Downloaded from SAE International by Robert Bosch GmbH, Tuesday, February 03, 2015 Behaviour of Car Drivers in Accidents used to Estimate the Benefit of Car Antilock Brake System on Indian Highways 2015-26-0172 Published 01/14/2015 Girikumar Kumaresh Robert Bosch Eng. & Business Solutions Thomas Lich and Moennich Joerg Robert Bosch GmbH CITATION: Kumaresh, G., Lich, T., and Joerg, M., "Behaviour of Car Drivers in Accidents used to Estimate the Benefit of Car Antilock Brake System on Indian Highways," SAE Technical Paper 2015-26-0172, 2015, doi:10.4271/2015-26-0172. Copyright © 2015 SAE International and Copyright © SAEINDIA Abstract In the year of 2012 in India the total number of accidents with injuries is registered by Ministry of Road Transport and Highway with 490,383 out of which injured people are 509,667 and fatalities are 138,258 [1]. Nearly 17% of the fatalities are occupants of passenger cars which constitute the second highest contributor for fatal accidents in India [1]. In order to understand the root causes for car accidents in India, Bosch accident research carried out a study based on in-depth accidents collected in India. Apart from other accident contributing factors e.g. infrastructure the driver behaviour and his actions few milliseconds just prior to the crash is an extremely important and a key valuable data for the understanding of accident causation. Further on it supports also the development of modern automotive safety functions. Hence this research was undertaken to evaluate the benefit of the state-of-the art vehicle safety systems known as Antilock Braking System (ABS). Their capabilities are mainly driven by the driver behaviour and support to avoid or mitigate critical driving situations possibly leading to severe or fatal accidents. Keywords telling another story. Out of the 138,258 fatalities more than 24,000 people (17%) were killed in a car. This results in a share of 1.1 fatal per thousand vehicles. This is the second highest risk compared to other vulnerable road users such as a rider of a motorized two wheeler, pedestrians, bicyclists, etc. Figure 1. Total number of registered motor vehicles in India (Trend 19812012) [2] Passenger car driver behaviour, type of accidents, kind of accidents, RASSI accident database, accident avoidance, Antilock Braking System, Car Antilock Braking System Introduction and Motivation Traffic safety becomes more important in India due to increasing fatality risk caused by the huge growth of registered vehicles recently. As shown in Figure 1 besides powered two wheelers (72%) the second largest share of registered vehicles in India with nearly 21,568,000 (15%) are cars. Therefore it is expected that the number of killed people are even less for this type of road user but the official statistics (see Figure 2) Figure 2. Fatalities by type of road user categories Downloaded from SAE International by Robert Bosch GmbH, Tuesday, February 03, 2015 When compared to buses and trucks with fatal per thousand vehicles is 6.62 and 2.41 respectively. Thus the Government of India has already mandated ABS for M3, N3 category of vehicles (Heavy commercial vehicles) in the year 2014 (see Table 1). with ABS than with disabled-ABS best effort attempts for manoeuvres that involved braking and steering (or steering and braking). Under these conditions, ABS prevented wheel lockup and minimized yaw for all the experimental vehicles. Table 1. Classification of fatal per thousand vehicles by vehicle type [2] Analysis of the Victorian and Queensland data also identified an estimated 18% decrease in the absolute risk of vehicle to vehicle crash involvement for ABS equipped[6]. The effectiveness and efficiency of ABS is already proven in various studies. Nevertheless for India conditions no research study or publication was found. Hence this study aimed to estimate the accident avoidance potential on Indian rural area by a car ABS assuming a 100% installation rate for such safety system. Accident Data Sources in India To identify the root causes of these accidents further investigations have to be taken into account - such as environmental effects, safety awareness, vehicle issues and driver behaviour. Today's vehicles are equipped with powerful and reliable braking systems that provide excellent braking power even at high speeds. But even the best braking system cannot prevent a driver from reacting incorrectly and applying too little or too great a force to the brake pedal when driving on Indian road conditions or when taken by surprise. Major scope of this study is to understand the car driver behaviour during pre-crash phase in real accident scenarios. Therefore a general classification of the behaviour is used based on braking and steering reaction during pre-crash event including all kinds of accidents. Their avoidance characteristic supports the need of a