Accident research is the discipline which involves investigating how and why things have gone wrong and seeking counter-measures to ensure they don't occur in the future.

Road traffic accident research has been undertaken at TRL for over 40 years and the study of traffic crashes has developed as a science internationally in this time. The science of accident research requires problem-solving skills to analyse historical real-world accidents. The information derived from real-world studies with respect to the scope, causes and consequences of traffic incidents forms the evidential basis for all current and future counter-measures to reduce the number of deaths and injuries that routinely occur on the world's roads.

The Accident Research Group comprises injury experts, engineers and scientists who combine their knowledge in order to reconstruct accidents by deciphering accident events and resulting injuries. The data is stored in structured databases, which are routinely analysed to investigate the causes of crashes and injury. This analysis is undertaken for governments and industry. From these analyses, future safety requirements can be prioritised with respect to feasibility and the likely benefits. This evidential approach is then used to highlight areas of concern and develop new technologies or testing standards, which can either be used in vehicles to help prevent accidents/injuries or used to test vehicles to promote design changes which will ensure they perform well in the real world.

Examples of Recent Projects

TRL holds some of the most extensive and detailed accident databases in the world covering accident causation factors, vehicle deformation and resultant injuries. Through the application of complex analyses to these datasets we can inform local and national government decision-making on where best to apply resources from a sound evidential base. The main accident investigation projects managed by the Accident Research Group at TRL were On The Spot (OTS) accident data collection project, a Co-operative Crash Injury Study (CCIS) and a Heavy Vehicle Crash Injury Study (HVCIS) among other smaller projects.

The UK's On The Spot (OTS) accident data collection project was an in-depth accident research project. Teams from TRL and Loughborough University were contracted by the Department for Transport to investigate police-reported traffic accidents minutes after they occurred, and gather all the perishable information possible. Over 3000 crashes involving all road users and all injury severities have been examined. The OTS database provides a unique insight into the prevailing factors that have been seen to cause crashes and the associated human injuries and vehicle and infrastructure damage that have been witnessed by the crash investigation teams.

The Co-operative Crash Injury Study (CCIS) was Europe's largest study of the causes of injury to car occupants involved in crashes and began over 25 years ago . The project was co-funded by the UK government and a number of industry partners. It was managed by TRL and the data was collected by teams from two university-based organisations and from the Vehicle Operator Services Agency (VOSA).

CCIS is internationally recognised as delivering a high-quality, in-depth accident database that provides data to researchers worldwide. CCIS data is used in a wide range of research projects for the Department for Transport, including projects in the areas of crashworthiness, restraint effectiveness, secondary safety systems, child restraints, biomechanics of injury and compatibility.

The study carefully selected accidents to be representative of all injury car crashes that occur in the UK and therefore can be used to predict national trends. The real-world evidence provided by CCIS allows safety improvements to be measured and potential future benefits to be predicted.

Further information on CCIS can be found at www.ukccis.com

While the accident record of heavy vehicles (classified as those over 3.5 tonnes gross vehicle weight) in the UK is generally good, accidents involving heavy vehicles have the potential to cause a large number of casualties in a single incident. The Heavy Vehicle Crash Injury Study (HVCIS) exists to determine the likely causes and personal injury consequences of accidents involving HGVs or other commercial vehicles (including buses, coaches, minibuses and light vans).
The objectives of the HVCIS research were to:

• determine the likely causes and personal injury consequences of accidents involving HGVs or other commercial vehicles
• undertake CCIS-style assessments of accidents involving HGVs, buses, coaches, minibuses and light vans, titled TCIS (Truck Crash Injury Study), and populate the HVCIS database
• study the detailed police files relating to fatal accidents, looking for trends, cataloguing the data and thus enabling searches to provide detailed information on specific accident types as and when required
• provide an analysis of accidents of all severities involving 'other motor vehicles' (OMVs).

TRL continues to develop accident investigation procedures and protocols and, as new techniques and technologies are established, these are used by crash reconstruction experts to further the understanding of the factors which contributed to the cause of the crash and the injuries. 

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