The PROMETHEUS research programme aims at improving road safety, traffic flow, comfort of road users, with less impact on the environment. Twenty-three functions have been envisaged. Among them, fourteen are directly linked to safety. One of the tasks of the PRO-GEN Safety Group has been to estimate the potential efficiency of these PROMETHEUS functions. The work was carried out in different countries. An assessment of the safety effects of these functions has been made by INRETS, sponsored by RENAULT. This study used a sample of 3200 police reports, nationally representative of the injury-producing accidents occurred in the year 1989. An answer was sought for the following two questions. The first is: "What are the driver needs in information and assistance from a safety point of view?" Seventeen main needs have been detected from the police reports. The accidents would have been probably avoided if these needs had been completely satisfied. The second question is: "What is the efficiency of each PROMETHEUS function, when a driver need is identified?" It is difficult to answer this question in so far as the practical features of the functions are not well known. Therefore, theoretical descriptions of them were used.
Abstract