Mervyn Edwards - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Mervyn Edwards

The UK government are committed to bringing forward legislation to allow the safe and secure depl... more The UK government are committed to bringing forward legislation to allow the safe and secure deployment of self-driving vehicles. As part of the CAVPASS programme, TRL was commissioned to propose approaches to vehicle classification, and suitable technical requirements for aspects not related to the Automated Driving System (ADS). These included crashworthiness, occupant protection, protection of vulnerable Road Users (VRUs), and the lighting, braking and steering systems. The focus of this study was on Low-Speed Automated Vehicles (LSAVs). It involved selection and adaptation of existing pre- and post-deployment regulation to enable it to be applied to LSAVs. A main part was the adaptation of the technical regulations for M- and N-category vehicles, laid down in Great Britain’s Road Vehicles (Approval) Regulations 2020 (SI 2020 No. 818), which implements retained Regulation (EU) 2018/858. The study proposed the introduction of two new vehicle categories (for LSAVs with and without ...

Frontal impacts are the most frequent crash type and account for the majority of Killed and Serio... more Frontal impacts are the most frequent crash type and account for the majority of Killed and Seriously Injured (KSI) car occupant casualties in Europe. This study reviews the performance of modern cars (registered in 1996 or later) in frontal impacts, which are most associated with KSI casualties. Comparison is made with the 40% offset legislative (UNECE R94) and consumer (EuroNCAP) tests. The aim of the study is to evaluate how well the 40% offset configuration and the associated vehicle loading and intrusion factors represents the real life injury experience sustained in frontal impacts. Co-operative Crash Injury Study (CCIS) data collected from June 1998 has been used. There were 806 KSI seat belted casualties who experienced frontal impacts and were occupants of cars registered in 1996 or later. The majority of these victims were drivers. The study then analyses 435 drivers who had impacts that involved direct contact to the front right corner of the car. The nature of the vehicl...

The work reported here relates to a research project that was undertaken to support the current r... more The work reported here relates to a research project that was undertaken to support the current review of the European frontal and side impact Directives. The aim of the project was to conduct a general review focusing on the major issues identified in the Articles of the Directives and in a report to the European Commission on accident analyses. These are test speed, neck injury criteria and extension to N1 vehicles for frontal impact; and test severity, barrier height, seating position, Viscous Criterion and the necessity of a pole test for side impact. A comprehensive analysis of the results from the European New Car Assessment Programme (EuroNCAP) crash tests has been used to review the suitability of the current injury criteria, car structural performance requirements and test configuration. This is backed up with accident analysis using data from the UK Co-operative Crash Injury Study (CCIS) and the recent accident analysis co-funded by the European Commission. Full scale car ...

Within this paper different European accident data sources were used to investigate the causation... more Within this paper different European accident data sources were used to investigate the causations and backgrounds of road traffic accidents with pedestrians. Analyses of high level national data and in-depth accident data from Germany and Great Britain were used to confirm and refine preliminary accident scenarios identified from other sources using a literature review. General observations made included that a high proportion of killed or seriously injured pedestrian casualties impacted by cars were in ‘dark’ light conditions. Seven accident scenarios were identified (each divided into ‘daylight’ and ‘dark’ light conditions) which included the majority of the car front-to-pedestrian crash configurations. Test scenarios were developed using the identified accident scenarios and relevant parameters. Hypothetical parameters were derived to describe the performance of pedestrian pre-crash systems based on the assumption that these systems are designed to avoid false positives as a ver...

Although the number of road accident casualties in Europe (EU27) is falling the problem still rem... more Although the number of road accident casualties in Europe (EU27) is falling the problem still remains substantial. In 2011 there were still over 30,000 road accident fatalities. Approximately half of these were car occupants and about 60 percent of these occurred in frontal impacts. The next stage to improve a car’s safety performance in frontal impacts is to improve its compatibility. The objective of the FIMCAR FP7 EU-project was to develop an assessment approach suitable for regulatory application to control a car’s frontal impact and compatibility crash performance and perform an associated cost benefit analysis for its implementation. This paper reports the cost benefit analyses performed to estimate the effect of the following potential changes to the frontal impact regulation: Option 1- No change and allow current measures to propagate throughout the vehicle fleet. Option 2 - Add a full width test to the current offset Deformable Barrier (ODB) test. Option 3 - Add a full widt...

