The SENIORS project aims to improve safety for elderly road users through innovative testing tools, vehicle safety systems, and assessment procedures. The consortium includes 8 European partners from industry and academia. Initial analyses of crash and hospital data show elderly road users are at higher risk of injury, especially for the head, thorax, and lower extremities. The project is developing improved test tools like the Flexible Pedestrian Legform Impactor with Upper Body Mass and injury criteria that account for age-related factors. Future work includes additional physical and numerical simulations to enhance safety models and further verify benefits of new assessment procedures.

1. First results
Marcus Wisch, BASt
On Behalf of the Consortium
1st Results Road Transport Research, Brussels, 29 November 2017

2. What stands SENIORS for and who are we?
Safety ENhanced Innovations For Older Road UserS
Key facts:
Main Goal:
Consortium:
• To improve the safe mobility of the elderly (and
persons with overweight) as car occupants and
external road users (pedestrians, cyclists).
• EC Horizon 2020, MG-3.4-2014, contract no. 636136
• Run time: June 2015 – May 2018 (36 months)
• Budget: 2.9M€ (100% funding)
• 8 European partners: Autoliv (SWE), BASt (DE), Fiat
Chrysler Automobiles (IT), Ford (DE), Humanetics (DE),
IDIADA (ES), LMU Munich (DE), Transport Research
Laboratory (UK)
Marcus Wisch 2/23

3. Focus
Source: YouTube “Smart Car for Two Fat Dudes“
• Protection of the elderly (and overweight persons) as car occupants and
external road users (pedestrians, cyclists / e-bike riders)
• Study and evaluation of the reduction of injury frequency and types that can
be achieved through innovative and appropriate testing tools and passive
vehicle safety systems.
Source: AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety
Marcus Wisch Source: GIDAS
3/23

4. Approach
Safety of older road users
• Benefit of new tools, tests and
assessment procedures
• Advantages of current and new
safety systems
Integrated benefit analysis
Biomechanical testing
Dummies / impactors
Numerical models
Injury criteria
Injury risk curves
Test procedures
Assessment procedures
‡ Head-neck and
pedestrian thorax will
be early-stage research
Quantification of needs
• Literature (injury, behaviour, …)
• Traffic Accident studies
Prioritise
• Future project activities
IDENTIFICATION OF NEEDS /
PRIORITIES FOR OLDER ROAD USERS
IMPROVED TOOLS
CAR OCCUPANT
• Better older thorax IRC
• Addressing overweight
• Active Human Body Model
PEDESTRIAN/CYCLIST
• Flex-PLI with UBM
• Head-neck‡
• Pedestrian thorax‡
BENEFIT AND
IMPACT
ASSESSMENTS
Marcus Wisch 4/23

5. Improve the protection of elderly road users (key transport modes)
• Crash and hospital data analysis
regarding older road users of
several European databases
• Derivation of specific measures
incl. adaption of test and
assessment procedures by:
– Injury Risk Curves,
– Modified or new test tools,
– Adopted assessment
procedures, etc.
Objective 1)
Marcus Wisch
EU-28, CARE analysis
5/23
Hypothesis: Elderly in general and in particular male
cyclists and female pedestrians are mostly affected.

6. Exemplary results for mid-aged and older road users
Top level findings from Crash and Hospital data
Marcus Wisch
• Similar conclusions from different databases
• Elderly suffer more often from higher injury
severities compared with younger road users
• Most important body regions:
• Car Occupants: thorax
• Pedestrians / Cyclists: head, thorax and
lower extremities
Pedestrians (n=360)
Car Occupants (n=33,638)
Note: Each column adds up to 100% by adding % for AIS 0 and AIS 96/23

7. Development of a generic crash sled test set-up and CAE model
Generic Test Rig – Occupant Safety
Marcus Wisch
• Objective: To provide greater understanding of thoracic
injury risk at AIS 2+ (moderate) and low risk (e.g. 5%) at
AIS 3+ injury
• Method: Perform paired sled simulations with HBMs
and ATDs covering a wider range of loading conditions
than is currently available in literature (e.g., belt and
airbag usage, low-speeds)
• Why generic: repeatable, reproducible, open source
7/23

8. Tests with Volunteers, Dummies and Post-Mortem-Human-Subjects
Generic Test Rig – Occupant Safety
Marcus Wisch
à Required for enhancement of Crash Test Dummies and Digital Human Body Models
8/23
Volunteer
PMHS
Dummy

9. Development of a generic sled test set-up and CAE model
Generic Test Rig – Occupant Safety
Marcus Wisch
• Application:
- Hardware test fixture to be used for dummy, PMHS and volunteer tests
- CAE sled model for Human Body Model (HBM) and dummy simulations
9/23

10. Understand the influence of age in pre-/crash occupant dynamics
Objective 2)
Source: University of Florence Source: AutolivMarcus Wisch
• Two series of volunteer tests to understand differences in braking maneuvers
(also link to active safety)
à Focus on kinematics and muscle activities
• Advancement of an Active Human Body Model
10/23

11. Identify the specific anthropometric and injury mechanism of elderly,
including overweight/obese people, compared to younger people.
Objective 3)
Marcus Wisch
Analysis of the correlation between chest geometry, age and weight/BMI:
• Studies available from US; rarely data available related to
pedestrians and cyclists
• Findings, e.g.:
11/23
- The width of the lower rib cage is much larger than
the upper portion in a person with a high BMI while
no significant difference was found for normal BMI.
θyounger < θolder
Source: Modified from Kent et al. (2005)
- Obesity seems to be the strongest predictor for rib
angulation. So older and more heavyweight individuals
tend to have more horizontally orientated ribs.

