OBJECTIVE:This paper set out to investigate and compare injury outcomes among motorcyclists injured in crashes into different types of road barriers, and if Motorcycle Protection Systems (MPS) installed on barriers result in any injury mitigation in real-life conditions. METHODS:Information on motorcyclist crashes involving roadside barriers was accessed from two different databases, the Swedish Traffic Accident Data Acquisition, a national information system containing data on traffic accidents and injuries occurring in the Swedish road transport system, and the Transport Accident Commission injury database in Victoria, Australia. Barrier types and the presence of MPS were determined by using photographs of the reported crash site available in the Google Maps Street view feature. Injury outcome was compared using three different injury severity metrics, Fatal and Serious Injury ratios (FSI-ratio), Maximum Abbreviated Injury Scale (MAIS) and mean Risk of Permanent Medical Impairment (RPMI) of at least 1% (mRPMI 1%+) and at least 10% (mRPMI 10%+). RESULTS:No significant differences were observed between different types of barriers, for any of the injury metrics. In Sweden, FSI ratios varied between 49-60% in speed limits ≥70 km/h. In Victoria the number of minor injuries was underreported, resulting in higher FSI ratio varying between 73-89% in speed limits ≥80 km/h. The analysis of MPS showed that there was a significant difference in the fatality risk where significantly fewer motorcyclists were fatally injured in a crash involving a barrier with MPS compared to a barrier without MPS. This difference was observed in curves on roads with a speed limit ≥70 km/h. CONCLUSIONS:The risk of fatal or serious injury is generally higher for crashes involving road barriers, compared to all crash types. No significant difference in injury outcome was observed between different types of barriers at speed limits ≥70 km/h. In curves on roads with a speed limit ≥70 km/h, MPS results in a significantly lower risk of fatality, compared to a barrier without MPS.

This was the first retrospective study to estimate the effect of increased pedestrian protection, autonomous emergency braking, and speed management to reduce serious injuries among pedestrians and bicyclists. More specifically, the aim was to estimate the injury mitigating effects of the following interventions: AEB with pedestrian and bicyclist detection, Euro NCAP pedestrian test score, active bonnet, traffic calming at pedestrian and bicycle crossings, and additionally, the combined effect of the above-mentioned treatments. The main source of data was the Swedish traffic data acquisition system (Strada), where information of road traffic crashes between passenger cars and pedestrians or bicyclists for the period 1 January 2003–31 December 2022 was obtained. Cars with optional fitment of AEB systems were identified, and the license registration number was used to access individual car equipment lists to identify whether the vehicle was equipped with AEB with pedestrian and/or cyclist detection. Information about traffic calming at pedestrian and bicycle crossings was obtained from the Swedish Transport Administration. The injury metric used was risk of permanent medical impairment (RPMI) of at least one percent and ten percent. RPMI captures the risk of long-term medical impairment based on a diagnosed injury location and Abbreviated Injury Severity (AIS) score. The relative difference between the mean values of RPMI (mRPMI1%+ and mRPMI10%+) was calculated and tested using an independent two sample t-test which was conducted for unequal sample sizes and variance. Although many results were found to be statistically non-significant, the following results were found to be significant at least at 90% level. Pedestrian mRPMI10%+ was reduced by 44% in speed zones ≤ 50 km/h comparing the group struck by cars equipped with AEB with pedestrian detection compared to the group struck by cars without the system. For cyclists, the mRPMI10%+ was reduced by 35% in speed zones ≤ 50 km/h. For crashes within ± 20 meters from a pedestrian or bicycle crossing, the AEB system reduced 60% of pedestrians mRPMI10%+ at crossings with good safety standard compared to crossings of poor safety standard. The comparison of cars with poor performance (1–9 points) in the NCAP pedestrian test and cars with a high score (28–36 points) showed that pedestrian mRPMI10%+ was reduced by 48% across all speed limits, and by 64% including only those aged ≤ 64 years. For bicyclists, a significant reduction of cyclist mRPMI10%+ was found comparing low scoring cars to high scoring cars in ≤ 30 km/h speed limit (-73%) and across all speed limits (-36%). Including only those aged ≤ 64 years, the reduction was 49%. For the active bonnet, a significant reduction of mRPMI1%+ by 24% was observed but given that the rate of helmet wearing was higher in the group struck by cars with active bonnet, this difference cannot be attributed to an effect of an active bonnet. The STA safety rating of pedestrian and bicycle crossings showed that overall pedestrian mRPMI1%+ was reduced by 15%, while cyclists mRPMI10%+ was reduced by 32% comparing crossings of high safety level to crossings of poor safety level. The analysis of combined interventions showed that the total reduction of pedestrians and cyclists mRPMI10%+ together was 69%, from 6.4% to 2%. This paper demonstrates that a road environment with adapted infrastructure and speed, combined with passenger car technologies that improve the safety for vulnerable road users, can create significant reductions of serious (long-term) injuries among pedestrians and bicyclists.

