment Program

Title : Transport Planning and Traffic Safety: Making Cities, Roads, and Vehicles Safer Author: | ISBN : #1498751458 | Date : 2016-05-18 Description : b73bd5bf797e96ceb948d61139fcf4aa | In recognition of the importance of road safety as a major health issue, the World Health Organization has declared 2011-2021 the Decade of Safety Action. Several countries in Europe, North America, and Asia have been successful in reducing fatalities and injuries due to road traffic crashes. However, many low-income countries continue to experience high rates of traffic fatalities and injuries. ... Transport Planning and Traffic Safety: Making Cities, Roads, and Vehicles Safer

Nearly sixty percent of the world’s population lives in low and middle income countries (LMIC) and these countries include 62 of the largest 100 cities in the world. The urban growth rates in Asia, Africa and Latin America are higher than those in Europe and North America and so are the vehicle growth rates (World Health Organization, 1998). Data were collected for road traffic fatality rates for 56 cities to understand issues concerning road safety and sustainable transport issues. The results show that pedestrian fatality risk in LMIC is generally much higher than high-income countries. If risk for pedestrians is high, it will discourage walking and consequently use of public transport as the access trips are as pedestrians. This in turn will make it difficult to have cleaner air. Therefore, pedestrian safety becomes a pre condition for planning sustainable transport systems.

Traffic injuries are the leading cause of death by injury, the eleventh leading cause of all deaths and the ninth leading contributor to the burden of disease in the world. Each year 1.2 million men, women and children worldwide lose their lives as a result of road traffic collisions. Hundreds of thousands more are injured worldwide and some become permanently disabled. Human capacity to respond to this major public health issue is an important component of efforts to prevent road traffic injuries. Policymakers, researchers and practitioners need information on effective prevention measures and how to develop, implement and evaluate these interventions. There is a need to train more specialists in road traffic injury prevention in order to address the growing problem of road traffic injuries at both international and national levels. In 2004, the World Report on Road Traffic Injury Prevention was launched and identified the development of capacity as a key recommendation. Consequently, the World Health Organization and the Transport Research and Injury Prevention Program of the Indian Institute of Technology in New Delhi prompted the development of this manual to provide guidance to professionals working on road traffic injury prevention. The manual provides the user with the necessary information on: the magnitude and impact of the problem of road traffic injuries; key risk factors; the need for a scientific approach to preventing road traffic injuries and how to strengthen the evidence base for prevention; how to implement promising interventions; how to deliver post-crash care; the need for multisectorial collaboration; and how to formulate and implement road safety policies.

THUMS (Total HUman Model for Safety) [Watanabe et al] is a finite element model of the human body developed to study various injury mechanisms and for use as a substitute for crash test dummies. The development team of Toyota Central R&D Labs (TCRDL) has validated different parts of this model against experimental data available in literature. Neck response data for different impact conditions is available in Mertz and Patrick and McElhaney et al. A preliminary validation of the neck model in THUMS, against some of these tests, has been presented by the TCRDL group [Oshita et al] but no extensive validation has been reported for the variety of test conditions reported in literature. Typically, frontal and rear end impacts are of interest and these cause bending, axial as well as torsional loading on the cervical spine. A computational model can be expected to validate against multiple boundary conditions and initial conditions. Therefore, validation of a computational model (THUMS) in varying test conditions is of significance. Thus the objective of the current work is to independently investigate the fidelity of the neck model of THUMS under varying impact conditions. From the initial seating position the THUMS model has been modified to match the initial position in the tests. The impact test conditions used in the experiments have been then recreated in PAMCRASH™ and simulations have been carried out to validate the neck model. The models and the material properties have then been iterated and the performance of the THUMS model has been investigated vis-a-vis the experimental results.

Three sets of test results on cadaver knees have been reported in the literature. The existing legforms, dummies and mathematical models do not validate under all these three test conditions. A computational model such as THUMS is expected to validate under multiple boundary conditions. Evaluation of the FE model of knee in THUMS against multiple test conditions has been conducted. The FE model in THUMS has been reoriented to obtain the configuration used to evaluate knee impacts to pedestrians. The model has then been validated against the test conditions used by Kajzer et al. Strain limits are used to evaluate the injury process of knee in the simulation. The injury patterns predicted in simulations were confirmed by the autopsy results. Response of the knee FE model was also analyzed for tests conducted by Kerrigan et al. For the covering abstract see ITRD E141807.

