The fatality and injury risk of light truck impacts with pedestrians in the United States

In the United States, passenger vehicles are shifting from a fleet populated primarily by cars to a fleet dominated by light trucks and vans (LTVs). Because light trucks are heavier, stiffer, and geometrically more blunt than passenger cars, they pose a dramatically different type of threat to pedestrians. This paper investigates the effect of striking vehicle type on pedestrian fatalities and injuries. The analysis incorporates three major sources of data, the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), the General Estimates System (GES), and the Pedestrian Crash Data Study (PCDS). The paper presents and compares pedestrian impact risk factors for sport utility vehicles, pickup trucks, vans, and cars as developed from analyses of US accident statistics. Pedestrians are found to have a two to three times greater likelihood of dying when struck by an LTV than when struck by a car. Examination of pedestrian injury distributions reveals that, given an impact speed, the probability of serious head and thoracic injury is substantially greater when the striking vehicle is an LTV rather than a car.     

Analysis of large truck crash severity using heteroskedastic ordered probit models

Long-combination vehicles (LCVs) have significant potential to increase economic productivity for shippers and carriers by decreasing the number of truck trips, thus reducing costs. However, size and weight regulations, triggered by safety concerns and, in some cases, infrastructure investment concerns, have prevented large-scale adoption of such vehicles. Information on actual crash performance is needed. To this end, this work uses standard and heteroskedastic ordered probit models, along with the United States’ Large Truck Crash Causation Study, General Estimates System, and Vehicle Inventory and Use Survey data sets, to study the impact of vehicle, occupant, driver, and environmental characteristics on injury outcomes for those involved in crashes with heavy-duty trucks. Results suggest that the likelihood of fatalities and severe injury is estimated to rise with the number of trailers, but fall with the truck length and gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR). While findings suggest that fatality likelihood for two-trailer LCVs is higher than that of single-trailer non-LCVs and other trucks, controlling for exposure risk suggest that total crash costs of LCVs are lower (per vehicle-mile traveled) than those of other trucks.     

Crash dieting: the effects of eating and drinking on driving performance

Previous research suggests that compared to mobile phone use, eating and drinking while driving is more common and is seen as lower risk by drivers. Nevertheless, snacking at the wheel can affect vehicle control to a similar extent as using a hands-free phone, and is actually a causal factor in more crashes. So far, though, there has not been a controlled empirical study of this problem. In an effort to fill this gap in the literature, we used the Brunel University Driving Simulator to test participants on a typical urban scenario. At designated points on the drive, which coincided with instructions to eat or drink, a critical incident was simulated by programming a pedestrian to walk in front of the car. Whilst the driving performance variables measured were relatively unaffected by eating and drinking, perceived driver workload was significantly higher and there were more crashes in the critical incident when compared to driving normally. Despite some methodological limitations of the study, when taken together with previous research, the evidence suggests that the physical demands of eating and drinking while driving can increase the risk of a crash.     

Multi-scale traffic safety and operational performance study of large trucks on mountainous interstate highway

In addition to multi-vehicle accidents, large trucks are also prone to single-vehicle accidents on the mountainous interstate highways due to the complex terrain and fast-changing weather. By integrating both historical data analysis and simulations, a multi-scale approach is developed to evaluate the traffic safety and operational performance of large trucks on mountainous interstate highways in both scales of individual vehicle as well as traffic on the whole highway. A typical mountainous highway in Colorado is studied for demonstration purposes. Firstly, the ten-year historical accident records are analyzed to identify the accident-vulnerable-locations (AVLs) and site-specific critical adverse driving conditions. Secondly, simulation-based single-vehicle assessment is performed for different driving conditions at those AVLs along the whole corridor. Finally, the cellular-automaton (CA)-based simulation is carried out to evaluate the multi-vehicle traffic safety as well as the operational performance of the traffic by considering the actual speed limits, including the differential speed limits (DSL) at some locations. It is found that the multi-scale approach can provide insightful and comprehensive observations of the highway performance, which is especially important for mountainous highways.     