12. Identify the specific anthropometric and injury mechanism of elderly,
including overweight/obese people, compared to younger people.
Objective 3)
• Identification of relevant age-related material
properties from literature
• Implementation in three human body models:
THUMS V4, THUMS TUC, GHBMC
Source: BASt
Marcus Wisch 12/23

13. Identify the specific anthropometric and injury mechanism of elderly,
including overweight/obese people, compared to younger people.
Objective 3)
Original 75yo35yo
Marcus Wisch
• SENIORS morphed rib cage models (THUMS TUC)
• Choose best fitting geometry, representing an “adult” (35yo) and “elderly” (75+)
occupant in most parameters (based on 995 CT scans)
13/23

14. Identify the specific anthropometric and injury mechanism of elderly,
including overweight/obese people, compared to younger people.
Objective 3)
Marcus Wisch
How to address the age-effect for age-related injury criteria?
1) Material properties (Cortical bone elasticity, costal
cartilage thickness, ultimate failure strain, …)
2) Rib cage geometry (incl. rib angle diversity)
3) Adjust strain limit in rib fracture prediction tools
Table-Top Tests
Hypothesis: Geometry influences belt routing. As elderly
have higher chest depth, the strains decrease; however, the
aged materials lead to frailty.
à Combination of all factors in one model was not feasible yet.
14/23

15. Develop and optimise test tools, procedures and assessment methods
– Car Occupants
Objective 4)
Marcus Wisch
• Tests with current and future
crash test dummies:
• HIII,
• THOR,
• Elderly, overweight dummy
• Tests with current and future
car occupant restraint system
configurations
15/23

16. Develop and optimise test tools, procedures and assessment methods
– Pedestrians and Cyclists
Objective 4)
Head Neck Impactor (HNI)
Legform Impactor with Upper Body Mass (FlexPLI-UBM)
Thorax Injury Prediction Tool (TIPT)
Marcus Wisch
à Latest results show the FlexPLI-UBM and the TIPT having a high potential.
16/23

17. Transfer knowledge and results to interested experts, regulatory
bodies, consumer entities etc.
Objective 5)
Marcus Wisch
Targeted for 2022 in Euro NCAP Roadmap 2025
“… with the FlexPLI, injuries to the pedestrian’s knee ligaments (ACL/PCL and
MCL) as well as injuries to the tibia can be assessed. […] Two independent
research studies (FlexPLI with Upper Body Mass; EC Seniors Project,
Horizon2020, 2017); (aPLI; Isshiki, 2016) have shown the feasibility of
replacing the current upper and lower legform tests with a revised test, using
a leg impactor that represents the human leg with an upper body mass.”
Source: Euro NCAP 2025 Roadmap In Pursuit of Vision Zero
• Presentation of preliminary results at technical meetings of the
ISO TC 22 SC36 WG5 & WG6 und towards Euro NCAP
17/23

18. Marcus Wisch
Lessons learned so far
The project challenges
• Attempt to link 13 crash and hospital datasets succeeded partly only
• Experimental tests, but also volunteer and PMHS tests require substantial
planning, conduction and analysis time
• Finite element (FE) Human Body Model (HBM) simulations are powerful, but
still require a lot of manual work and improvements
• The prediction of injury is not only about reading out injury risk curves (IRC)
• Survive in a world of Active Safety and Automated Driving
18/23

19. Marcus Wisch
First conclusions and limitations
Crash and hospital data:
Risk was greater for
the 65+ than for the
25-64 age group.
Effects of trauma injuries need
to be investigated further.
old
mid-aged
The most reliable variable for the
comparison on accident situation between
countries stays the number of fatalities.
Combination of crash and hospital
datasets is possible, but requires a
broad understanding of the
different patient inclusion criteria
and definitions.
Hardly BMI recording
in statistics.
19/23

20. Marcus Wisch
What next?
Testing, crash test dummies and impactors as well as human body models:
• Tests with ATDs are still required. However, HBMs offer great potential for traffic
safety increase. Simulations even offer a possibility to cover a wider range of
injury causing collision scenarios.
• Additional PMHS and volunteer tests are required to further enhance HBM
developments and to update injury risk curves. ATDs will also benefit.
à SENIORS is facilitating this by making a well-defined and well-documented
test environment publically available (Generic Test Rig).
• If restraint loads can be lowered, this should be done whenever feasible; leading
to a benefit for everybody, but even to a higher benefit for older persons!
• In future experimental testing will partly be replaced / added by simulations.
20/23

21. Expected Project Achievements
Modified Test and Assessment Procedures and Cost-Benefit Analysis:
Marcus Wisch
à Benefit estimation will be challenging due to indirect measures
à Adapted procedures will lead to more innovative passive vehicle safety systems
à Improvements for the elderly will also impact positively younger road users
21/23

22. Last, but not least
Take-away messages
Marcus Wisch
à Passive Vehicle Safety is indispensable and
has still potential!
à Knowledge about crashes and biomechanics
needs further enhancement!
à Future requests the hybrid testing approach:
Experiments and Simulations
22/23

23. For further information:
www.seniors-project.eu
Partners
This project has received funding from the European
Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation
programme under grant agreement No 636136.
Project Coordinator:
Marcus Wisch
wisch@bast.de
à Look out for our publications (Deliverables, Papers, Presentations etc.)