New computer software that improves car design has the potential to save thousands of lives.

In a world first, government and industry have joined forces with university researchers in an innovative attempt to maximise car safety.

Monash University, General Motors Holden and the Australian Government aim to reduce the incidence of injury from side impact collisions by giving car manufacturers a new tool to improve car designs, potentially saving thousands of lives and reducing the cost to society by millions of dollars.

Assessing injury

The technology, being developed by researchers at Monash University's Accident Research Centre (MUARC), will enable designers to directly measure the injury consequences of their various design options during a car's developmental phase.

The new model applies, for the first time, a concept known as 'Harm Reduction' theory to combat side impact collisions. Up until now, the tools available did not directly assess injury, either in terms of 'Harm' or cost, says one of the project's main investigators, Professor Brian Fildes of MUARC.

"There have been attempts in the past to reduce side impact injury. For example, Volvo has designed a side impact protection system, which has appeared in its last two or three models. BMW has been working on its own system, and Mercedes-Benz is extremely interested in our project and wants to participate," he said.

"But no-one, at this stage, has come up with a computer tool such as the one we are developing for use in the design process.

"Existing physical safety performance tests ensure that all cars manufactured meet the required safety standards, but these tests look at the structural performance of the vehicles, not the risk of injury."

Reducing cost to the community

The Improved Side Impact Protection research project, which has attracted $1.44 million in funding over three years, aims to reduce the frequency and severity of side impact collisions. Such collisions account for roughly one-third of all vehicle trauma on Australian roads and cost the community more than $1 billion annually.

According to Professor Fildes and his co-investigators, Federal Office for Road Safety chief engineer Mr Keith Seyer and manager of advanced engineering at Holden Mr Laurie Sparke, the new tool has the potential to revolutionise the design process by optimising injury protection for car occupants involved in a crash.

Professor Fildes said a model which gives designers the ability to directly assess the likely 'Harm' associated with any design during the development stage offered con-siderable economic and societal benefits.

The researchers define 'Harm' as fre-quency of injury multiplied by the financial cost of the injury to society. "By using this formula, we are able to get a better understanding of the full impact of road crashes to the community," Professor Fildes said. "We want to reduce all injuries, but we are particularly looking at the most costly life-threatening ones. By factoring 'Harm' into the model, we are able to rate the impact of various car designs."

The concept of Harm Reduction was initially developed in the US and, more recently, expanded and refined by MUARC for the Federal Office of Road Safety. It has been shown to be an effective and useful measure for assessing injury countermeasures, and recent Australian research papers detailing the Harm Reduction approach have attracted international acclaim from both governments and industry.

"The use of Harm Reduction holds more potential benefits than just simply meeting regulation," Professor Fildes said. "It should allow us to optimise car design for maximum impact protection.

"When fully developed, the technology will be publicly available to all car manufacturers -- not just the luxury car-makers -- and we can look forward to a future with significantly reduced road trauma from this particular type of car accident."