Background The United Nations Decade of Action for Road Safety 2021–2030 sets a global target to halve road traffic fatalities and injuries by 2030. Several jurisdictions have formulated even more ambitious targets by setting a date for achieving zero road trauma, typically by 2040 or 2050. There is a growing body of evidence around what initiatives are effective in reducing road crashes and injuries. The Global Plan, supporting the Decade of Action includes an extensive list of such measures. However, what is missing is how to prioritise these measures and guide stakeholders on a national level in producing a context sensitive road safety action plan. There is also a lack of tangible planning frameworks to assist countries to link near and long term targets with day-to-day operations and maintain a focus on the ultimate objective of zero trauma by a set date. Objective The aim of this work was to implement a Vision Zero planning framework to guide jurisdictions seeking an evidence-based pathway to transform their road system to achieve zero road trauma by a set date. Programme Description Back-casting was used to develop a 6-step Vision Zero planning framework. These steps included: Define a Safe System end state, Assess the current state of the network, Gap analysis between the current and future state, Identify interventions using trauma modelling, Strategic response, and Performance indicators for monitoring. Outcomes and Learnings The framework was used in developing road safety action plans for jurisdictions in Australasia and the Middle East. Bespoke Safe System end states for specific end dates were developed together with credible business cases and interim targets for key components to achieve overall goals. The designed end states were estimated to help these jurisdictions achieve a 90% reduction in road fatalities by 2050. Implications and Conclusions This framework supports jurisdictions seeking detailed guidance to achieving ambitious trauma reduction targets within fixed timeframes. Compared to previous approaches, this framework favours sustainable solutions to eliminate road trauma over the long term, while also bringing forward cost effective solutions to achieve near term interim targets.

Bus transport is an important element in a sustainable transport strategy. The objective of this study is to understand crashes and injuries involving buses, suggest potential passive-safety interventions, estimate their effectiveness, and compare their effectiveness between Germany and India. Descriptive analysis of crash data from the German In-depth Accident Study (GIDAS) and the Road Accident Sampling System India (RASSI) database was performed in two parts: First, bus passengers and their injuries were analyzed and second, pedestrian injuries in bus-to-pedestrian crashes were analyzed. Lastly, interventions were suggested, and their effectiveness was estimated. Analysis of bus passengers showed that most moderate-to-critical injuries in the GIDAS data were to the head caused by interior bus components. In the RASSI data, head injuries were also frequent, often due to bus interior contact, but also due to ejection and impact to the ground or bus exterior. As many as 31% of all moderate-to-critical injuries in RASSI occurred due to ejection, none in the GIDAS data. Negligible seatbelt usage in the GIDAS data and non-existent use in RASSI demands some explanation. In bus-to-pedestrian crashes, impacts to the front of the bus were the most frequent scenario in both countries. Head injuries were frequent in both GIDAS and RASSI, predominantly due to an impact with the bus front or the ground. To mitigate these injuries, the suggested interventions are seatbelts, pedestrian airbags, and pedestrian underrun protection. These interventions were estimated to annually save up to 175 injured pedestrians and 968 injured bus occupants in Germany, and 6,682 injured pedestrians and 36,271 injured bus occupants in India. To conclude, while the need for better data and more rigorous intervention analysis in future work are discussed, the highlighted safety issues and potential interventions can guide discussion and action plans for safer buses.

AbstractRoad safety analysis can be used to understand what has been successful in the past and what needs to be changed in order to be successful to reduce severe road trauma going forward and ultimately what’s needed to achieve zero. This chapter covers some of the tools used to retrospectively evaluate real-life benefits of road safety measures and methods used to predict the combined effects of interventions in a road safety action plan as well as to estimate if they are sufficient to achieve targets near-term and long-term. Included are also a brief overview of methods to develop boundary conditions on what constitutes a Safe System for different road users. Further to that, the chapter lists some arguments for the need of high-quality mass and in-depth data to ensure confidence in the results and conclusions from road safety analysis. Finally, a few key messages are summarized.

