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Preliminary Evaluation Methodology in Front-Front Vehicle Compatibility
Abstract:
The injury outcome of a front-front two-vehicle crash will be a function of crash-specific, vehicle-specific, and occupant-specific parameters. This paper focuses on a preliminary methodology that was used to evaluate the potential for benefits in making vehicle-specific changes to improve the compatibility of light vehicles across the fleet. In particular, the effect on injury rates of matching vehicle frontal stiffness was estimated.
The front-front crash data for belted drivers in the lighter vehicles in the crash from ten years of NASS-CDS data were examined. The frontal stiffness of each vehicle was calculated using data taken during full frontal rigid barrier tests for the U.S. New Car Assessment Program (NCAP), and only crashes coded in the CDS as “no override” were considered. The results of this study indicate the need for developing a more robust and in-depth benefits methodology that can account for mass ratio, driver age, gender, belted status, and other injury related metrics leading to injury and fatality reduction estimates and related confidence interval computations.