The primary objective of this project was to provide advice on the likely benefit and feasibility... more The primary objective of this project was to provide advice on the likely benefit and feasibility of a range of possible measures to improve vehicle safety. The study involved stakeholders at several stages to ensure that relevant measures were being considered, and that manufacturers, suppliers and other organisations had an opportunity to provide information on the feasibility and costs of state-of-the-art technologies. The outputs are indicative cost-benefits provided in order to differentiate those measures that are very likely, moderately likely or very unlikely to provide a benefit consistent with the cost of implementation. This information will enable prioritisation of possible future legislation or amendments thereto relevant to vehicle safety and to the relevant EU type-approval requirements. This study also aimed to provide advice on the necessity and feasibility of including the complimentary upper legform to bonnet leading edge and adult headform to windscreen tests in ...

In support of the European Enhanced Vehicle-safety Committee (EEVC) research programme and throug... more In support of the European Enhanced Vehicle-safety Committee (EEVC) research programme and through it, the International Harmonisation of Research Activities work on compatibility, TRL is investigating the compatibility of cars in frontal and side impact scenarios. Initial research has focused on identifying the major factors which influence compatibility and determining the extent to which they might influence injury outcome. Experimental crash test research is backed with Finite Element simulation modelling. For frontal impacts, full scale testing has been used to examine the influence of vehicle mass, stiffness, structural interaction and geometry. The modelling work has studied how non contact, deceleration related injuries might be minimised by optimising the deceleration pulse. For side impact, full car finite element models have been used for parametric studies to aid our understanding of the effects of the bullet vehicle mass, geometry and stiffness and to help predict more ...

UN Regulation No. 137 (R137) specifies a 50 km/h, full-width rigid barrier frontal impact test wi... more UN Regulation No. 137 (R137) specifies a 50 km/h, full-width rigid barrier frontal impact test with driver and passenger 50 and 5 percentile Hybrid III dummies respectively. One objective of the regulation is to encourage better restraint systems that protect older occupants and across a wider range of collision severities. This paper investigates two research questions: − How much will restraint systems of European cars have to be modified to meet the requirements in R137? − What level of protection is offered by current European restraint systems at lower impact energies than tested in R137? Six full-scale crash tests were conducted with European-specification supermini cars. The test configurations used were R137 in standard configuration, at reduced impact speed and with a THOR-M ATD instead of Hybrid III. The crash tests were complemented by an analysis of Road Accident In-Depth Studies (RAIDS) data. The test vehicles in their European market specification were found to already...

To assess a vehicle's frontal impact crashworthiness an integrated set of test procedures is ... more To assess a vehicle's frontal impact crashworthiness an integrated set of test procedures is required that assesses both the car's self and partner (compatibility) protection. It has been recommended by the International Harmonisation of Research Activities (IHRA) frontal impact group that the set of test procedures should contain both full overlap and offset tests. Currently, in Europe only an offset test is used in regulation and consumer testing. In 2007, the European Enhanced Vehicle-safety Committee (EEVC) made a number of proposals for a set of test procedures, all of which contain full width and offset tests. This paper presents the work performed by the European Commission 6th framework APROSYS project to develop a full width test procedure for Europe. It also describes an initial cost benefit analysis for its introduction into the European regulatory regime. Accident analysis was performed using the UK CCIS and German GIDAS databases to help determine the test speed...

While passive safety assessment is well established in regulation and consumer testing, active sa... more While passive safety assessment is well established in regulation and consumer testing, active safety assessment has only emerged recently. An integrated safety system is one which consists of both active and passive safety devices. Assessment of these systems is in its infancy and is the subject of current research. The current challenge is to define a methodology which integrates active and passive assessments and takes into account the influence that the active safety system has on the boundary conditions for the passive safety system. The current study is focused on developing a methodology to assess integrated pedestrian systems. Some previous research work has been performed to develop methodologies to assess these systems but to date no methodology has been developed which integrates the active and passive assessments fully and takes into account the effect of the active safety system on the passive safety system boundary conditions.