Background and Aim The Transport Accident Commission commissioned this study to identify and describe the characteristics of high-priority road traffic injuries as a basis to discuss options to prevent them for Victoria. Methods Data consisted of injury claims from 2015–2019 (n=27,164), expressed in injury outcome measures including: Maximum Abbreviated Injury Score (MAIS 1–6) Years Lived with Disability (YLD) Permanent Medical Impairment (PMI) Life Cost (LC). The International Classification of Diseases (ICD-code) together with the highest overall severity level and the location of the most severely injured body region per person were used to investigate the type of injuries associated with high LC and YLD. Results In total, there were 881 ICD-codes in the dataset. The injury burden was highly disproportionately distributed, with only 5 codes (0.5%) and 15 codes (1.7%) making up 25% and 50% of LC, respectively. 4 of the 5 codes associated with the highest LC were severe head and brain injuries. In addition: One third of LC were Severe Acquired Brain Injuries Quadriplegias had the highest mean LC and highest mean YLD Other Spinal injuries had the highest sum of YLD MAIS 3+ made up 16% of claims, almost 60% of the total LC and 74% of the total YLD. The risk of high priority injury outcomes was higher for unprotected road users, occupants in older cars and not using protective equipment. Conclusion MAIS 4+ head and spine injuries are the highest priority injuries to prevent, followed by all MAIS 3+ injuries, especially head and brain injuries.

Many jurisdictions globally have adopted a zero road trauma target by 2050 and an interim target of a 50% reduction by 2030. The objective of this study was to investigate what the road system will need to look like in order to achieve these respective targets. Utilising human tolerance to injury as the key design factor, this study defined the combination of vehicle, infrastructure, and travel speed requirements to manage crash energy in order to: (1) prevent all fatalities and serious injuries by 2050 in an Ultimate Safe System scenario; and (2) significantly reduce fatalities and severe injuries by 2030 in an Interim Safe System scenario. Victoria, Australia and its Movement and Place (M&P) framework was employed as a case study. With the vehicle and infrastructure countermeasures currently available coupled with appropriate travel speeds it is possible to construct an Ultimate Safe System that can manage crash forces to achieve zero trauma and an Interim Safe System that can significantly reduce the most severe injuries in Victoria. This study has demonstrated a potential pathway from the current situation to 2030 and then 2050 that can achieve safety targets while meeting the core objectives of the transport system.

AbstractRoad safety analysis can be used to understand what has been successful in the past and what needs to be changed in order to be successful to reduce severe road trauma going forward and ultimately what’s needed to achieve zero. This chapter covers some of the tools used to retrospectively evaluate real-life benefits of road safety measures and methods used to predict the combined effects of interventions in a road safety action plan as well as to estimate if they are sufficient to achieve targets near-term and long-term. Included are also a brief overview of methods to develop boundary conditions on what constitutes a Safe System for different road users. Further to that, the chapter lists some arguments for the need of high-quality mass and in-depth data to ensure confidence in the results and conclusions from road safety analysis. Finally, a few key messages are summarized.

Australian vehicle standards are governed nationwide by the Australian Design Rules (ADR) that specify regulatory standards for the safety performance of road vehicles. The aim of this study was to quantify the number of lives saved on New South Wales roads by accelerating the update of safer vehicles by aligning ADR with global best practice represented by the new European Union General Safety Regulation. The methods used in this study to estimate the impact of future road safety interventions was a logical reduction of current crashes into future casualty outcomes, the residual, based on what is known about delivery of future safety measures and system improvements. A database was prepared including information on all 2018 fatalities on NSW roads (n=347). The database contained information for each individual crash, the vehicles and persons involved and the road environment where the crash occurred. In the results of this study, it was found that a scenario of aligning Australian Design Rules with the EU General Safety Regulation on a number of key vehicle safety technologies could potentially save around 20 lives annually in 2030 and around 90 lives cumulatively, over and beyond the baseline trend, between 2023 and 2030 in New South Wales. It could be concluded that vehicle safety has significant lives saving potential, however, the time lag of benefit realisation will require continued investments in other areas like infrastructure safety, speed management and enforcement in the coming decades to achieve future trauma reduction targets in NSW.

The Vision Zero approach advocates for a road transport system designed with human injury tolerance and human fallibility as its basis. While biomechanical limits and the relationship between speed and injury outcome has been extensively investigated for car occupants and pedestrians, research analyzing this relationship for motorcyclists remains limited. The aim of this study was to address this issue by developing multivariate injury risk models for motorcyclists that estimate the relationship between speed and injury severity. For that purpose, motorcycle injury crashes from the German In-Depth Accident Study (GIDAS) database for the period 1999-2017 (n = 1037) were extracted. Different models were tested using logistic regression and backwards elimination of non-significant variables. The best fitting model in the current study included relative speed, type of crash opponent, impact location on the motorcycle and impact mechanism of the rider during the crash. A strong and significant relationship between relative speed and injury severity in motorcycle crashes was demonstrated. At 70 km/h, the risk for at least serious injuries in collisions with wide objects, crash barriers and narrow objects was 20%, 51%, and 64%, respectively. Further, it was found that head-on collisions between motorcycles and passenger cars, with both vehicles traveling at 60 km/h (a relative speed at 120 km/h), present 55% risk of at least serious injury to the motorcycle rider. More research is needed to fully understand the boundary conditions needed to design a safe road transport system for motorcyclists. However, this study provides important insights into the relationship between speed and injury severity for riders in various crash situations. The results may be useful in the discussion of appropriate speed limits and in determining the benefits of countermeasures which aim to reduce crash speed.

