The New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) is a rating system for new cars. The rating criteria exceed the requirements of the regulations and provide costumers with information on the safety of a car. So far, the NCAP tests are restricted to the case of a crash. Recently the extension towards active safety systems has been addressed. Lighting is an important part of active safety of cars. In the paper a catalogue and a categorization of significant criteria for measures that increase the safety of the driver by improving lighting and visibility, worked out by the authors, is presented. From the results of this research, a rating-system for 'NCAP-lighting' is deduced. Today's lighting systems go usually beyond the minimum standard. This situation requires to compile valuation and rating criteria which are oriented more at safety-relevant criteria such as recognizability of obstacles and the glare. A further parameter is interior lighting. It can produce a measurable glare and can lower the visual efficiency of the driver. Interior lighting is also responsible for orientation inside the vehicle. This can affect the driver's reaction to unexpected occurrences in traffic. The Euro-NCAP concept distinguishes between the passive and active safety aspects. Each of these two aspects is again subdivided for a detailed rating procedure. In the context of this project a scheme of four active safety categories of lighting systems have been elaborated. Within these four categories 50 different subratings to be measured for the complete rating were defined. The time necessary for measuring all 50 subratings equals two days. With the conclusion of the project a system of formulas is available for an integral rating of lighting performance of cars. The complete 'NCAP-lighting'-criteria and the 'NCAP-Lighting' rating-system will be published soon in a research report of the Federal Highway Research Institute (BASt).
NCAP- Lighting - A new approach to rate illumination of cars
NCAP-Beleuchtung: Eine neue Methode für die Bewertung der Fahrzeugbeleuchtung
2005
9 Seiten, 5 Bilder
Conference paper
English
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