• The FWDB metric (3) is recommended because its correlation with a geometric assessment of the v... more • The FWDB metric (3) is recommended because its correlation with a geometric assessment of the vehicle is as good as the other FWDB metric candidates, it is a single stage metric which follows the spirit of keeping the metric as simple as possible and effectively it allows the mass of the vehicle to be taken into account in the performance requirements.

According to the World Health Organization, pedestrians account for more than 19% of road fatalit... more According to the World Health Organization, pedestrians account for more than 19% of road fatalities in the EU-27. Most of these accidents are caused by the driver being non-alert or misinterpretation of the situation. For that reason advanced forward-looking systems have a high potential to improve safety for this group of road user. These systems combine reduction of impact speed by driver warning and/or autonomous braking with protective devices upon impact. The objective of the AsPeCSS project is to contribute towards improving the protection of vulnerable road users by developing harmonized test and assessment procedures for forward-looking integrated safety systems. The outcome of the project is a suite of tests and assessment methods as input to future regulatory procedures and consumer rating protocols. Implementation of such procedures will enforce widespread introduction of the systems, resulting in a reduction of fatalities and seriously injured.

Although the number of road accident casualties in Europe is falling the problem still remains su... more Although the number of road accident casualties in Europe is falling the problem still remains substantial. In 2011 there were still over 30,000 road accident fatalities [EC 2012]. Approximately half of these were car occupants and about 60 percent of these occurred in frontal impacts. The next stage to improve a car's safety performance in frontal impacts is to improve its compatibility for car-to-car impacts and for collisions against objects and HGVs. Compatibility consists of improving both a car's self and partner protection in a manner such that there is good interaction with the collision partner and the impact energy is absorbed in the car's frontal structures in a controlled way which results in a reduction of injuries. Over the last ten years much research has been performed which has found that there are four main factors related to a car's compatibility [Edwards 2003, Edwards 2007]. These are structural interaction potential, frontal force matching, compartment strength and the compartment deceleration pulse and related restraint system performance. performance level that is at least equivalent to that required to be UNECE Regulation 94 compliant. Legislation mandates that all new types of cars registered post 1 st Oct 1998 shall be Regulation 94 compliant and all cars registered post 1 st Oct 2003 shall be Regulation 94 compliant. It should be noted that the safety performance levels of many of these vehicles will be much higher than that required by Regulation 94 because of the influence of programmes such as Euro NCAP. o Option 2: Add Full Width (Deformable Barrier) test XIII-3

In 2009, 2,222 people were killed and 24,690 were seriously injured in road traffic accidents in ... more In 2009, 2,222 people were killed and 24,690 were seriously injured in road traffic accidents in Great Britain (GB). About half the people killed were car occupants and just over one third of these were killed in side impacts. Over the past ten years, since the introduction of the side impact regulation in Europe, much research work has been performed internationally to develop new and modified test procedures to improve the level of occupant protection offered by vehicles in side impacts. In Europe, this research has been co-ordinated by the European Enhanced Vehicle safety Committee (EEVC) and focused on contributing to the development of WorldSID and three test procedures. These are an Advanced European Deformable Barrier (AE-MDB) test, a pole test and an interior headform test. This paper describes work performed by TRL on behalf of the UK Department for Transport to inform UK policy regarding side impact protection and provide the UK contribution to EEVC activities. The work de...

At the 2005 ESV conference, the International Harmonisation of Research Activities (IHRA) side im... more At the 2005 ESV conference, the International Harmonisation of Research Activities (IHRA) side impact working group proposed a 4 part draft test procedure, to form the basis of harmonisation of regulation world-wide and to help advances in car occupant protection. This paper presents the work performed by a European Commission 6 th framework project, called APROSYS, on further development and evaluation of the proposed procedure from a European perspective. The 4 parts of the proposed procedure are: A Mobile Deformable Barrier test. An oblique Pole side impact test Interior headform tests Side Out of Position (OOP) tests Full scale test and modelling work to develop the Advanced European Mobile Deformable Barrier (AE-MDB) further is described, resulting in a recommendation to revise the barrier face to include a bumper beam element. An evaluation of oblique and perpendicular pole tests was made from tests and numerical simulations using ES-2 and WorldSID 50 th percentile dummies. It...