state-of-the-art vehicle safety system known as car ABS. By the detailed analysis of on-spot investigated car accidents the collision avoidance manoeuvre of the driver was linked to the vehicle safety system. Using either reconstruction or retrospective evaluated parameters the accident avoidance potential was then determined. State of the Art From the literature, ABS equipped vehicles were found to be involved in fewer crashes with vehicles from adjacent, opposing or the same direction proportionately compared to non-ABS equipped vehicles. The statistical analysis of Australian data also identified an estimated 18 percent decrease in the absolute risk of vehicle-tovehicle crash involvement for ABS equipped [3]. This result is consistent with other research activities as identified by Hertz et. al. in 1996 in a study of the effectiveness of ABS braking systems [4]. In Forkenbrock et. al. a comprehensive ABS test track performance evaluation is described [5]. The vehicular stability was observed during the stops made for this study was almost always found to be superior with ABS. The study also establishes that antilock brake systems include stopping distance versus vehicular stability compromises. Most antilock brake systems maintain vehicular stability while braking by minimizing excessive yaw. In a curve, this stability may be created by sacrificing the shortest attainable stopping distance. With this said, most test vehicles were stopped in shorter distances Two important data sources are available, which are officially released by the government of India. The first one is ‘Road Accidents in India’ by Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, Transport Research Wing; this report contains key information on various aspects of road accidents in the country during the calendar year [1]. The second one is ‘Accidental deaths and suicides in India’ brought out by National Crime Records Bureau Ministry of Home Affairs. This report contains comprehensive data on a range of aspects of deaths due to accidents and suicides one such aspect is traffic accidents [7]. Official data sets preliminary the base for accident research purposes. The official database mainly covers macro level view of the accident situation in India hence the above two reports are not sufficient for detailed analysis of the road traffic accident and driver behaviour in India [8]. In order to understand the Indian car driver behaviour and moreover the root causes of accidents, micro-accident data out of in-depth accident investigation is needed. Such data is provided by the RASSI project (Road Accident Sampling System for India) [9] [10]. Since 2009, accidents with injuries were surveyed within India around the region of Coimbatore, Mumbai-Pune Express highway and Gujarat recently. Therefore RASSI is also the name of the relational accident database developed to record the scientific data from on-spot accident investigations. The database currently contains more than 1,000 accidents with about 750 parameters (including reconstruction data) per accident from three locations throughout India (Status 2014). Methodology The analysis is based on 458 completed cases out from the 2013 release of the RASSI database. Out of 458 accidents 216 accidents are included where a passenger car was involved in the crash. As first the accident situation is analyzed using the type of accident to determine the most conflict situations in which cars involved in accidents. The type of accident describes the conflict situation leading to the collision, thus this parameter is used to identify potentials of active safety systems, such as ABS. By a single cases analysis each of the car accident was assessed and results are referenced to this selection (216 car accidents are set to 100%). Less than 8% of the cars were installed with ABS in involved Downloaded from SAE International by Robert Bosch GmbH, Tuesday, February 03, 2015 car accident. These collision scenarios were found not to be ABS relevant accidents, thus their evaluation was not taken into account in this study. Along with the vehicle damage and personal injuries, information from prior to the accident also is obtained based on the fact that the accidents documented in detail and high share is reconstructed. Therefore, physical information regarding the post crash phase is available and essential for the assessment of the effectiveness of active and/or passive vehicle safety systems. any lateral traction forces and a possible steering manoeuvre has no effect. The vehicle gets unstable and uncontrollable, the locking of rear tyres or μ-split or is not steerable in case of locking front tyres and the vehicle no longer reacts to the steering input of the driver. In a vehicle equipped with an ABS (Figure 4), the ABS control unit constantly evaluates the speed of all wheels by using wheel-speed