Analysis of injury severity of large truck crashes in work zones

Work zones are critical parts of the transportation infrastructure renewal process consisting of rehabilitation of roadways, maintenance, and utility work. Given the specific nature of a work zone (complex arrangements of traffic control devices and signs, narrow lanes, duration) a number of crashes occur with varying severities involving different vehicle sizes. In this paper we attempt to investigate the causal factors contributing to injury severity of large truck crashes in work zones. Considering the discrete nature of injury severity categories, a number of comparable econometric models were developed including multinomial logit (MNL), nested logit (NL), ordered logit (ORL), and generalized ordered logit (GORL) models. The MNL and NL models belong to the class of unordered discrete choice models and do not recognize the intrinsic ordinal nature of the injury severity data. The ORL and GORL models, on the other hand, belong to the ordered response framework that was specifically developed for handling ordinal dependent variables. Past literature did not find conclusive evidence in support of either framework. This study compared these alternate modeling frameworks for analyzing injury severity of crashes involving large trucks in work zones. The model estimation was undertaken by compiling a database of crashes that (1) involved large trucks and (2) occurred in work zones in the past 10 years in Minnesota. Empirical findings indicate that the GORL model provided superior data fit as compared to all the other models. Also, elasticity analysis was undertaken to quantify the magnitude of impact of different factors on work zone safety and the results of this analysis suggest the factors that increase the risk propensity of sustaining severe crashes in a work zone include crashes in the daytime, no control of access, higher speed limits, and crashes occurring on rural principal arterials.     

基于consensus的人工势能场在足球机器人避障中的应用

在分析足球机器人路径规划方法--人工势场法不足的基础上,将基于consensus的人工势能场的新方法应用到机器人避障中.为了避免传统人工势场中导航函数方式的缺点,引入一与运动方向垂直的回转仪的力来代替排斥力.为了避免由障碍物引起的运动奇异性,引入一制动力,使足球机器人减速以便有足够的时间转弯,可以进行很好的避障.利用consensus算法来获得优化的势能场函数,解决足球机器人导航和避障问题,并能达到时间最优和轨迹最优的目的.仿真结果表明该方法能够快速准确地进行避障,且路径比较平滑.     

On-road experiment to assess drivers’ detection of roadside targets as a function of headlight system,target placement,and target reflectance

Adaptive headlights swivel with steering input to keep the beams on the roadway as drivers negotiate curves. To assess the effects of this feature on driver’s visual performance, a field experiment was conducted at night on a rural, unlit, and unlined two-lane road during which 20 adult participant drivers searched a set of 60 targets. High- (n = 30) and low- (n = 30) reflectance targets were evenly distributed on straight road sections and on the inside or outside of curves. Participants completed three target detection trials: once with adaptive high-intensity discharge (HID) headlights, once with fixed HID headlights, and once with fixed halogen headlights. Results indicated the adaptive HID headlights helped drivers detect targets that were most difficult to see (low reflectance) at the points in curves found by other researchers to be most crucial for successful navigation (inside apex). For targets placed on straight stretches of road or on the outside of curves, the adaptive feature provided no significant improvement in target detection. However, the pattern of results indicate that HID lamps whether fixed or adaptive improved target detection somewhat, suggesting that part of the real world crash reduction measured for this adaptive system (Highway Loss Data Institute (HLDI), 2012a) may be due to the differences in the light source (HID vs. halogen). Depending on the scenario, the estimated benefits to driver response time associated with the tested adaptive (swiveling HID) headlights ranged from 200 to 380 ms compared with the fixed headlight systems tested.     

Generalization of case studies in road traffic when defining pre-crash scenarios for active safety function evaluation

To define pre-crash scenarios for evaluation of active safety functions, data from crash investigations is often used. Typical data sources include official databases with police reported crashes (macroscopic data) and in-depth case studies (microscopic data). Macroscopic data is often representative but has little detail on causation, while the opposite is true of microscopic data. Combining the sources by coupling causation information from a set of case studies to a macroscopic crash type would therefore seem ideal. For the coupling to be valid however, it must be verified that the selected case study set is representative of the crash type. The aim of this study is to describe and test a new methodology for such verification by means of an intermediate layer of representatively sampled crash information (questionnaire responses from crash involved drivers). The methodology was applied to intersection crashes. For the data sets used, the similarity in crash causation for case studies and questionnaire crashes, together with the context similarity for questionnaire crashes and the macroscopic crash type, was sufficient to argue that the case studies were representative of the crash type. While results must be considered preliminary given the limited data sets used, the proposed methodology shows promise for future work related to defining pre-crash scenarios for ADAS evaluation.     