The UK government are committed to bringing forward legislation to allow the safe and secure depl... more The UK government are committed to bringing forward legislation to allow the safe and secure deployment of self-driving vehicles. As part of the CAVPASS programme, TRL was commissioned to propose approaches to vehicle classification, and suitable technical requirements for aspects not related to the Automated Driving System (ADS). These included crashworthiness, occupant protection, protection of vulnerable Road Users (VRUs), and the lighting, braking and steering systems. The focus of this study was on Low-Speed Automated Vehicles (LSAVs). It involved selection and adaptation of existing pre- and post-deployment regulation to enable it to be applied to LSAVs. A main part was the adaptation of the technical regulations for M- and N-category vehicles, laid down in Great Britain’s Road Vehicles (Approval) Regulations 2020 (SI 2020 No. 818), which implements retained Regulation (EU) 2018/858. The study proposed the introduction of two new vehicle categories (for LSAVs with and without ...

Frontal impacts are the most frequent crash type and account for the majority of Killed and Serio... more Frontal impacts are the most frequent crash type and account for the majority of Killed and Seriously Injured (KSI) car occupant casualties in Europe. This study reviews the performance of modern cars (registered in 1996 or later) in frontal impacts, which are most associated with KSI casualties. Comparison is made with the 40% offset legislative (UNECE R94) and consumer (EuroNCAP) tests. The aim of the study is to evaluate how well the 40% offset configuration and the associated vehicle loading and intrusion factors represents the real life injury experience sustained in frontal impacts. Co-operative Crash Injury Study (CCIS) data collected from June 1998 has been used. There were 806 KSI seat belted casualties who experienced frontal impacts and were occupants of cars registered in 1996 or later. The majority of these victims were drivers. The study then analyses 435 drivers who had impacts that involved direct contact to the front right corner of the car. The nature of the vehicl...

The work reported here relates to a research project that was undertaken to support the current r... more The work reported here relates to a research project that was undertaken to support the current review of the European frontal and side impact Directives. The aim of the project was to conduct a general review focusing on the major issues identified in the Articles of the Directives and in a report to the European Commission on accident analyses. These are test speed, neck injury criteria and extension to N1 vehicles for frontal impact; and test severity, barrier height, seating position, Viscous Criterion and the necessity of a pole test for side impact. A comprehensive analysis of the results from the European New Car Assessment Programme (EuroNCAP) crash tests has been used to review the suitability of the current injury criteria, car structural performance requirements and test configuration. This is backed up with accident analysis using data from the UK Co-operative Crash Injury Study (CCIS) and the recent accident analysis co-funded by the European Commission. Full scale car ...

Within this paper different European accident data sources were used to investigate the causation... more Within this paper different European accident data sources were used to investigate the causations and backgrounds of road traffic accidents with pedestrians. Analyses of high level national data and in-depth accident data from Germany and Great Britain were used to confirm and refine preliminary accident scenarios identified from other sources using a literature review. General observations made included that a high proportion of killed or seriously injured pedestrian casualties impacted by cars were in ‘dark’ light conditions. Seven accident scenarios were identified (each divided into ‘daylight’ and ‘dark’ light conditions) which included the majority of the car front-to-pedestrian crash configurations. Test scenarios were developed using the identified accident scenarios and relevant parameters. Hypothetical parameters were derived to describe the performance of pedestrian pre-crash systems based on the assumption that these systems are designed to avoid false positives as a ver...

Although the number of road accident casualties in Europe (EU27) is falling the problem still rem... more Although the number of road accident casualties in Europe (EU27) is falling the problem still remains substantial. In 2011 there were still over 30,000 road accident fatalities. Approximately half of these were car occupants and about 60 percent of these occurred in frontal impacts. The next stage to improve a car’s safety performance in frontal impacts is to improve its compatibility. The objective of the FIMCAR FP7 EU-project was to develop an assessment approach suitable for regulatory application to control a car’s frontal impact and compatibility crash performance and perform an associated cost benefit analysis for its implementation. This paper reports the cost benefit analyses performed to estimate the effect of the following potential changes to the frontal impact regulation: Option 1- No change and allow current measures to propagate throughout the vehicle fleet. Option 2 - Add a full width test to the current offset Deformable Barrier (ODB) test. Option 3 - Add a full widt...

