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Content archived on 2024-06-18

MOTOrcycle Rider Integrated SafeTy

Final Report Summary - MOTORIST (MOTOrcycle Rider Integrated SafeTy)

FP7-MC-ITN “MOTORIST” (Motorcycle Rider Integrated Safety): February 1, 2014 - January 31, 2018.

The research aim of the MOTORIST project was to contribute to a safer use of Powered Two Wheelers (PTWs) in terms of rider behavior, vehicle technology and personal protective equipment. The project was divided in three work packages (WPs) addressing three separate but related goals. The first work package (WP1, Partners involved: Unifi, Siemens, TUDelft) focused on the improvement of rider’s skills via novel training strategies derived from in-depth accident data analysis and the investigation of rider behavior under emergency. The second work package (WP2 Partners involved: TUDelft, Unifi, Siemens) aimed at developing advanced safety systems that improve the interaction between the rider and the PTW by modelling the rider, also according to the quantification of riders behavior carried out on. The third work package (WP3 Partners involved: UWB, Dainese, LMU, UNISTRA) considered the cases where the crash is unavoidable and has developed personal protective equipment to protect the riders, given the input conditions in-depth accident data analysis at the moment right before impact. The project outcomes were: new rider training guidelines, novel safety system concepts implemented on PTWs, and improved personal protective equipment and accompanying standards. These results can be used by PTW industry partners in product development processes and by stakeholders to educate riders. The ambition for the medium to long term is to reduce injuries by improving PTW safety. This achievement would potentially improve the perception of PTW safety in the population, so that more people may prefer to use a PTW as to other means of transport.
18 Deliverables and 12 Milestones were completed: the public reports are available in the project website (http://www.MOTORIST-ptw.eu/) together with the list of the papers presented at international conferences and in scientific journals.
The scientific and socio-economic impact of each WP is summarised as follows.

WP1. Rider training

The research has shown the key parameters to characterize and predict the response of riders in emergency situations, with focus on relevant crash scenarios such as at intersections. Findings provide a foundation for future training activities to increase rider competencies and for safety systems development. A major outcome of this work was the definition of a test protocol to be used to elicit in the rider realistic emergency responses. The protocol considers a PTW approaching a mock-up intersection and an opponent car simulating the initiation of a turning manoeuvre across the PTW path. This protocol was tested both in riding simulator activities and with experiments in the field, with promising results for the analysis of rider performance under emergency and for the definition of new training strategies combining hazard perception with vehicle control skills.

WP2. Integrated Safety
The availability of driving simulators for bicycles and PTWs will pave the way for research and training aiming to enhance road safety for these vulnerable road users.
The conceptual safety functionality, called Motorcycle Autonomous Emergency Braking (M-AEB) and its stereo vision based sensor sets at target for accident prevention in PTW.
The relevance of the knowledge base of motorcycle safety (KBMS) relies on its potential to bridge motorcycle accident research with industrial development of safety systems. A future widely accepted and open access KBMS would be advantageous to promote in the whole of Europe, becoming a tool to assist policy makers in taking well-funded decisions on safety regulations in order to make PTWs a safer means of transport.
The camera-based remote sensor developed is an important step towards making real preventive safety technologies in tilting vehicles. In addition, the promising results achieved so far for the application of the Motorcycle Autonomous Braking System (M-AEB), ask for the validation of the remote sensor in a wider variety of conditions to foresee its application in motorcycle safety systems.
WP3. Personal Protective Equipment
The scalable virtual human body model implemented as a motorcycle rider will help to identify the potential injury risk by the numerical approach to the accident reconstruction.
The new materials and designs developed physically and modelled virtually contribute to the development and optimization of the personal protective equipment by both the experimental and the numerical approaches. Coupling the personal protective equipment to the human body model brings the new ways to develop the personal protective equipment as a product using the numerical calculation and optimization from both the mechanical and design points of view.
The biomechanics studied for the motorcycle accident scenario will help to develop the new and to improve the current legislation concerning the motorcycle safety.