[REPORT]
MAIDS database used in TRACE project
During the first week of February 2008, two expert members from the ‘Crash Research Department’ of CIDAUT (Centre for Automotive Research and Development, Spain) queried and analyzed the MAIDS database at ACEM´s office in Brussels, under the coordination and support of ACEM. Their findings will integrate the conclusions of the EU-wide TRACE study on traffic accidents causes.
The analysis focused on the seven most frequent PTW accident scenarios detected after a previous descriptive analysis of several extensive accident databases available to TRACE project. The analysis of the MAIDS database performed in this collaboration, has the following scope:
- To identify the specific accident causes for PTW road users at microscopic level analysing one of the most exhaustive accident databases in Europe (MAIDS).
- To estimate the risk of being involved in an accident for PTW road users in the seven most frequent accident scenarios detected previously.
Different statistical techniques were applied such as casecontrol studies and multinomiallogistic regressions.
TRACE: project and objectives
TRACE is a STREP of the Sixth Framework Program funded by the European Commission (DG InfSo) from January 2006 to June 2008. It brings together 21 institutes, full partners or sub contractors coming from 8 countries. The general objective of TRACE is to provide the scientific community, the stakeholders, the suppliers, the vehicle industry and the other Integrated Safety program participants with an overview of the road accident causation issues in Europe, and possibly overseas, based on the analysis of any current available databases which include accident, injury, insurance, medical and exposure data (including driver behavior in normal driving conditions). The idea is to identify, characterise and quantify the nature of risk factors, groups at risk, specific conflict driving situations and accident situations; and to estimate the safety benefits of a selection of technology-based safety functions.
TRACE proposes three different research angles for the definition and the characterisation of accident causation factors, and the evaluation of the safety benefits of safety functions, that will allow offering an integral understanding of the different accident configurations. Those are: ‘Road Users’ approach (Work Package1), ‘Situations’ approach (WP2) and ‘Factors’ approach (WP3). In WP1, the analysis of the different issues and specifications of each of the user groups related to accident causation is addressed. Each one of the tasks of this WP is focused on specific group of road users, one of them (Task1.2) is PTW road users.
The interaction between European projects is a fact to be considered as a powerful tool from the point of view of possible synergies emerging from different research activities following the same line. A successful example of this interaction is the collaboration carried out between MAIDS (Indepth investigations of accidents involving powered two wheelers) and TRACE project (TRaffic Accident Causation in Europe).
All the results from this collaboration will be published on MAIDS and TRACE websites.
Links:
[INDEX]
ACEM'S POSITION ON GREEN PAPER ON URBAN MOBILITY
OPEN LETTER ON EUROPEAN INFRASTRUCTURE DIRECTIVE
1000 SUPPORT ROADSAFETY CHARTER
What were MAIDS' main findings? The PTW accident data collected indicated that the object most frequently struck in an accident was a passenger car. The second most frequently struck object was the roadway itself, either as the result of a single vehicle accident or of an attempt to avoid a collision with an OV. Whilst each sampling area contained both urban and rural areas, the majority of the accidents took place in an urban environment.
Travelling and impact speeds for all PTW categories were found to be quite low, most often below 50 km/h. There were relatively few cases in which excess speed was an issue related to accident causation.
The cause of the majority of PTW accidents collected in this study was found to be human error. The most frequent human error was a failure to see the PTW within the traffic environment, due to lack of driver attention, temporary view obstructions or the low conspicuity of the PTW.
For more visit the MAIDS website.