sensors. To determine the driver behaviour following classification of the avoidance manoeuvres is done: The driver would have tried to avoid the collision only by braking, by steering or both by brake and steering. Braking includes: Full braking with lock up, partial braking with or without lock up. Steering includes: Steering left or right. The above manoeuvres can be identified by close examination of accident scaled sketches and pictures taken during the on-spot investigation. In parallel for each accident its relevance for a passenger car ABS was proofed. This was done by excluding accident scenarios whereas a benefit from this safety system is not given or where other root causes where identified - these are as followed: • sudden physical disability of the driver • sleepiness (falling asleep) or distraction • by parking vehicle • accelerating due to panic at the time of accidents Thus the so called Field of effect for the passenger car ABS is defined as “All relevant car accidents whereas antilock brake intervention possible”. Linking driver behaviour and avoidance potential of ABS was then assessed afterwards which results then in an estimated accident avoidance potential of car ABS on Indian highways. ABS - Working Principle The critical situation prior to accidents involving cars can be broadly classified into the following categories: In emergency situation e.g. an obstacle appearing suddenly or another vehicle in front braking abruptly, driver brakes and there is acute need of longer braking distances. Secondly in critical avoidance manoeuvre the driver needs stability while evasive steering and braking at the same time. Thirdly on different surface conditions e.g. partly wet or dirty are extremely dangerous. When braking on such varying road surfaces the braking powers vary considerably particularly on front wheels, hence the driver needs stability while emergency braking - see also in Figure 3. Figure 4. Components of a car Antilock-Braking System If ABS detects the tendency of one or more wheels to lock during braking, it adjusts the brake pressure at each individual wheel. In this way ABS prevents the wheels from locking. This enables the driver to avoid obstacles even during full braking, and to slow down or stop the vehicle quickly and safely. Accident Situation Involving Cars The type of accident describes the conflict situation which resulted in the accident. Hence it is the first step to identify root causes of accidents during pre-crash phase. Every accident within the RASSI database is classified by different types of accident which is defined in an accident classification system1. As shown in Figure 5, highest shares (45%) of accidents on Indian highways with passenger car involvement are accidents in lateral traffic; head on conflicts against a leading vehicle, followed by 13% of accidents are other type. Nearly 8% of the accidents are driving accidents and the major cause is loss of control. Other 6% of accidents are conflicts with crossing pedestrians. Figure 3. Car behaviour in critical driving situations All of the above emergency braking situations, the braking force applied by the driver may be greater than that which the tyre can handle resulting in wheel lock. The tyres can now no longer transfer Figure 5. Accidents with casualties by type of accident [13] 1. Based on GDV (German Insurance Association) [11] Downloaded from SAE International by Robert Bosch GmbH, Tuesday, February 03, 2015 Having a closer look on the most critical situations with car involvement accidents in lateral traffic, more than 61% of all passenger car involved accidents is listed in the below Table 2. Most critical situation encountered prior to crash are during improper overtaking on undivided roads, accidents due to turning into or crossing the road, accident are caused due to turning off the road, accidents are due to head on encounters due to improper usage of lanes on an undivided roads and accidents encounter front rear impacts on the same lane of the road. operating characteristics. Secondly, generally drivers in India do not follow lanes i.e., the traffic streams do not have lane discipline. Therefore the driving pattern also changes in India”. Table 2. Most critical situations with passenger car involvement on Indian highways As a first outcome of the analysis it was determined that about 51% of the driver attempted to brake, steer or both prior to crash. (51% is minimum because possible other case data are unknown) This result so far encourages that a support of the driver from a vehicle safety system can be given in nearly every second accident where a car is involved on Indian highways because a driver reaction is determined. In Table 3 the results of the retrospective determined driver behaviour is shown in more detail. The driver reactions were analyzed in 216 accident situations