Methods for evaluation of Electronic Stability Control (ESC) : a literature review.

In this study a literature review was performed in order to establish how the traffic safety performances of active safety systems with focus on Electronic Stability Control (ESC) systems are assessed. The areas covered were statistical evaluation, testing and driver behaviour. Furthermore, needs and gaps identified in the literature review were used in order to make recommendations on how to further develop of methods to assess the traffic safety effect of active safety systems could be carried out. The literature review showed that in particular two different statistical methods had been used in order to evaluate the traffic safety effect of ESC, both based on odds ratios. In order to evaluate the effect of ESC in physical testing there are several different possible test methods described in this report, in particular the test recently proposed by NHTSA in USA. Estimations of driver behaviour effects have been carried out by surveys send to vehicles owners equipped with or without active safety systems. Occasional experiments performed in field or in simulator have also been found in the literature. Future studies are suggested based on the findings in this literature review in the area of statistical methods, physical testing and driver behaviour. Suggested further studies in the area of statistical methods are that different statistical methods should be applied on the same data set in order to quantify their differences when used to evaluate traffic safety effects of active safety systems. In the area of physical testing it is suggested that the ESC performance test manoeuvres described in this review is evaluated, not only with respect to robustness and repeatability, but also to their relevance to the kind of accidents that could be avoided with ESC. For evaluation of driver behaviour, development of a checklist for expert judgement is suggested. User testing in controlled or simulated situations will also be considered in future studies. (A). For the covering abstract of the conference see E216632.