News

We are delighted to welcome two new important members of SAFER's management team; Mats Petersson, Volvo Cars and Jolyon Carroll from Autoliv. Both have knowledge and experience in their respective fields that will help to develop and strengthen SAFER further. Also, Arne Nåbo will support Fredrik Sandblom as Co-Research area director for Systems for accident prevention and automated driving.

Human body protection will be led by Jolyon Carroll
Jolyon Carroll takes over Research area Human body protection from Lotta Jakobsson. Jolyon started working for Autoliv recently, in January 2020, where he has taken on a role of Biomechanics Specialist in the Research Department. Before this time, he gained more than 15 years’ experience working in Biomechanics and Vehicle Safety for TRL, the UK’s Transport Research Laboratory. In the early 2000s his research centred around crash test dummy developments and biofidelity evaluations. However, in recent years this experience broadened to include pre-crash safety and developments testing with highly automated vehicles. Now his focus will return to protection of road users.

“I am really excited by this opportunity. The protection of the human body for car occupants, vulnerable road users and all in the transport system is still something I’m passionate about”, Jolyon says.

“SAFER is a fantastic initiative that brings together like-minded people, and in the area of human body protection the contributors are an amazing group. I’m extremely keen to see where things go from here and what we can achieve together. I hope to bring my complimentary experience to the group, perhaps with some fresh thoughts, but mostly I want to help as we continue to push forward in the area of human body protection”, Jolyon continues.

Mats new leader for Safety performance evaluation
The Safety performance evaluation research area is currently led by Torbjörn Andersson from Autoliv. Mats Petersson, that now is taking over the role as Research area director, has a long experience as Research leader at the Volvo Cars Safety Center. He is a graduate in Engineering Physics, Chalmers University of Technology and has been working in the area of vehicle safety since 1998. Mats has been a leader of research projects in the area of FOT, active safety rating method development, driver in the loop tests and driver modelling for more than 10 years. All research projects have included field data analysis and safety performance evaluation. He is currently working, among other things, in SAFER's project L3Pilot, which aims to test large-scale self-driving cars on European roads.

Mats comments on his new role at SAFER:
“I look forward to seeing and supporting the development of innovative methods for predicting and evaluating real-world vehicle and traffic safety in the Safety performance evaluation research area. My ambition is that the research area will also support new creative ways for data collection and analysis as a basis for improving future safety performance in collaboration with the other research areas”.

Important part of SAFER’s core activities
Working as a Research area director (RAD) in the SAFER environment is a 20% role, leading the project portfolio within one of the four research areas. The RAD has the task to lead and develop the Reference group with members from industry, university, institutes etc, who are performing and planning research in the research area. Main tasks are to chair, lead and develop the Reference group, pro-active lead and develop the project portfolio, considers the need for multi- disciplinary research based on the research area platform. Also, the RAD leads the road map development and stimulate cooperation among the SAFER partners active in the research areas through multi-disciplinary project. The RADs are members of the Management team at SAFER. We have also a new Co-Research area director to Fredrik Sandblom in his group Systems for accident prevention and automated driving; Arne Nåbo from VTI. The co-driver has the task to support the Research area director (RAD), for instance by e.g. be a proactive speaking partner and keep a strategic dialogue with the RAD in general matters related to the Research area and its development as well as support with some more administrative tasks.

The transfer between the current Research area directors and the new ones will gradually take place during the spring. We welcome Mats, Jolyon and Arne to their new roles and thank Lotta and Torbjörn for their commitment and contributions to SAFER's development throughout the years.