in RASSI database in which at least one passenger car is involved in accident. For each accident within the field of effect, possible deceleration and brake distances were evaluated using the evidence from on-spot investigation. Table 3. Avoidance manoeuvre of car drivers during pre-crash phase in emergency situation of car accidents on Indian highways Car Driver Behaviour during the Pre-Crash Phase Indian driver behaviour is quite different from other countries driving behaviour; unfortunately the large body of literature that exists in the area of driver behaviour models cannot be used as is in countries like India due to the following reasons. As per citation [12] “Firstly, traffic includes innumerable classes of vehicles having different During the pre-crash phase nearly 7% of Indian car drivers apply full braking, 44% of the drivers attempted steering or steering and braking due to the fact the driver need to avoid the accident by some kind of critical pre-crash manoeuvres irrespective of lanes, this behaviour is unique for India in comparison with other countries. It is observed that in emergency braking situations the brake pedal is not used to have a complete stop of the vehicle. It seems to be used to try to control the situation by a decrease of the speed and an action on the steering wheel. This can be clearly seen in 44% of accidents. Within 44% of the above behaviour, 18% of driver attempted full braking along with steering, which resulted in complete wheel lockup, 12% driver attempted partial braking along with steering, 14% of drivers attempted only steering. Nearly 33% of the drivers do not attempt any pre-crash manoeuvre; approximately 16% of the accident cases were unknown since the data was not available for the analysis. To conclude the results Figure 6 shows the summarized driver behaviour during the pre-crash phase. Need for support by a vehicle safety system e.g. ABS can be found in a share of 53% of all real accidents. In these cases the driver could interact with a safety system significantly. Downloaded from SAE International by Robert Bosch GmbH, Tuesday, February 03, 2015 Figure 6. Car driver avoidance manoeuvres during emergency situations In about 1/3rd of all collision no avoidance manoeuvre was attempted thus this results in further potential for other vehicle safety systems such as a Driver assistant system e.g. collisions warning system or automatic braking system. As shown in Figure 8, the accident reconstruction determined, the accident is related to ABS, in the above case in emergency braking, the braking force applied by the driver may be greater than that which the tyre can handle resulting in wheel lock. The tyres can now no longer transfer any lateral traction forces. The car became unstable, uncontrollable, steering impossible and the car no longer reacts to the steering input of the driver. The crashed car was not equipped with the ABS safety feature. A simulation of this accident shows the accident could have been avoided if the vehicle would have been equipped with ABS (Figure 9) Single Case Example The emergency braking situation with complete wheel lock up for a passenger car process shall be exemplified by implementing antilock braking system to mitigate or avoid the accident. Figure 7 shows a documented accident in the RASSI database. This was an accident with complete wheel lock during an avoidance manoeuvre. Figure 7. Car ABS relevant single case example, RASSI Case No. 91-2011007-706 [13] Case Description: Car involving four occupants had offset frontal impact to an unattended trailer detached from tractor, which was stopped in left side of the travel lane. More than 15 meters dark patches tyre marks of the avoidance manoeuvre and the collision with unattended trailer clearly visible on the scene. The car was travelling at 86 Km/h (reconstructed value), there was an attempt to steer while full braking. Hence the collision velocity was close to 60 Km/h (reconstructed value). Change of direction of the tyre mark indentations is clear indicator for steering manoeuvre which was not effective in avoidance, this can be seen from the tyre marks patterns on the road and this evidence proves the car driver attempted full braking and steering to avoid the collision, but unfortunately could not stop the car on time. Figure 8. Simulation of RASSI Case No. 91-2011-007-706 Figure 9. Simulation of case example RASSI case No. 91-2011-007-706assuming ABS equipment [13] The car which was travelling in its lane and braked hard on seeing the trailer, in a vehicle equipped with car ABS, wheel-speed sensors measure the speed of rotation of the wheels and pass this information to the ABS control unit. If the ABS control unit detects that one or more wheels are tending to lock, it intervenes within milliseconds by modulating the braking pressure on each individual wheel. ABS