RESEARCH & EVALUATION

Vehicle Safety Research

Vehicle Safety

Resources
Reports Library (rosap)

The Office of Vehicle Safety Research and supports U.S. DOT’s and NHTSA’s safety goals by conducting research and safety testing of motor vehicles and motor vehicle equipment. 

NHTSA’s recently published vehicle safety reports are listed chronologically below.



152 Results
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Annotated Bibliography of Pedestrian Data Sources

NHTSA contracted the Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress to conducted four distinct literature and data reviews: (1) literature concerning pedestrian injury risk and vehicle size, (2) literature investigating vehicle testing for pedestrian protection (i.e., hood and leg form testing), (3) current and projected vehicle market trends and how they may relate to pedestrian protection, and (4) vehicle crash data sources that include pedestrian conflicts. Task 4 is an Excel spreadsheet, Annotated Bibliography of Pedestrian Data Sources lists available sources of pedestrian crash data aiding continuing research on the causes of pedestrian fatalities. This task is an Excel spreadsheet, 16526d_Task4_LitReview_121024_v1_Pedestrian_Safety_Databases.xlsx.

 DOT HS 813 676d

Review of Literature Addressing Vehicle Pedestrian Safety Market Trends

NHTSA contracted the Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress to conducted four distinct literature and data reviews: (1) literature concerning pedestrian injury risk and vehicle size, (2) literature investigating vehicle testing for pedestrian protection (i.e., hood and leg form testing), (3) current and projected vehicle market trends and how they may relate to pedestrian protection, and (4) vehicle crash data sources that include pedestrian conflicts. Task 3, Review of Literature Addressing Vehicle Pedestrian Safety Market Trends details literature related to vehicle market trends about changing pedestrian safety technologies and testing requirements in the United States and other countries. Includes an Excel spreadsheet, 16526c_Task3_LitReviewBigLTVs_121024_v1_Market Trend Database (rev 1.13.25).xlsx.

 DOT HS 813 676c

Review of Literature Addressing Effects of Pedestrian Safety-Related Test Requirements on Vehicle Design, Fleet Composition, and Pedestrian Injury

NHTSA contracted the Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress to conducted four distinct literature and data reviews: (1) literature concerning pedestrian injury risk and vehicle size, (2) literature investigating vehicle testing for pedestrian protection (i.e., hood and leg form testing), (3) current and projected vehicle market trends and how they may relate to pedestrian protection, and (4) vehicle crash data sources that include pedestrian conflicts. Task 2, Review of Literature Addressing Effects of Pedestrian Safety-Related Test Requirements on Vehicle Design, Fleet Composition, and Pedestrian Injury details an extended literature review focusing on studies of the real-world effects of pedestrian safety-related regulations including vehicle test requirements such as the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP) and the Japan New Car Assessment Program (Japan NCAP).

 DOT HS 813 676b

Review of Literature Addressing Pedestrian Injury Risk and Motor Vehicle Characteristics

NHTSA contracted the Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress to conducted four distinct literature and data reviews: (1) literature concerning pedestrian injury risk and vehicle size, (2) literature investigating vehicle testing for pedestrian protection (i.e., hood and leg form testing), (3) current and projected vehicle market trends and how they may relate to pedestrian protection, and (4) vehicle crash data sources that include pedestrian conflicts. Task 1, Review of Literature Addressing Pedestrian Injury Risk and Motor Vehicle Characteristics. Details a large body of literature directly or tangentially addressing the affect vehicle characteristics have on pedestrian injury outcome in the event of a crash. Includes an Excel spreadsheet, 16526a_Task1_LitReviewBigLTVs_annotated_bib_112624_v1 (rev 1.13.25).xlsx.

 DIT HS 813 676a

Passenger Vehicle Surrogate Test Target Radar Return Repeatability

This report identifies the variance in the radar cross section of one vehicle test device, a test surrogate designed to emulate a small passenger car. Additional work was done on heavy duty commercial and light duty passenger vehicles, of different classes and styles to for comparison. Descriptions of the test equipment, measurement process, evaluation method, and results are given.

 DOT HS 813 648

Heavy-Duty Vehicle Transmission Benchmarking – Volvo I-Shift 12-Speed Automated Manual Transmission

This report benchmarks the Volvo I-Shift AT2612F 12-speed automated manual transmission used in Class 8 trucks. Benchmarking tests included component level and system level and system level performance of overall transmission efficiency, in-gear inertia maps, oil pump mapping, ratio determination, and shifting strategies.

 DOT HS 813 620

Testing Rear-Door-Logic Based Unattended Child Reminder Systems

From 1998 to 2023 there were 971 reported deaths in the United States due to pediatric vehicular heatstroke (PVH), an average of 37 PVH deaths per year. Unattended child reminder systems (UCRS), also known as child presence detection (CPD) systems, use methods to detect (direct sensing) or infer (indirect sensing) the presence of a child inside a vehicle. If a child is detected or inferred, the UCRS provides an alert and may also include interventions that could reduce the risk to a child that has been left unattended knowingly or unknowingly. The most common types of UCRS in production in 2023 are indirect sensing systems that identify a rear door opening to infer the potential presence of a child. This study analyzes how 12 vehicles that use rear door logic-based systems alert a driver to a child forgotten in the rear seats at the end of a journey through comparisons with UCRS alert recommendations.

 DOT HS 813 669

THOR-50M In-Dummy Data Acquisition System Evaluation

This report describes the methods, procedures, and analysis used to evaluate the Test Device for Human Occupant Restraint 50th percentile male (THOR-50M) dummy without an internal data acquisition system (DAS) and a THOR-50M with an internal DAS. Qualification and crash testing were performed to investigate the differences in responses generated by the two versions of the dummy.

 DOT HS 813 618

A Teardown Study of Flood-Damaged Electric Vehicles

The objective of this research was to perform a teardown analysis on ten flood-damaged electric vehicles (EVs) recovered after Hurricane Ian in 2022. Nine of the vehicles retained a high state of charge, despite the water exposure and 10 months of storage. Upon inspection, infiltration pathways of saltwater into the battery packs were identified. The packs were assessed to determine the extent to which their designs and component degradation contributed to the ingress of water. For all vehicles, the volume of water infiltration was insufficient to trigger a thermal event. Nonetheless, the root causes of water infiltration into EV batteries due to saltwater damage were identified. The study provides valuable insights to guide future research on battery safety.

 DOT HS 813 644

Light-Duty Vehicle Transmission Benchmarking – 2021 Toyota RAV4 Prime P810 Transmission and Q610 Rear Axle

This report benchmarks the 2021 Toyota RAV4 Hybrid P810 electric continuously variable transmission and its Q610 electric rear axle. Benchmarking tasks include component and system level performance of overall transmission efficiency, torque converter performance, in-gear inertia maps, oil pump mapping, ratio determination, and shifting and converter strategies.

 DOT HS 813 604