Vulnerable road users as bicyclists and pedestrians account for a significant share of fatalities and serious injuries in the road transport system. Traditionally, the protection for bicyclists has been addressed by speed management and separating vulnerable road users from motorized traffic. Also, the use of bicycle helmet has been prompted and regulated in some countries. Pedestrian protection by improving the car fontal design has been around since the late 1990s and has proven to be effective in reducing injury risk on pedestrians (Strandroth et al., 2011) as well as on bicyclists (Strandroth et al., 2014). Pedestrian detection with Autonomous Emergency Braking (AEB) has also been introduced on the market to prevent and mitigate pedestrian and bicyclist injuries. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of the different interventions promoting safety for vulnerable road users, and an additional purpose was to look at the combined effect of the interventions. Swedish emergency hospital reports from approximately 2000 bicyclists and 1200 pedestrians between Jan 1st 2003 and March 2014 were included in the study. Hospital reports including injury diagnosis were combined with police data and the vehicle registry in order to obtain detailed vehicle information. Euro NCAP pedestrian test score, speed limit restriction and helmet use was correlated with real-life pedestrian and bicyclist injuries. The results showed that on pedestrians, large injury reductions were found comparing low scoring cars (1-9 p) in the Euro NCAP pedestrian test to high scoring cars (>18 p). Also for bicyclists significant injury reductions were found. Focusing on bicyclist's injury level, large reductions were found on all body regions, with the highest reduction on head injuries. The effect of speed limit restriction showed few statistically significant results, although across both pedestrian and bicyclist injuries the trends showed overall small but positive effects. The effect of helmet use on bicyclist injuries was investigated both on individual level and on head injury level. Helmet showed to significantly reduce the risk of head injuries. However, on individual level, the results were quiet conflicting, and only on mRPMI10+ level a positive and statistically significant reduction was found. The calculated combined effect of speed-reduction, helmet-use and car frontal design was 79%. Also, preliminary calculations, based on a limited number of cases, and including both bicyclists and pedestrians, showed that when adding the effect of AEB, the risk of long-term impairment decreased by more than 90%. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Background: Several studies have estimated the health effects of active commuting, where a transport mode shift from car to bicycle reduces risk of mortality and morbidity. Previous studies mainly assess the negative aspects of bicycling by referring to fatalities or police reported injuries. However, most bicycle crashes are not reported by the police and therefore hospital reported data would cover a much higher rate of injuries from bicycle crashes. The aim of the present study was to estimate the effect on injuries and fatalities from traffic crashes when shifting mode of transport from car to bicycle by using hospital reported data.Methods: This present study models the change in number of injuries and fatalities due to a transport mode change using a given flow change from car to bicycle and current injury and fatality risk per distance for bicyclists and car occupants.Results: show that bicyclists have a much higher injury risk (29 times) and fatality risk (10 times) than car occupants. In a scenario where car occupants in Stockholm living close to their work place shifts transport mode to bicycling, injuries, fatalities and health loss expressed in Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALY) were estimated to increase. The vast majority of the estimated DALY increase was caused by severe injuries and fatalities and it tends to fluctuate so that the number of severe crashes may exceed the estimation with a large margin.Conclusion: Although the estimated increase of traffic crashes and DALY, a transport mode shift is seen as a way towards a more sustainable society. Thus, this present study highlights the need of strategic preventive measures in order to minimize the negative impacts from increased bicycling. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