consequently prevents the wheels from locking and ensures safe braking. The vehicle remains steerable and stable in case of full braking. The stopping distance is also usually reduced. In the above case car would have avoided the offset frontal impact to an unattended trailer detached from tractor completely. Besides the importance of this example case to “Vehicle safety” this case shows also a relevance to “Safety awareness and education”. Such as a parking the trailer detached from tractor and trucks, parking on the side of the travel lane in roads etc. Lack in infrastructure (e.g. pole accidents, lack of parking bays), needed education (seat belt usage, helmet usage, unintentional parking) and vehicle safety systems (active and passive safety systems) could be derived as important factors in order to improve traffic safety in India. Benefit Estimation In order to estimate the benefit of ABS at first the real time driver behaviour pattern helps to understand the typical Indian passenger car driver braking patterns during pre-crash phase. It is apparent that the variety of different accident scenarios tends to be complex if they were to be analyzed in detail. Nevertheless to gain the benefit for ABS as a safety function, few assumptions were made. These are as followed: Car driver applies brake to avoid the collision and also car driver at least attempts to steer while braking to avoid the collision. The collision speeds are recalculated by taking driver reaction using RASSI database [13] and hypothetical driver reaction is considered into account. Detailed single cases were investigated for ABS relevance and accident avoidance potential with in the field of effect of accidents in RASSI database. The judgment based on the evidences from the crash site like identification of avoidance manoeuvres prior to crash, brake marks with lockup and without Downloaded from SAE International by Robert Bosch GmbH, Tuesday, February 03, 2015 lockup and steering, collision points and final positions etc. Furthermore, type of braking as well as deceleration level by driver initiated braking is established. In the end, the collision speed, the distance to stop, availability of free space on either of the lanes and other relevant parameters are considers drawing the result for the benefit of ABS. It is seen from the above benefit estimation methodology, 14% all car accidents with casualties on Indian highways could be avoided by a car ABS which enables steer-ability while applying the brakes. 6% of all car accidents with casualties on Indian highways could be avoided by a car ABS which reduces the braking distance. In a share of 20% of all car accidents with casualties on Indian Highways could be avoided by a car ABS. In other words every 5th accident in Indian Highway can be altogether avoided by intervention of ABS and more than 10% of accidents have probable avoidance potential by braking and steering. The below Figure 10 clearly shows the ABS benefit estimation. Conclusion As a first step in-depth RASSI (Road Accident Sampling System India) accident data is used to derive the crash avoidance behaviour of car drivers on Indian highways and also the benefit of passenger car ABS. The study done is only the first estimate by judgement based on the scene evidences. The benefit of passenger car ABS on Indian highway roads is estimated to be 20% of all accidents with casualties involving a passenger car. 14% all car accidents with casualties on Indian highways could be avoided by a car ABS when driver attempt to steer while applying the brakes to avoid the collision. Nearly 6% all car accidents with casualties on Indian highways could be avoided by a car ABS when driver attempt to for full braking in turn reducing the braking distance. Active safety systems like ABS always maintain steerability & vehicle stability while an emergency braking. For methods used for evaluate the effect of traffic safety is of high importance that the methods encourage future development and improvements. Furthermore, it is of high important to have access to the accident data for analyses of traffic safety related issues like infrastructure and vehicle safety systems. As mandated by Government of India for Installation of ABS in commercial vehicles coming year the next logical step would be to consider also an ABS for passenger cars to reduce the high number of fatalities on Indian roads. Figure 10. Car ABS benefit estimated on Indian highways assuming a 100% penetration Summary and Outlook This study has attempted to identify the crash avoidance behaviour of car drivers on Indian highways and also to estimate the benefit of ABS in terms of vehicle safety. The requirement to examine only passenger cars where ABS is an option and not fitted as standard, this led to limited availability of data to see the direct benefit of cars fitted with ABS as standard fitment. Nearly 24,000 occupants inside car died in car accidents in India alone, this constitutes 17% of all fatalities are from passenger cars involved accidents in India for the year 2012[1]. Since the available accident reports [1] [7] are not sufficient to understand the road traffic accident and driver behaviour in India, RASSI accident database is used [13]. 