The aim of this project was to determine whether and under which conditions very small electric vehicles so called Personal Light Electric Vehicles (PLEV) can be operated safely in road traffic, which technical requirements need to be satisfied and which potential conflicts with other road users are to be expected. PLEV are those vehicles without a seat such as electric kick scooters and self-balancing vehicles (e.g. similar to the Segway). They could be approved up to 2016 in accordance with the Framework Directive 2002/24/EC (Type-approval of two or three-wheel motor vehicles / category L vehicles), which is no longer in force. The new Type Approval Regulation (EU) No. 168/2013 for two or threewheel vehicles and quadricycles has been in force since 2016. However, PLEV of this type are out of the scope of this regulation. Instead the approval can be regulated at a national level. An assessment of the traffic safety of such vehicles is required on the one hand to be able to decide on whether they can be approved. On the other hand vehicle dynamics tests are needed to provide information for the classification of these vehicles and the stipulation of the respective requirements. In this research project, the Federal Highway Research Institute (BASt) prepared suggestions for a classification of this type of specific small electric vehicles and for the technical requirements to be placed on them so that they may be used safely in road traffic. PLEV were investigated in four sub-studies: considerations with regard to active and passive safety, user behavior and risk assessment as well as traffic area. It emerged that it is possible to propose new categories of PLEV with certain minimum requirements. It is recommended that PLEV should comply with these requirements to be allowed to be driven in traffic. With respect to active safety, requirements were elaborated using vehicle dynamics tests and technical experiments to minimise road safety risks as best as possible. Furthermore, recommendations were made for passive safety of PLEV. The subjective driving behaviour showed that PLEV can be controlled safely by the driver as long as certain system limits are not exceeded. As far as the aspects of user behaviour are concerned, protective equipment and the interaction with other road users were assessed. Depending on the proposed vehicle categories, corresponding traffic areas are recommended for use, based on the analysis of subjective safety and of the potential conflicts with other road users. Recommendations were derived from all results of the different project parts with regard to the use of road areas and the requirements for (safety-related) technical equipment for the newly proposed PLEV categories. The requirements are based on those for the existing vehicle categories 'light moped' and 'moped'. (Author/publisher)
Abstract