Development of Crash Imminent Test Scenarios for Integrated Vehicle-Based Safety Systems

This report identifies crash imminent test scenarios based on common pre-crash scenarios for integrated vehicle-based safety systems that alert the driver of a light vehicle or a heavy truck to an impending rear-end, lane change, or run-off-road crash. Pre-crash scenarios describe vehicle movements and critical events immediately prior to the crash. The General Estimates System (GES) crash database was queried to distinguish common pre-crash scenarios for light vehicles (2003 GES) and heavy trucks (2000-2003 GES) in terms of their frequency of occurrence. Analysis of two-vehicle rear-end crashes revealed four dominant scenarios that accounted for 97 percent of light-vehicle crashes and 95 percent of heavy-truck crashes in which the subject vehicle was striking. Four scenarios were also identified from an analysis of two-vehicle lane change crashes, comprising 65 percent of light-vehicle crashes and 76 percent of heavy-truck crashes in which the subject vehicle was encroaching onto another vehicle in adjacent lanes. There were five single-vehicle, run-off-road scenarios representing 63 percent of light-vehicle crashes and 83 percent of heavy-truck crashes, excluding crashes caused by vehicle failure or evasive maneuver. An additional set of scenarios is proposed to address multiple threats from near simultaneous critical events. This report also provides a statistical description of individual scenarios in terms of their environmental factors, roadway geometry, and speed conditions.