Analysis of developed transition road safety barrier systems

Road safety barriers protect vehicles from roadside hazards by redirecting errant vehicles in a safe manner as well as providing high levels of safety during and after impact. This paper focused on transition safety barrier systems which were located at the point of attachment between a bridge and roadside barriers. The aim of this study was to provide an overview of the behavior of transition systems located at upstream bridge rail with different designs and performance levels. Design factors such as occupant risk and vehicle trajectory for different systems were collected and compared. To achieve this aim a comprehensive database was developed using previous studies. The comparison showed that Test 3–21, which is conducted by impacting a pickup truck with speed of 100 km/h and angle of 25° to transition system, was the most severe test. Occupant impact velocity and ridedown acceleration for heavy vehicles were lower than the amounts for passenger cars and pickup trucks, and in most cases higher occupant lateral impact ridedown acceleration was observed on vehicles subjected to higher levels of damage. The best transition system was selected to give optimum performance which reduced occupant risk factors using the similar crashes in accordance with Test 3–21.     

Comprehensive analysis of single- and multi-vehicle large truck at-fault crashes on rural and urban roadways in Alabama

The research described in this paper analyzed injury severities at a disaggregate level for single-vehicle (SV) and multi-vehicle (MV) large truck at-fault accidents for rural and urban locations in Alabama. Given the occurrence of a crash, four separate random parameter logit models of injury severity (with possible outcomes of major, minor, and possible or no injury) were estimated. The models identified different sets of factors that can lead to effective policy decisions aimed at reducing large truck-at-fault accidents for respective locations. The results of the study clearly indicated that there are differences between the influences of a variety of variables on the injury severities resulting from urban vs. rural SV and MV large truck at-fault accidents. The results showed that some variables were significant only in one type of accident model (SV or MV) but not in the other accident model. Again, some variables were found to be significant in one location (rural or urban) but not in other locations. The study also identified important factors that significantly impact the injury severity resulting from SV and MV large truck at-fault accidents in urban and rural locations based on the estimated values of average direct pseudo-elasticity. A careful study of the results of this study will help policy makers and transportation agencies identify location specific recommendations to increase safety awareness related to large truck involved accidents and to improve overall highway safety.     

Studies of key technologies for large area CdTe thin film solar cells

The structure and main manufacturing technologies of CdTe film solar cells of large area are reviewed. Among the technologies, some have been developed for application in a pilot manufacturing line. The high resistant SnO₂ (HRT) thin films have been fabricated by PECVD. The effects of annealing on the structure and properties have been studied. A surface etching process of CdTe in low temperature and lower concentration of nitric acid has been developed. The Cd_1 − xZn_xTe ternary compound films have been studied. In order to improve the back contact layer, Cd_0.4Zn_0.6Te layer with 1.8 eV band gap as a substitute for ZnTe layer is introduced in CdTe cells. The effects of the technologies on performance of CdTe cells and feasibility of application in the modules are discussed.     

民爆物品生产新工艺新装备工业化安全验证方法

工业化安全验证制度是一项旨在提高民爆物品生产新工艺新装备工业化生产安全性的新制度。目前,国内已有4项民爆物品生产新工艺新装备通过了工业化安全验证,但存在的主要问题是验证指标由项目专家组确定,未形成统一的验证方法和标准。在回顾工业化安全验证制度建立和实践应用基础上,设计了一种民爆物品生产新工艺新装备工业化安全验证方法,它是一个由4个一级指标、9个二级指标和19个三级指标组成的量化验证指标体系,实例应用效果表现出较高的科学性和适用性。     

民爆物品生产新工艺新装备工业化安全验证方法

工业化安全验证制度是一项旨在提高民爆物品生产新工艺新装备工业化生产安全性的新制度。目前,国内已有4项民爆物品生产新工艺新装备通过了工业化安全验证,但存在的主要问题是验证指标由项目专家组确定,未形成统一的验证方法和标准。在回顾工业化安全验证制度建立和实践应用基础上,设计了一种民爆物品生产新工艺新装备工业化安全验证方法,它是一个由4个一级指标、9个二级指标和19个三级指标组成的量化验证指标体系,实例应用效果表现出较高的科学性和适用性。     