This paper reports the rigid body based simulations for frontal impact of three-wheeled scooter taxi (TST) with a rigid barrier and those of a TST with a pedestrian in different spatial configurations. The simulations have been carried out in MADYMO. The paper describes the development of the TST model, assesses the scale of injuries to the driver, occupant and pedestrian during the occurrence of these impacts and analyses the crashworthiness of TST. It is observed that even with small changes in the TST there is significant improvement in the injury indices. It is considered that there is a considerable scope of improvement of the crashworthiness of the TST. For the covering abstract see ITRD E825082.

Threshers are used extensively on Indian farms for threshing grains, but are involved in a significant proportion of limb crush injuries. International safety standards are somewhat difficult to enforce because manufacture of machines is done at widely dispersed local workshops. Locally made machines are used for crop production and post-harvesting operations, with a great deal of manual work. This technical note reports the results of a study to develop a cost effective, improved design for safe operation of threshers based on ergonomic principles. r 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

In the last three decades, the incidence of traffic crash fatalities and injuries has been reduced significantly in the high-income countries but not in the low and middle-income countries. The traffic patterns in the former are not only different but also less complex than those in the latter. Traffic in low-income countries comprises a much higher share of vulnerable road users and so vehicles, roads and the environment have to be designed for their safety. Solutions for such problems are not readily available and very innovative work needs to be done around the world to arrive at new policies and designs. In addition to crashworthiness of vehicles, transportation planning, exposure control, intelligent separation of non-motorised traffic on major roads, and traffic calming are likely to play a much more important role.

In this Indian study, 50 tractor drivers (TD) and a control group of 50 non-tractor drivers (NTD) were selected from the same ethnic group, economic status and location. All drivers were examined clinically, and health and socioeconomic background data and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans of the spine were obtained for all subjects. The level of vibration inputs among the tractor drivers was obtained by measuring the vibrations experienced at the driver seat for 3 tractor models on village roads and farms. It was observed that the tractor driving farmers were subjected to whole body vibrations exceeding International Standards Organization (ISO) 2631-1 (1985, 1997) health limits. Tractor driving farmers reported regular back pain more often (56%) than non-tractor driving farmers (32%). However, MRI examination of the study group and control group did not reveal any significant difference in degenerative changes between the two groups, and disc degeneration levels were high in both groups. Disc degeneration as revealed by MRI investigation is not adequate to predict prevalence of back pain. It is possible that the cause of backache could lie in mechanisms and tissues that undergo changes not demonstrable by MRI and clinical evaluation. For the covering abstract of the conference see ITRD E206514.

Forty-seven tests were run in which a baseball was pitched at an anthropometric dummy head at speeds of between 95 and 100 mph. Impact configurations included impacts to the front and side of the head with direct and indirect impacts. Tests were run with an unprotected dummy head and with the head protected with various helmets including baseball, football, hockey, bicycle, and motorcycle helmets. Head accelerations were measured for each test and maximum accelerations and Head Injury Criterion (HIC) values computed. The values of maximum acceleration and HIC for the tests to the unprotected dummy head were then correlated with actual injuries received by professional baseball players (without helmets) hit by fast pitches. Head accelerations and HIC values for helmeted tests are also compared to the results for the unprotected head to determine the relative effectiveness of each helmet design in attenuating impact.

The purpose of this study was to assess, by use of computer simulations, the effectiveness of motorcycle helmets in reducing head and neck injuries in motorcyclist impacts. The computer model used was the MVMA Two-Dimensional Crash Victim Simulator. The study investigated a wide variety of impact conditions in order to establish a broad overall view of the effectiveness of helmets. It was found that helmet use invariably reduces dynamic responses which have a role in producing head injury and, in addition, almost always reduces the severity of neck response as well. For no configuration or condition does the helmet greatly increase the likelihood of neck injury. Thus, these simulations of a wide spectrum of motorcyclist impacts provide further evidence that helmet use significantly reduces the likelihood and severity of both head and neck injuries.

The load-displacement characteristics of fifteen motorcycle helmets were determined at displacement rates from quasi-static to 5M/S. Seven of these helmets had polycarbonate outer shells while the remaining shells were of fiberglass construction. The stiffness of helmets with polycarbonate shells was found to be more uniform, both with loading rate and magnitude of load, than that of fiberglass shell helmets. Use of these data to predict helmeted head force and acceleration after impact with a rigid surface is illustrated using a mathematical model.