Analysing collisions with vulnerable road users
Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) is a common condition that affects more than 10 million people worldwide. Short term effects on health such as post-traumatic memory loss can last up to several weeks, and those with moderate to severe injuries will experience longer term effects such as difficulty thinking, depression, epilepsy and disrupted sleep.
30% of TBIs are caused by road traffic collisions
TBI is a leading cause of death and serious injury during road traffic collisions, with serious cases requiring substantial Emergency Medical Service (EMS) resources. The rapid and accurate diagnosis of TBI severity during collisions, through the use of embedded on-board sensors, provides an opportunity for the automotive sector to better direct EMS resources, reduce response times and, ultimately, improve outcomes.
To further explore this opportunity, TRL and Imperial College of London recently launched the jointly funded “AutoTRIAGE” PhD project. The project aims to investigate the feasibility of using on-board sensor data, recorded via emergency data recorders (EDRs), to model, diagnose and predict the severity of TBIs experienced during road traffic collisions. To achieve these objectives, this multidisciplinary project has brought together world leading researchers from across the Automotive Safety, Biomechanics, Neuroscience and Emergency Medicine fields:
Dr Mazdak Ghajari: Computational Modelling of Traumatic Brain Injuries in Collisions
Professor David Sharp: Neuroimaging Innovations for Diagnosing Traumatic Brain Injuries caused by Collisions
Claire Baker (PhD Student): AutoTRIAGE – A Concept for Predicting Traumatic Brain Injuries during Collisions using On-Board Vehicle Sensors
As the global centre for innovation in transport and mobility, TRL has a range of leading research, technology and software solutions providing vital data sets surrounding road traffic collisions. The future is being able to connect this data with the clinical data obtained after the incident to predict the severity of TBI, resulting in better vehicle safety measures and policies and standards. And ultimately, ensuring emergency services are at the right place, at the right time, with the right resource.
The final report will be published in 2021, with projects updates along the way.
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