Pedestrian protection is an important societal issue and over the last fifteen years two main research approaches have developed to address this issue: the proposed European draft directive, and real world pedestrian accident simulation. In this study, the latter approach was used in order to study the complex interaction between pedestrians and vehicles during real world pedestrian accidents. A comprehensive research programme has been undertaken over the last four years. The paper describes two of the main projects within this programme: the creation and development of finite element models (FEMs) of pedestrian humanoids and the application of these models in real world pedestrian accident simulations. It addresses whether a simplified FEM of a pedestrian may be used in detailed pedestrian accident simulations to gain a better understanding of the pedestrian and vehicle interaction and presents some initial results regarding this interaction. (A)
Abstract