Public defence in transportation engineering, M.Sc. Fanny Malin

Potential of conditionally automated cars in improving traffic safety in Finland 

The European and national targets to reduce road fatalities and serious injuries are ambitious. Reaching them requires a safe system’s approach where the safety of all aspects of the transport system is ensured. One recently proposed vehicle safety related measure is automated driving. There are few research results on the safety impacts of conditionally automated cars i.e. passenger cars with automated driving systems (ADS) for different driving tasks or environments. The ADS can be used only in specific conditions and the driver must take over the driving task immediately when requested. 

This dissertation identified the potential of passenger cars with ADS for motorway and urban areas for improving traffic safety in Finland. The methodological focus was on identifying the systems’ scope of impact in terms of their target accidents i.e. the number of accidents that could be affected. The scope of impact of ADS was reflected in the current road safety situation and challenges from a road network, single-driver and pedestrian perspective. 

The results showed that passenger cars with motorway and urban ADS could potentially affect a maximum of 127–191 injury accidents, 3–8 fatalities, and 12–15 serious injuries a year. The results also indicated that the current safety situation is better on the networks and in the conditions where the ADS can operate compared to those where it cannot. For a single driver, the relative accident risk is especially high on motorways in road weather conditions not fulfilling the requirements of the ADS which means that the driver must be in control of and take over the driving task in the most dangerous conditions. Finally, the results indicated that the ADS in this study could have a greater effect on serious injuries than on fatalities among pedestrians.

Deployment of ADS is expected to be slow especially in Finland, where vehicle fleet renewal is among the slowest in Europe. Since the transition period is expected to be long, it is necessary to plan how ADS can safely be introduced and integrated into traffic. This also indicates that additional measures are needed to reach the traffic safety goals even though conditionally automated cars are likely to be able to contribute to them. 

Opponent: Professor Eirin Ryeng, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway

Custos: Associate Professor Milos Mladenovic, Aalto University School of Engineering, Department of Built Environment

Contact information of the doctoral student: Fanny Malin, fanny.malin@aalto.fi

The public defence will be organised on campus (auditorium 216, Otakaari 4). 

The thesis is publicly displayed 10 days before the defence in the publication archive Aaltodoc of Aalto University. 

Electronic thesis