Development of the Visionary Research Model - Application to the car /pedestrian conflict

Monash University Accident Research Centre - Report #229 [2004]

Authors: Bruce Corben, Max Cameron, Teresa Senserrick and George Rechnitzer

Full report in .pdf format [1.2KB]

Abstract:

This report describes a study undertaken to improve road safety through a fundamentally different approach. The study draws on the Swedish Vision Zero road safety philosophy, in which it is ethically unacceptable to trade the lives and health of people in traffic for other benefits in society. The research’s main purpose was to develop a model, known here as the Visionary Research Model, to identify research needs and priorities needed to create safe traffic environments. Unlike conventional approaches to traffic safety research and countermeasure programs, which generally result in incremental improvements at best, the Visionary Research Model adopts an ambitious goal of no deaths or serious injuries within the road-transport system. The car/pedestrian conflict situation was chosen to explore and demonstrate the model’s potential. From this highly challenging starting point, the model generates new research needs and priorities that will enable a “quantum step” to be taken towards safe traffic environments for pedestrians. The structure of the conceptual model has a pedestrian at the centre of five concentric layers of protection. Collectively, these layers aim to manage crash and injury risk so as to avoid death or serious injury to the pedestrian in traffic. The five layers target various forms of threat to the pedestrian. The protective layers seek to: avoid collisions in which the biomechanical limits of humans to violent forces are exceeded; manage the transfer of kinetic energy from car to pedestrian at impact; minimise the amount of kinetic energy at impact; minimise the risk of a crash for a given level of exposure; and minimise the risk of a crash as a function of exposure. The model’s conceptual structure challenges researchers and practitioners, encourages innovation and evidence-based assessment of risk, as well as consideration of the full sequence of events in a situation of conflict between a car and a pedestrian. Though well developed in its conceptual form, the Visionary Research Model requires further research and development of its mathematical capability to enable changes in risk as a result of countermeasure application to be quantified. The model is believed to be of generic form and, therefore, suited to other categories of serious trauma, such as vehicle-to-vehicle crashes at intersections and single-vehicle crashes with roadside hazards.

Sponsoring organisation - Baseline Research Program - Department of Justice, Transport Accident Commission, VicRoads