458 RASSI cases where in 216 accidents with casualties involved passenger cars were analyzed in detail to understand the driving behaviour of Indian passenger car drivers on Indian highways. The passenger car driver behaviour analysis shows 44% of the drivers attempted an avoidance manoeuvre by steering along with braking, while 7% of driver applied full braking, this is unique driving behaviour of Indian car drivers compared to other countries. 39% of all accidents involving passenger cars accidents have high probability of accident avoidance by intervention of ABS in Field of effect. In order to validate the results of these analysis further studies on a larger scale should be made to validate and confirm the results of this study. Further on data on urban area should be considered in such studies. References 1. Road Accidents In India 2012, Government of India, Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, Transport Research Wing, New Delhi. http://morth.nic.in/. 2. Open Government data (OGD) platform, http://data.gov.in/ catalog/. 3. Delaney Amanda; Stuart Newstead in Vehicle Safety Devices “The Effectiveness of Anti-Lock Brake Systems: a statistical analysis of Australian data” Monash University Accident Research Centre. 4. Hertz, Ellen; et.al.;“Analysis of the crash experience of vehicles equipped with antilock braking systems”, ESV conference 1996, p.1392-1395 96-S9-O-03. 5. Forkenbrock, G., Flick, M., and Garrott, W., “A Comprehensive Light Vehicle Antilock Brake System Test Track Performance Evaluation,” SAE Technical Paper 1999-01-1287, 1999, doi:10.4271/1999-01-1287. 6. Burton David etal. “Effectiveness of ABS and Vehicle Stability Control Systems” Royal Automobile Club of Victoria. April 2004, ISBN 1 875963 39 1. 7. Accidental Deaths and Suicides in India' 2012, National crime records bureau, Government of India. http://ncrb.nic.in/ ADSI2010/ADSI2010-full-report.pdf. Downloaded from SAE International by Robert Bosch GmbH, Tuesday, February 03, 2015 8. 9. Kumaresh, G., Lich, T., Moennich, J., and Georgi, A., “Representativeness and Weighting Methods of Real Time Accident Data in India,” SAE Technical Paper 2013-26-0022, 2013, doi:10.4271/2013-26-0022. Mönnich J.; Lich T.; Georgi A.; Kumaresh G., “How to evaluate the accident situation in India?” 5th international Expert Symposium on Accident Research (ESAR), Hanover, Germany, September 2012. 10. Rameshkrishnan N.; Sathyakumar A.; Balakumar S.; Hassan A. M.; Rajaraman R.; Padmanaban J., The New In-Depth, At-theScene, Accident Investigation Database in India” International Research Council On Biomechanics of Injury (IRCOBI) conference, Gothenburg, Sweden, September 2013. 11. Accident Type Classification System based on GDV, German Insurance Association, “Leitfaden zur Bestimmung des Unfalltyps” Informationen des Instituts für Straßenverkehr ISSN 0724-3693, 1998. 12. Sreekumar M., Maurya Akhilesh Kumar; “Need for a Comprehensive Traffic Simulation Model in Indian Context” International Conference on Emerging Frontiers in Technology for Rural Area (EFITRA) 2012, International Journal of Computer Applications® (IJCA). 13. RASSI Database 2014, data collected by JP Research India pvt ltd; www.jpresearchindia.com/rassi.html. Contact Information Mr. Girikumar K Specialist - Accident Research Robert Bosch Engineering and Business Solutions Limited Engineering Occupant Safety (RBEI/ESA) Gold Hill Square, No. 690, Bommanahalli. Bangalore - 560 068, INDIA [email protected] Mr. Thomas Lich Project Manager and Senior Specialist for Accident Research Corporate Research and Advance Engineering Vehicle Safety and Assistance Systems (CR/AEV) Robert Bosch Corporation P.O. Box 30 02 40 70442 Stuttgart GERMANY [email protected] Acknowledgments The authors would like to thank the RASSI consortium members 2014 for their support in this project. (RASSI consortium members 2014: JPRI, Daimler, Nissan, Renault, Hyundai, Honda, Bosch) The Engineering Meetings Board has approved this paper for publication. It has successfully completed SAE’s peer review process under the supervision of the session organizer. The process requires a minimum of three (3) reviews by industry experts. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of SAE International. Positions and opinions advanced in this paper are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of SAE International. The author is solely responsible for the content of the paper. 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