Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) in passenger cars and methods for assessment of traffic safety impact : a literature review

The background for this study is that many Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) are currently introduced in passenger vehicles aiming at providing increased traffic safety. This provides a need to assess the traffic safety effects from these systems. The question that this report highlights is how these systems are designed and how the effects are evaluated. The review resulted in identification of 300 references of which the most relevant are found in this report. The report contains a description of the background of why and how 20 systems or groups of systems have been developed, in which vehicles they can be found, a short technical description of how they work, publication of traffic safety effects and future development plans. Regarding statistical methods, an overview of how they work and the results when using these methods on ITS are described. In addition, the report contains a summary of ways of assessing safety effects from areas such as food, nuclear power and pharmaceutical industries. The conclusion is that there are currently many different ways of supporting the driver in the task of driving the vehicle. Regarding the impact on traffic safety of these systems it is still an open question which evaluation methods to use. (A). http://www.vti.se/EPiBrowser/Publikationer/R604ASVE.pdf