Research

CASR has been at the forefront of road safety research for over 30 years. Our experienced, multi-disciplinary team conducts high quality research aimed at enabling rational decision-making in the development and implementation of road safety countermeasures.

Capabilities

CASR has an excellent reputation and high standing both domestically and internationally with respect to road safety research and is known for conducting road safety evaluations of the highest standard particularly in the following areas:

• impaired driving research
• mass data analysis, statistical methods
• computer modelling
• impact testing
• crash investigation and reconstruction
• road safety engineering
• injury analysis
• head injury research

International Collaboration

CASR has entered into a long-term collaboration with INRETS (Institut National de Recherche sur les Transports et leur Sécurité) in France. Researchers from the INRETS Laboratoire de Biomécanique Appliquée based at the Université de la Méditerranée in Marseilles, are working with CASR on pedestrian collision research. Brought together by a common interest in crash investigation and crash simulation, Dr Thierry Serre and Dr Robert Anderson have been working on a research program that they hope will benefit both organisations.

"The crash testing methods that have been developed to protect pedestrians in collisions are based on computer simulations of typical crashes," said Dr Anderson. "But aspects of those models are sorely in need of improvement - with Dr Serre, we've been working on ways of making those simulations more accurate over a greater range of conditions."

The collaborators are particularly interested in the ways that pedestrian simulation can be harnessed as part of the reconstruction of real pedestrian injury, to provide some idea of the forces experienced by the pedestrian in the crash. "That would help to confirm the validity and usefulness of the crash test procedures," said Dr Anderson.