A paradigm change in road safety evaluation: From hypothetico-deductive testing to designing safety systems
Year: 2013
Editor: Udo Lindemann, Srinivasan V, Yong Se Kim, Sang Won Lee, John Clarkson, Gaetano Cascini
Author: Kazakci, Akin Osman; Paget, Nicolas; Fricheteau, Romain
Series: ICED
Institution: 1: Mines ParisTech, France; 2: Université Paris IX Dauphine; 3: CEESAR
Page(s): 091-100
ISBN: 978-1-904670-48-3
ISSN: 2220-4334
Abstract
The automotive industry is going through immense changes. For the rapidly changing technologies and the forthcoming intelligent vehicles, evaluation of road safety is of renewed importance. The traditional evaluation paradigm is centered on a passive safety paradigm and stabilized evaluation routines. However, safety technology is changing with cars becoming capable of communication with other cars and the infrastructure. This implies a move towards a pro-active approach for avoiding accidents. In this work, we argue that, given these changes, road safety evaluators should be involved with the design of those systems. We defend that that the current trends towards an hypothetico-deductive approach extending the traditional paradigm of safety evaluation is insufficient and there is a need for a more holistic approach: road safety system evaluators need to become co-designers of safety systems, providing inputs to the system designers, while, in turn, they build a new generation of evaluation models and practices. The proposed principles are illustrated with examples on lane keeping assistant system and the analysis of a low-friction system design.
Keywords: Road safety, safety evaluation, safety system design, evaluation model design