Highlights We are the first to evaluate the potential protective effect of controlling vehicle braking during vehicle pedestrian impacts. The severity of contact of the head and pelvis with the ground can frequently be reduced. Controlled braking increases the proximity of the vehicle to the pedestrian at the instant of ground contact. The increased stopping distance associated with controlled braking mostly poses no conflict with the available free space in front of the vehicle.
Abstract Protecting struck pedestrians during the ground contact phase has been a challenge for decades. Recent studies have shown how ground related injury is influenced by pedestrian kinematics. In this paper we further developed this approach by assessing the potential of controlling vehicle braking to reduce pedestrian ground contact injuries. Applying a recently proposed Simulation Test Sample, a series of simulations were run using the MADYMO software environment. The approach considered 6 vehicle shapes, 4 pedestrian models, 3 impact velocities and 2 pedestrian gaits and each case was considered with two different vehicle braking approaches. The first was full braking, while the second applied controlled braking, for which a strategy based on pedestrian kinematics was applied. The effect of vehicle braking was evaluated using the Weighted Injury Cost (WIC) of overall pedestrian injuries and the pedestrian-ground impact velocity change. The proximity of the vehicle and pedestrian at the instant of ground contact was also evaluated to assess the potential of future vehicle based intervention methods to cushion the ground contact. Finally real-world videos of pedestrian collisions were analyzed to estimate the available free vehicle stopping distances. Results showed substantial median reductions in WIC and head impact velocity for all vehicle shapes except the Van. The proximity of the pedestrian to the vehicle front at the instant of ground contact under controlled braking is less than 1.5 m in most cases, and the required stopping distance for the vehicle under controlled braking was within the available stopping distance estimated from the video footage in about 74% of cases. It is concluded that controlled braking has significant potential to reduce the overall burden of pedestrian ground contact injuries, but future efforts are required to establish an optimized braking strategy as well as a means to handle those cases where controlled braking is not beneficial or even harmful.
Potential benefits of controlled vehicle braking to reduce pedestrian ground contact injuries
Accident Analysis and Prevention ; 129 ; 94-107
2019-05-07
14 pages
Article (Journal)
Electronic Resource
English
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