大型空分设备自动变负荷技术应用

以40000m3/h空分设备为例,详细介绍了自动变负荷控制系统组成、技术要点和实现过程,对关键参数的变化规律进行了分析。自动变负荷技术的应用大大提高了空分设备负荷调节的稳定性,缩短了时间,降低了能耗。     

Assessing the safety benefits of an advanced vehicular technology for protecting pedestrians

This paper proposes a methodology to quantify the safety benefits of an active hood lift system (AHLS) for protecting pedestrians. AHLS works by lifting up the hood of a vehicle to obtain the space to absorb the impact energy before the pedestrian's head hits the hood in pedestrian–vehicle collision. The safety benefit is defined as the number of pedestrian lives saved by the AHLS. Both actual accident data analysis and simulation experiments were conducted to develop a probabilistic pedestrian fatality model based on the head injury criteria (HIC). Then, the fatality model was further applied to estimate the safety benefit. Analysis results revealed that the 95% confidence interval of the number of pedestrian lives saved by the AHLS was between 32.8 and 83.6 pedestrians. It is believed that the proposed methodology could be further applied in evaluating other vehicular technologies for traffic safety. In addition, the outcomes of this study would be effectively utilized in establishing relevant traffic safety policies.     

大型低温液体贮罐安全泄放装置的选用

介绍了大型低温液体贮罐结构 ,分析了大型低温液体贮罐安全泄放装置选用时的考虑因素 ;对大型低温液体贮罐安全泄放装置采用的先导式安全阀的工作特点和安装使用进行了阐述 ;叙述了大型低温液体贮罐安全阀泄放量确定的方法     

高通量筛查和安全评估结合评价乳制品包装安全风险

目的 以乳制品包装为研究对象,建立一套科学评价食品接触材料安全风险的方法,全面评价食品接触材料在接触食品过程中带来的食品安全风险。方法 采用非靶向高通量筛查检测技术全面筛查食品模拟物中的重金属和有机物,根据权威数据库和物质毒理学资料进行危害评估,参考欧盟和美国膳食暴露量计算方法进行暴露评估,结合评估结果计算风险系数,最终表征食品接触材料的安全风险。结果 抽取了市面上的塑料、金属、涂料及复合包装等不同材质的乳制品包装进行检测,检出铜、铬、锰和锡等元素,以及有意添加物（如单体、溶剂、抗氧剂、光引发剂、爽滑剂、增塑剂等）、非有意添加物质（如抗氧剂降解产物、寡聚物等）。采用暴露评估和危害评估方法分别表征检出物的膳食暴露和健康指导值,安全风险评估风险系数分布在0.007%～9.4%之间,安全风险较低。结论 建立的食品接触材料安全评价方法是一种有效评价食品接触材料安全风险的方法,该方法具有一定的通用性,企业、行业和政府部门等可用于识别食品接触材料的安全风险,为减少和排除安全风险提供科学依据。     

Commuting by bike in Belgium, the costs of minor accidents

Minor bicycle accidents are defined as “bicycle accidents not involving death or heavily injured persons, implying that possible hospital visits last less than 24 hours”. Statistics about these accidents and related injuries are very poor, because they are mostly not reported to police, hospitals or insurance companies. Yet, they form a major share of all bicycle accidents. Official registrations underestimate the number of minor accidents and do not provide cost data, nor the distance cycled. Therefore related policies are hampered by a lack of accurate data.This paper provides more insight into the importance of minor bicycle accidents and reports the frequency, risk and resulting costs of minor bicycle accidents. Direct costs, including the damage to bike and clothes as well as medical costs and indirect costs such as productivity loss and leisure time lost are calculated. We also estimate intangible costs of pain and psychological suffering and costs for other parties involved in the accident. Data were collected during the SHAPES project using several electronic surveys. The weekly prospective registration that lasted a year, covered 1187 persons that cycled 1,474,978 km. 219 minor bicycle accidents were reported. Resulting in a frequency of 148 minor bicycle accidents per million kilometres. We analyzed the economic costs related to 118 minor bicycle accidents in detail. The average total cost of these accidents is estimated at 841 euro (95% CI: 579–1205) per accident or 0.125 euro per kilometre cycled. Overall, productivity loss is the most important component accounting for 48% of the total cost. Intangible costs, which in past research were mostly neglected, are an important burden related to minor bicycle accidents (27% of the total cost). Even among minor accidents there are important differences in the total cost depending on the severity of the injury.