• Transactions of the Korean Society of Automotive Engineers
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.128-136
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• 2003

In today's design trend of vehicle structure, crush zone is fiequently reinforced by adding a box-shaped sub-frame in order to avoid an excessive deformation against a high-speed offset barrier such as EU Directive 96/97 EC, IIHS offset test. That kind of vehicle structure design results in a relatively monotonic crash pulse for airbag ECU(Electronic Control Unit) located at non-crush zone. As for an angular crash event, the measured crash signal using a single-axis accelerometer in a longitudinal direction is usually weaker than that of frontal barrier crash. Therefore, it is not so easy task to achieve a satisfactory crash discrimination performance for offset and angular crash events. In this paper, we introduce a new crash discrimination algorithm using an electronic X-Y 2-axis accelerometer in order to improve crash discrimination performance especially for those crash events. The proposed method uses a crash signal in lateral direction(Y-axis) as well as in longitudinal direction(X-axis). A crash severity measure obtained from Y-axis acceleration is used to improve the discrimination between fire and no-fire events. The result obtained by the proposed measure is logically ORed with an existing algorithm block using X-axis crash signal. Simulation and pulse injection test have been conducted to verify the performance of proposed algorithm by using real crash data of a 2,000cc passenger vehicle.

• Journal of Korean Society of Transportation
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.43-51
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• 2011

Since a variety of factors are associated with crash occurrence, the analysis of causes of crash is a hard task for traffic researchers and engineers. Among contributing factors leading to crash, the characteristics of driver is of keen interest. This study attempted to identify factors affecting the severity of pedestrian in the collision between pedestrian and vehicle. In particular, our analyses were focused on the novice driver. A binary logistic regression technique was adopted for the analyses. The results showed that driver's age, crash location, and the frequency of violations were dominant factors for the severity. Findings are expected to be useful information for deffective policy- and education-based countermeasures.

• International Journal of Highway Engineering
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.85-95
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• 2015

PURPOSES : The objective of this study is to analyze factors affecting traffic accident severity for determining countermeasures on freeway climbing lanes. METHODS : In this study, an ordered probit model, which is a widely used discrete choice model for categorizing crash severity, was employed. RESULTS : Results suggest that factors affecting traffic accident severity on climbing lanes include speed, drowsy driving, grade of uphill 3%, gender (male offender and male victim), and cloud weather. CONCLUSIONS : Several countermeasures are proposed for improving traffic safety on freeway climbing lanes based on the analysis of crash severity. More extensive analysis with a larger data set and various modeling techniques are required for generalizing the results.

• Journal of Auto-vehicle Safety Association
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.31-38
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• 2020

This study is to develop the prediction model for the HIC15 in frontal vehicle crash tests. The 28 frontal impact test results of the MY2019 and MY2020 USNCAP are utilized. The metrics for evaluating the crash pulse severity such as moving average acceleration, Restraint Quotient (RQ) and ride-down efficiency are reviewed to find out whether the metrics can predict the HIC15. It is observed that the R² values based on the linear regression of all pairs between the existing metrics and the occupant injuries such as the HIC15, 3 ms chest g's and chest deflection are very low. In this study, using the vehicle crash pulses, the linear regression model for estimating the HIC15 is developed. The vehicle crash pulse is splitted seven 10 ms intervals in 70 ms after impact for extracting the average accelerations in each intervals. The prediction model can predict effectively not only the HIC15 but also the maximum head g's, chest deflection and 3 ms chest g's of 13 vehicles out of 28 vehicles.

• Journal of Korean Society of Transportation
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• v.20 no.7
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• pp.107-116
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• 2002

Crash Cushion is a kind of safety facilities on roadside which acts the role of absorbing impact energy when vehicles are driven out of normal route such as Gore area of freeway off ramp. Criteria for severity index considering accident occurrence possibility are needed to have strong effect on installing the facilities. However, present criteria for establishing crash cushion design do not include such processes. Therefore, the paper presents two kinds of study to develop criteria for severity index. First of all, development of accident forecasting model on freeway off ramp is presented. The module is a relationship between accidents and road environment by negative binomial distribution (NB) which is called to reflect very well quality of accidents at Gore of crash cushion installed freeway Secondly, freeway exiting behavior model is developed because the human factor is the most important one. However, many literatures have shown between road environment and accidents which are more quantitative than human factor. The study supposed advanced process steps on actual freeway and analysed correlation between variables and accidents. The criteria for severity index is presented to determine whether to install or not by benefit cost analysis for each module. The standard for severity index will help to determine whether to install the crash cushion or not and to estimate severity for freeway and off ramp.

