<p>The purpose of this presentation is to explain the content and methodologies involved in statistically determining accident severity as a function of frequency for an industry which uses tractor semi-trailers.&nbsp; The data used in the approach is from supplemental Trucks In Fatal Accidents (TIFA) data developed by Sandia National Laboratories and the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI) from 1992-1999.&nbsp; Given the date that the data was collected, a corrective factor to adjust the data to be representative of today’s tractor trailer accident rates and standards of operation was needed.&nbsp; In addition, a secondary factor utilized a human factors study published in 2006 with two years’ worth of data on accidents involving large trucks.&nbsp; This data includes a breakdown of accident causes and their number of occurrences over this two year period.&nbsp; Utilizing this data, the secondary factor was developed to evaluate the efficacy of certain controls and procedures used by the customer to determine their reductive factor of accident frequency, relative to the rest of commercial industry.&nbsp; With these two factors, along with some acceptable frequency/risk threshold, a design base accident severity can be developed.&nbsp; This design base accident can be used to establish a baseline metric of resilience for a product in design and qualification.&nbsp; Additionally, this methodology is scalable to other trucking industries in the United States and other countries, provided there exists some data on said country’s relative accident frequency.&nbsp; Further, as this is a statistically-based approach to accident severity, it can be utilized in determining overall risk if a model exists that can evaluate that severity as a function of some probabilistic response of the cargo.&nbsp; Given that severity is affected by a factor that is dependent on controls and procedures, this means that a customer could utilize this approach to optimize efficacy of their controls and procedures from a monetary and risk perspective.</p>

Determining Hazard Severity via Probabilistic Risk Assessment in the Commercial Trucking Industry to Inform Design and Qualification

Paper Proceedings: https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/IDETC-CIE/IDETC-CIE2021/volume/85369

ASME 2021 International Design Engineering Technical Conferences & Computers and Information in Engineering Conference (IDETC/CIE2021)

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