The primary objective of this project was to provide advice on the likely benefit and feasibility... more The primary objective of this project was to provide advice on the likely benefit and feasibility of a range of possible measures to improve vehicle safety. The study involved stakeholders at several stages to ensure that relevant measures were being considered, and that manufacturers, suppliers and other organisations had an opportunity to provide information on the feasibility and costs of state-of-the-art technologies. The outputs are indicative cost-benefits provided in order to differentiate those measures that are very likely, moderately likely or very unlikely to provide a benefit consistent with the cost of implementation. This information will enable prioritisation of possible future legislation or amendments thereto relevant to vehicle safety and to the relevant EU type-approval requirements. This study also aimed to provide advice on the necessity and feasibility of including the complimentary upper legform to bonnet leading edge and adult headform to windscreen tests in ...

In support of the European Enhanced Vehicle-safety Committee (EEVC) research programme and throug... more In support of the European Enhanced Vehicle-safety Committee (EEVC) research programme and through it, the International Harmonisation of Research Activities work on compatibility, TRL is investigating the compatibility of cars in frontal and side impact scenarios. Initial research has focused on identifying the major factors which influence compatibility and determining the extent to which they might influence injury outcome. Experimental crash test research is backed with Finite Element simulation modelling. For frontal impacts, full scale testing has been used to examine the influence of vehicle mass, stiffness, structural interaction and geometry. The modelling work has studied how non contact, deceleration related injuries might be minimised by optimising the deceleration pulse. For side impact, full car finite element models have been used for parametric studies to aid our understanding of the effects of the bullet vehicle mass, geometry and stiffness and to help predict more ...

UN Regulation No. 137 (R137) specifies a 50 km/h, full-width rigid barrier frontal impact test wi... more UN Regulation No. 137 (R137) specifies a 50 km/h, full-width rigid barrier frontal impact test with driver and passenger 50 and 5 percentile Hybrid III dummies respectively. One objective of the regulation is to encourage better restraint systems that protect older occupants and across a wider range of collision severities. This paper investigates two research questions: − How much will restraint systems of European cars have to be modified to meet the requirements in R137? − What level of protection is offered by current European restraint systems at lower impact energies than tested in R137? Six full-scale crash tests were conducted with European-specification supermini cars. The test configurations used were R137 in standard configuration, at reduced impact speed and with a THOR-M ATD instead of Hybrid III. The crash tests were complemented by an analysis of Road Accident In-Depth Studies (RAIDS) data. The test vehicles in their European market specification were found to already...

To assess a vehicle's frontal impact crashworthiness an integrated set of test procedures is ... more To assess a vehicle's frontal impact crashworthiness an integrated set of test procedures is required that assesses both the car's self and partner (compatibility) protection. It has been recommended by the International Harmonisation of Research Activities (IHRA) frontal impact group that the set of test procedures should contain both full overlap and offset tests. Currently, in Europe only an offset test is used in regulation and consumer testing. In 2007, the European Enhanced Vehicle-safety Committee (EEVC) made a number of proposals for a set of test procedures, all of which contain full width and offset tests. This paper presents the work performed by the European Commission 6th framework APROSYS project to develop a full width test procedure for Europe. It also describes an initial cost benefit analysis for its introduction into the European regulatory regime. Accident analysis was performed using the UK CCIS and German GIDAS databases to help determine the test speed...

While passive safety assessment is well established in regulation and consumer testing, active sa... more While passive safety assessment is well established in regulation and consumer testing, active safety assessment has only emerged recently. An integrated safety system is one which consists of both active and passive safety devices. Assessment of these systems is in its infancy and is the subject of current research. The current challenge is to define a methodology which integrates active and passive assessments and takes into account the influence that the active safety system has on the boundary conditions for the passive safety system. The current study is focused on developing a methodology to assess integrated pedestrian systems. Some previous research work has been performed to develop methodologies to assess these systems but to date no methodology has been developed which integrates the active and passive assessments fully and takes into account the effect of the active safety system on the passive safety system boundary conditions.

