TRL develops vehicle safety standards for Europe

Transport Research Laboratory (TRL) has developed new vehicle safety standards which it claims will save 25,000 lives and assist European countries in the development of autonomous vehicles (AVs). Matthias Seidl, senior researcher - vehicle safety & regulation at TRL, says the advanced safety measures will protect all road users. “Intelligent speed assistance and drowsiness and distraction recognition will support drivers in their ongoing tasks, autonomous emergency braking and emergency lane keeping wi
February 28, 2019 Read time: 2 mins

Transport Research Laboratory (491 TRL) has developed new vehicle safety standards which it claims will save 25,000 lives and assist European countries in the development of autonomous vehicles (AVs).

Matthias Seidl, senior researcher - vehicle safety & regulation at TRL, says the advanced safety measures will protect all road users.

“Intelligent speed assistance and drowsiness and distraction recognition will support drivers in their ongoing tasks, autonomous emergency braking and emergency lane keeping will intervene in the most critical situations to avoid a crash and improved crash tests will ensure that injuries of occupants as well as pedestrians and cyclists are minimised in the remaining collisions,” Seidl adds.

The standards were approved by members of the European Parliament’s Committee on Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO).

Richard Cuerden, head of TRL’s Academy, says: “We are pushing very hard for relevant and practicable standards to be introduced for our vehicles, not only in the UK but across Europe.”

In 2014, TRL began working on behalf of the European Commission (EC) to assess the feasibility of the measures and assembled a group of unnamed car manufacturers, non-governmental organisations, governments and safety organisations.

TRL hosted a forum to analyse each safety measure and allow group members to offer feedback for consideration.

Looking ahead, TRL has been chosen by the EC to help develop the technical rules for the new systems

Enforcement

Related Content

  • September 23, 2020
    Catapult develops C/AV simulation standards 
    UK government agency expects work to strengthen projects with DfT and CCAV
    Read More
  • October 12, 2018
    Trust me, I'm a driverless car
    Developing C/AV technology is the easy bit: now the vehicles need to gain people’s confidence. So does the public feel safe in driverless hands – and how much might they be willing to pay for the privilege? The Venturer consortium’s final user and technology test (Trial 3) explored levels of user trust in scenarios where a connected and autonomous vehicle (C/AV) is interacting with cyclists, pedestrians and other road users on a controlled road network. Trial 3 consisted of experimental runs in the
    Read More
  • July 29, 2016
    Ignoring deadly defects in autonomous cars serves no one, say auto safety advocates
    The US Center for Auto Safety, Consumer Watchdog and former National Highway Traffic Administration (NHTSA) administrator Joan Claybrook have told NHTSA administrator Mark Rosekind that "you inexcusably are rushing full speed ahead" to promote the deployment of self-driving robot car technology instead of developing adequate safety standards "crucial to ensuring imperfect technologies do not kill people by being introduced into vehicles before the technology matures." In a letter to Rosekind in response
    Read More
  • October 26, 2017
    USDoT looks at the costs and potential benefits of connected vehicles
    David Crawford looks at latest lessons learned from the trials of connected vehicles in the US. The progress of connected vehicle (CV) technologies takes centre stage among the hot topics highlighted in the September 2017 edition – the first since 2014 – of the ‘ITS Benefits, Costs and Lessons Learned’ survey from the US ITS Joint Program Office (JPO). The organisation is an arm of the US Department of Transportation (USDoT).
    Read More

Highlighted Content