Automated vehicles and road safety: first results of the surca project
Résumé
The SURCA project (Road user safety and automated driving) has two main objectives. The first is to identify scenarios for interactions between autonomous vehicles and other road users (non-autonomous vehicles, motorised two-whcelers, pedcstrians and cyclists. The second objective is to study how the posture of the occupants (driver and passengers) of a vehicle in autonomous mode affects injury risk. This paper focuses on a description of the project (which is still ongoing) and on its first results, mainly concerning the first objective. The first findings allow us, first of ail, to identify the most relevant accident scenarios (cspecially in terms of accidents) for the introduction of automatcd driving. We have performed a preliminary quantification of the effects of the graduai deployment of autonomous vehicles in traffic on the occurrence of persona! injury accidents. Finally, we will present some initial results on the modelling of how the posture of occupants in vchicles operating in autonomous mode affects their injury risk, and on the analysis of the nccds of eldcrly uscrs and their acceptance of automated vehiclcs.