• The FWDB metric (3) is recommended because its correlation with a geometric assessment of the v... more • The FWDB metric (3) is recommended because its correlation with a geometric assessment of the vehicle is as good as the other FWDB metric candidates, it is a single stage metric which follows the spirit of keeping the metric as simple as possible and effectively it allows the mass of the vehicle to be taken into account in the performance requirements.

According to the World Health Organization, pedestrians account for more than 19% of road fatalit... more According to the World Health Organization, pedestrians account for more than 19% of road fatalities in the EU-27. Most of these accidents are caused by the driver being non-alert or misinterpretation of the situation. For that reason advanced forward-looking systems have a high potential to improve safety for this group of road user. These systems combine reduction of impact speed by driver warning and/or autonomous braking with protective devices upon impact. The objective of the AsPeCSS project is to contribute towards improving the protection of vulnerable road users by developing harmonized test and assessment procedures for forward-looking integrated safety systems. The outcome of the project is a suite of tests and assessment methods as input to future regulatory procedures and consumer rating protocols. Implementation of such procedures will enforce widespread introduction of the systems, resulting in a reduction of fatalities and seriously injured.

Although the number of road accident casualties in Europe is falling the problem still remains su... more Although the number of road accident casualties in Europe is falling the problem still remains substantial. In 2011 there were still over 30,000 road accident fatalities [EC 2012]. Approximately half of these were car occupants and about 60 percent of these occurred in frontal impacts. The next stage to improve a car's safety performance in frontal impacts is to improve its compatibility for car-to-car impacts and for collisions against objects and HGVs. Compatibility consists of improving both a car's self and partner protection in a manner such that there is good interaction with the collision partner and the impact energy is absorbed in the car's frontal structures in a controlled way which results in a reduction of injuries. Over the last ten years much research has been performed which has found that there are four main factors related to a car's compatibility [Edwards 2003, Edwards 2007]. These are structural interaction potential, frontal force matching, compartment strength and the compartment deceleration pulse and related restraint system performance. performance level that is at least equivalent to that required to be UNECE Regulation 94 compliant. Legislation mandates that all new types of cars registered post 1 st Oct 1998 shall be Regulation 94 compliant and all cars registered post 1 st Oct 2003 shall be Regulation 94 compliant. It should be noted that the safety performance levels of many of these vehicles will be much higher than that required by Regulation 94 because of the influence of programmes such as Euro NCAP. o Option 2: Add Full Width (Deformable Barrier) test XIII-3

In 2009, 2,222 people were killed and 24,690 were seriously injured in road traffic accidents in ... more In 2009, 2,222 people were killed and 24,690 were seriously injured in road traffic accidents in Great Britain (GB). About half the people killed were car occupants and just over one third of these were killed in side impacts. Over the past ten years, since the introduction of the side impact regulation in Europe, much research work has been performed internationally to develop new and modified test procedures to improve the level of occupant protection offered by vehicles in side impacts. In Europe, this research has been co-ordinated by the European Enhanced Vehicle safety Committee (EEVC) and focused on contributing to the development of WorldSID and three test procedures. These are an Advanced European Deformable Barrier (AE-MDB) test, a pole test and an interior headform test. This paper describes work performed by TRL on behalf of the UK Department for Transport to inform UK policy regarding side impact protection and provide the UK contribution to EEVC activities. The work de...

At the 2005 ESV conference, the International Harmonisation of Research Activities (IHRA) side im... more At the 2005 ESV conference, the International Harmonisation of Research Activities (IHRA) side impact working group proposed a 4 part draft test procedure, to form the basis of harmonisation of regulation world-wide and to help advances in car occupant protection. This paper presents the work performed by a European Commission 6 th framework project, called APROSYS, on further development and evaluation of the proposed procedure from a European perspective. The 4 parts of the proposed procedure are: A Mobile Deformable Barrier test. An oblique Pole side impact test Interior headform tests Side Out of Position (OOP) tests Full scale test and modelling work to develop the Advanced European Mobile Deformable Barrier (AE-MDB) further is described, resulting in a recommendation to revise the barrier face to include a bumper beam element. An evaluation of oblique and perpendicular pole tests was made from tests and numerical simulations using ES-2 and WorldSID 50 th percentile dummies. It...