OBJECTIVE:The objective of this study was to estimate the safety benefits of in vehicle lane departure warning (LDW) and lane keeping aid (LKA) systems in reducing relevant real-world passenger car injury crashes.METHODS:The study used an induced exposure method, where LDW/LKA-sensitive and nonsensitive crashes were compared for Volvo passenger cars equipped with and without LDW/LKA systems. These crashes were matched by car make, model, model year, and technical equipment; that is, low-speed autonomous emergency braking (AEB) called City Safety (CS). The data were extracted from the Swedish Traffic Accident Data Acquisition database (STRADA) and consisted of 1,853 driver injury crashes that involved 146 LDW-equipped cars, 11 LKA-equipped cars, and 1,696 cars without LDW/LKA systems.RESULTS:The analysis showed a positive effect of the LDW/LKA systems in reducing lane departure crashes. The LDW/LKA systems were estimated to reduce head-on and single-vehicle injury crashes on Swedish roads with speed limits between 70 and 120 km/h and with dry or wet road surfaces (i.e., not covered by ice or snow) by 53% with a lower limit of 11% (95% confidence interval [CI]). This reduction corresponded to a reduction of 30% with a lower limit of 6% (95% CI) for all head-on and single-vehicle driver injury crashes (including all speed limits and all road surface conditions).CONCLUSIONS:LDW/LKA systems were estimated to lower the driver injury risk in crash types that the systems are designed to prevent; that is, head-on and single-vehicle crashes. Though these are important findings, they were based on a small data set. Therefore, further research is desirable to evaluate the effectiveness of LDW/LKA systems under real-world conditions and to differentiate the effectiveness between technical solutions (i.e., LDW and LKA) proposed by different manufacturers.

OBJECTIVE:This research investigated the following issue. Though several tests indicate that motorcycle ABS may increase motorcycle stability, thus reducing the risk of a sliding crash involving braking (i.e., the rider is separated from the motorcycle and slides along the road surface prior to collision), there is limited research showing to what extent sliding crashes are reduced by ABS in real-life conditions.METHODS:The Swedish Transport Administration (STA) and the Norwegian Public Roads Administration (NPRA) carry out in-depth studies for all road fatalities. A total of 38 in-depth studies with ABS motorcycles were included: 22 in Sweden and 16 in Norway (2005-2014). These were compared with 98 cases in Sweden and 32 in Norway involving motorcycles of the same types but without ABS. The data sets were analyzed separately and also merged together. The difference between the proportions of sliding crashes regardless braking was analyzed; selective recruitment was handled with a sensitivity analysis. Induced exposure was used to calculate the reduction of all crashes and those involving braking.RESULTS:Four ABS cases (11%) involved falling off the motorcycle prior to collision, and 35% of the non-ABS crashes were sliding (P =.004). The sensitivity analysis showed that the results were stable, with a relative difference of sliding crashes ranging between 65 and 78%. None of the 4 sliding crashes with ABS occurred during braking; that is, all ABS riders who braked prior to collision crashed in an upright position. In the 4 sliding cases with ABS, the riders lost control of their motorcycles: 2 while accelerating on asphalt with very poor friction, 1 while negotiating a curve with an excessive lean angle, and 1 by abruptly releasing the throttle in the middle of a curve. Although based on a limited number of cases, the distributions of sliding and upright collisions among crashes without braking were similar, thus suggesting that the crash posture would not be affected by ABS if no braking occurred. The calculations with induced exposure showed that upright crashes with braking were also reduced by ABS; all fatal crashes, regardless of braking, were reduced by 52%.CONCLUSIONS:Though this research was based on a limited material, it confirmed that sliding fatal crashes are significantly decreased by ABS. Considering that ABS will soon be mandatory in the European Union on all new motorcycles with engine displacement over 125cc, these findings should be taken into account in the future design and testing of motorcycle-friendly road barriers and integrated protection systems.

UNLABELLED:When targeting a society free from serious and fatal road-traffic injuries, it has been a common practice in many countries and organizations to set up time-limited and quantified targets for the reduction of fatalities and injuries. In setting these targets EU and other organizations have recognized the importance to monitor and predict the development toward the target as well as the efficiency of road safety policies and interventions. This study aims to validate a method to forecast future road safety challenges by applying it to the fatal crashes in Sweden in 2000 and using the method to explain the change in fatalities based on the road safety interventions made until 2010. The estimation of the method is then compared to the true outcome in 2010. The aim of this study was to investigate if a residual of crashes produced by a partial analysis could constitute a sufficient base to describe the characteristics of future crashes. RESULT:show that out of the 332 car occupants killed in 2000, 197 were estimated to constitute the residual in 2010. Consequently, 135 fatalities from 2000 were estimated by the model to be prevented by 2010. That is a predicted reduction of 41% compared to the reduction in the real outcome of 53%, from 332 in 2000 to 156 in 2010. The method was found able to generate a residual of crashes in 2010 from the crashes in 2000 that had a very similar nature, with regards to crash type, as the true outcome of 2010. It was also found suitable to handle double counting and system effects. However, future research is needed in order to investigate how external factors as well as random and systematic variation should be taken into account in a reliable manner.