Progress on reducing road fatalities in Europe has stalled in recent years. The EU’s mission to halve the number of road deaths by 2030 could be in jeopardy if this trend is not reversed.More than 90% of road accidents are due to human factors. Connected and automated vehicles (CAVs) could significantly reduce the incidence of serious injuries and fatalities. But for that to happen, we need to develop robust and holistic solutions that ensure the effective integration of safety measures targeting all road users: drivers, vehicle occupants, and of course our most Vulnerable Road Users (VRUs), pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists.
In other to achieve it, rather than using the traditional approach of post-collision analysis, SAFE-UP is proactively modelling and analysing safety-critical scenarios. This digital twin will cover the main range of safety-critical scenarios that may occur in the future, involving different road users, environments and vehicles. Based on the identified scenarios, innovative safety technologies, for both active and passive safety systems, will be developed, resulting in four demos. To validate the developed technologies, novel safety assessment tools and methodologies will be designed in tandem, making use of both virtual and physical tools. Complementing this holistic approach, SAFE-UP will produce targeted education and training schemes for fostering the safe integration of automated driving functions, while also focusing on raising awareness of future road safety challenges. SAFE-UP’s holistic approach means that all road users are considered, including those outside the car.
The main objectives of the project are the following:
OBJ 1. Refine the design and analysis of future safety-critical scenarios involving all road users in a highly automated and mixed traffic environment by integrating traffic accident data and future traffic conditions with new forms of safety metrics and sub-microscopic models in a traffic simulation platform. SAFE-UP will use two type of use cases (one urban and one non-urban) covering at least 64% of all current traffic fatalities.
OBJ 2. Develop a passive safety system prototype focused on the occupant protection, integrating two technologies (occupant monitoring and restraint) to enable safe new seating positions in future collision scenarios involving CAVs and extending their protection range by addressing the variety of associated occupant postures and orientations.
OBJ 3. Develop three active safety system prototypes (all on-vehicle, including on-user and infrastructure) to address the interaction between vehicles and VRUs by means of enhanced and more robust VRU detection in bad weather conditions, advanced intervention functions to avoid critical events (e.g. crash mitigation manoeuvres), and a communication framework for timely warning provisions, all satisfying a system sensitivity >90% and specificity >85%.
OBJ 4. Enhance assessment methods by using virtual and physical tools specifically designed to support SAFE-UP’s novel safety solutions for future accident scenarios and to prove at least a 10% reduction in road traffic casualties.
OBJ 5. Raise road users’ general awareness about road safety in future traffic scenarios with increased implementation of automated driving functions by 25% (in relation to the untrained users). Hazard recognition will be stimulated through effective training schemes while an increase of connected VRUs is motivated.