• International Journal of Highway Engineering
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.153-164
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• 2009

This Paper presents the severity analysis result of the year 2006 national pedestrian crashes using the data base of 37,589 records prepared for the National Police Bureau. A set of attributing factors considered to affect pedestrian crash patterns were selected, and their contributing effects were investigated by applying the Ordered Logit Model. This model was selected because this model has been able to afford satisfactory results when the dependent variable involved ordered severity levels; fatal, injury, and property- damage-only in this investigation. The investigation has unveiled the followings; First, the pedestrian crash patterns were dependent upon human -drivel and pedestrian- characteristics including gender, age, and drinking conditions. Second, other contributing factors included vehicle, roadway geometric, weather, and hour of day characteristics. Third, seasonal effect was not contributive to crash patterns. Finally, the application of the Ordered Logit Model facilitated the ordered severity level analysis of the pedestrian crash data. This paper concludes that conventional wisdom on the pedestrian crash characteristics is largely truthful. However, this conclusion is limited only to the data used in this analysis, and further research is required for its generalization.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Automotive Engineers
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• v.8 no.6
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• pp.182-193
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• 2000

Several metrics have been used in crash discrimination algorithms in order to have timely air bag deployment during all frontal crash modes. However, it is still challengine to have timely air bag deployment especially during the oblique, the pole and the underride crash mode. Therefore, in this paper a new crash discrimination algorithm was proposed, using the absolute value of the deceleration change multiplied by the velocity change as a metric, and processing the metric as a function of the velocity change. The new algorithm was applied for all frontal crash modes of a minivan and a sports utility vehicle, and it resulted in timely air bag deployment for all frontal crash modes including the oblique, the pole and the underride crash mode. Moreover, it was proposed that an accelerometer be installed at each side of the rails, rockers or pillars to assess the crash severity of each side and to deploy the frontal air bags at different time especially during an asymmetric crash such as an oblique and an offset crash. As an example, the deceleration pulses measured at the left and right B-pillar·rocker locations were processed through the new algorithm, and faster time-to-fires were obtained for the air bag at the struck side for the air bag at the other side.

• International Journal of Highway Engineering
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.175-186
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• 2010

When a rigid post is exposed to traffic, it is hazardous not only to head-on impacts but also to side impacts. Clip-type slip base is an effective measure to reduce the severity of head-on impacts and side impacts as well because of its multi-directional release mechanism. Side impact tests were conducted and the results were analysed to demonstrate the hazardousness of a rigid post to a side impact and the crash worthiness of a post having clip-type slip base. For that, side impact test standard was made adapting the NCHRP Report 350, and 820kg-50km/h side impact tests were made for posts of D101.6mm(t=4.2mm) with and without slip base. Additionally, 35km/h side impact to the same post with slip base was conducted to check whether the clip-type slip base release mechanism works properly to the low impact speed. The tests revealed that the rigidly connected post was very hazardous to side impact while the post with the clip-type slip base reduced the impact severity tremendously.

• Journal of Korean Society of Transportation
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.354-372
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• 2016

This study identified factors affecting the crash severity at freeway work zones. A nice feature of this study was to take into account the characteristics of work zone traffic management in analyzing traffic safety concerns. In addition to crash records, vehicle detection systems (VDS) data and work zone historical data were used for establishing a dataset to be used for statistical analyses based on an ordered probit model. A total of six safety improvement strategies for freeway work zones, including traffic merging method, guidance information provision, speed management, warning information systems, traffic safety facility, and monitoring of effectiveness for countermeasures, were also proposed.

• The Journal of The Korea Institute of Intelligent Transport Systems
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.12-28
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• 2019

Road geometry is one of the many factors that cause crashes, but the effect on traffic accident depends on weather conditions even under the same road geometry. This study identifies the variables affecting the crash severity by matching the highway accident data and weather data for 14 years from 2001 to 2014. A hierarchical ordered Logit model is used to reflect the effects of road geometry and weather condition interactions on crash severity, as well as the correlation between individual crashes in a region. Among the hierarchical models, we apply a random intercept model including interaction variables between road geometry and weather condition and a random coefficient model including regional weather characteristics as upper-level variables. As a result, it is confirmed that the effects of toll, ramp, downhill slope of 3% or more, and concrete barrier on the crash severity vary depending on weather conditions. It also shows that the combined effects of road geometry and weather conditions may not be linear depending on rainfall or snowfall levels. Finally, we suggest safety improvement measures based on the results of this study, which are expected to reduce the severity of traffic accidents in the future.