Innovative concepts for smart road restraint syste.. (smart rrs)
Innovative concepts for smart road restraint systems to provide greater safety for vulnerable road users
(smart rrs)
Start date: Nov 3, 2008,
End date: May 2, 2012
PROJECT
FINISHED
Recent figures from WHO and ETSC reveal frightening statistics on road traffic accidents across Europe and beyond • 1.2 million people worldwide are killed in road crashes each year with up to 43,000 dying in Europe • Up to 50 million are injured with at least 600,000 hospital admissions on a European level directly attributed to road traffic accidents. This costs European society approximately 160 billion euro and uses up 10% of all health care resources • With increased mobilization, these figures will increase by about 65% over the next 20 years unless there is new commitment to prevention. • This would mean that by 2020 road traffic injuries will be the third leading contributor to the global burden of disease and injury. – World Report on Road Traffic Injury Prevention [WHO, 2004] Report on European Road Transport Safety [Prof. Mackay, ETSC, 2000] Many injuries and deaths are a result of impacts with current road restraint systems especially in the case of vulnerable road users such as motorcyclists, cyclists and passengers where impacts with supports or edges usually result in amputations or sectioning of torsos in a guillotine effect. Furthermore once an accident has occurred; the time between the impact and receiving immediate initial first aid can be crucial; delays in alerting emergency services or incorrect location information given to emergency can cause waste life saving moments for injured people or even result in emergency services going to the wrong location of the accident. This project will develop a new smart road restraint system that will reduce the number of deaths and injuries caused in road traffic accidents by integrating primary and tertiary sensor systems in a new RRS system; providing greater protection to all road users, alerting motorists and emergency services of danger so as to prevent accidents happening, and alerting them of accidents as they happen to maximise response time to the exact location of the incident.
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