Im Zuge der AIT Lecture Series freute sich das Mobility Department, Prof. Pete Thomas am 30. April 2015 begrüßen zu dürfen. Pete Thomas ist Professor für Straßenverkehrs- und Fahrzeugsicherheit an der Loughborough University (UK). Seinen Gastvortrag am AIT widmete er dem Wandel der Straßenverkehrssicherheit angesichts der Auswirkungen neuer Informations- und Automationstechniken auf den Verkehr.
Pete Thomas ist der Erstbetreuer der PhD Thesis von Philippe Nitsche, Student an der Loughborough University und Scientist im AIT Mobility Department, Geschäftsfeld Transportation Infrastructure Technologies. Die Doktorarbeit entstand durch die Kollaboration zwischen AIT Mobility und der Loughborough University und widmet sich der Sicherheit von automatisierten Fahrzeugen und zukünftiger Testverfahren für urbane Bereiche.
Abstract
Road safety policy at national and international level is increasingly based on the Safe System Approach which provides a results focussed framework to deliver road safety and casualty reduction. The Approach relies on a strong evidence base on which national and European road safety policies can be based. Historically this evidence is largely based on analysis of the national accident databases together with measures of effectiveness taken from evaluation studies and the scientific literature.
The European Road Safety Observatory has been established by the European Commission in order to provide a high quality data and knowledge in support of road safety policy-making. Developed under a series of EU research projects led by Loughborough University the ERSO has now become a standard tool for safety decisions. Its further development will focus on synthesising existing and new safety evaluations into a detailed knowledge repository that is focussed on policy support.
The emerging challenge is increasingly to identify the emerging technologies that will have an impact on road safety. Cars are being equipped with new safety systems on a routine basis and the next generation of systems is under development before the previous generation has entered the vehicle fleet. How can we make informed choices over the most effective systems when there is little or no real-world evidence on which to base decisions? What sort of data do we need to inform policy – is traditional accident data sufficient? How does naturalistic driving data contribute to our understanding? Over the longer term how can we be sure that fully automated vehicles will dramatically improve road safety as has been suggested, will taking the human out of the loop prevent all crashes?
CV
Pete Thomas is the Professor of Road and Vehicle Safety at Loughborough University in the UK. He is a specialist in the area of accident and injury causation and has made many contributions to vehicle and road safety. He has published over 150 research papers on a broad range of vehicle safety issues, including active safety systems, injury biomechanics and causation, crash test procedures and accident data Analysis.