Project

Background: Longer Combination Vehicles (LCVs) have received increased interest in recent years. LCVs have 25 to 100% larger cargo space than typical truck-trailer combination vehicles. Therefore, they are expected to increase transport efficiency and thereby decrease costs as well as emissions. However, before they are introduced in the traffic system on a larger scale, their impact on traffic safety and other road users’ behaviour has to be investigated. SAFER hosts the Research and Innovation programme “Traffic safety effects of High Capacity Transport (HCT) vehicles and suggestions for compensatory measures”. High Capacity Transport (HCT) vehicles are road transport vehicles with weights and/or dimensions outside that permitted in conventional regulation. The purpose of the programme is to estimate the traffic safety effects of HCT vehicles, and suggest compensatory measures to balance out potential negative effects. In Sweden, there are plans to run trials during 2014 with up to 25 HCT vehicles that are longer and/or heavier than vehicles allowed in Sweden today. The number of trials with HCT vehicles is expected to increase the subsequent years. The steering group of the HCT-programme has shown interest in conducting naturalistic driving studies during future HCT trials in order to monitor the safety performance of the HCT vehicles and drivers. However before initiating a project application to FFI, the steering group wants a demonstration on how relevant traffic situations can be identified in naturalistic driving data, by using already existing data collected with conventional heavy vehicles. The overall purpose of the current pre-study is therefore to show how situations relevant for heavy vehicles can be identified in existing naturalistic driving data. This will be demonstrated by identifying and analysing vehicle movements of heavy vehicles during lane changing manoeuvres in critical situations and normal driving situations. The technique and knowledge developed during the pre-study will be valuable for other research projects, described more in detail under section 3.