National Crash Analysis Center

Public Roads, Spring, 1994 by Azim Eskandarian, Nabib E. Bedewi, Leonard Meczkowski

Introduction

The National Crash Analysis Center (NCAC) is a research and resource center for transportation safety studies on vehicles and highways. NCAC was established at The George Washington (GW) University--Virginia Campus in Ashburn, Va, on Oct. 1, 1992, through a contract from the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) and contributions from GW's School of Engineering and Applied Science. Both the Federal Highway Administration's (FHWA) Office of Safety and Traffic Operations Research & Development and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's (NHTSA) Office of Crashworthiness Research fund the center. NCAC has two main goals:

* To conduct research to assist

government researchers in

resolving transportation safety

issues.

* To combine FHWA and NHTSA

crash-test films and documentation

collected over the past two

decades into a single national

library.

The Center also provides an environment for national and international visiting scholars to conduct research using the data and facilities and to interact with the NCAC research team.

NCAC researchers use highway-use data, on-the-road crash data, vehicle crash-test data, and models of vehicles and occupants as resources. In addition, the center maintains, improves, and applies vehicle and occupant computer models developed by FHWA and NHTSA and conducts research in the development of new computer simulation models. A unique feature of the center is that researchers can combine and use all available resources.

The NCAC library provides a national resource for crash-test reports and films, current computer models used by FHWA and NHTSA, and access to accident data bases such as the Fatal Accident Reporting System (FARS), the National Accident Sampling System (NASS), and the General Estimating System. The library currently has more than 14,000 crash-test films, along with the accompanying test report (if such a report is available).

NCAC Activities and Services

NCAC houses, maintains, and makes available to the public vehicle and highway crash-test films, data, and documentation that has been compiled over the past two decades by DOT. NCAC also has access to various accident reports and data bases. In addition, several computer models and software for modeling of vehicles, dummies, occupants, and highway objects are maintained and used for research at NCAC. NCAC provides an extraordinary setting

in which to conduct integrated research that considers all facets of a highway transportation safety problem. Ultimately, these research findings contribute to the design of safer highways and vehicles.

The following is a summary of NCAC activities and services:

* Research on modeling and

computer simulation of vehicles

and roadside objects for impact

analysis.

* Research on comparison of

computer models and test data.

* Research on biomechanics

computer simulation and

analysis of human injury due

to impact.

* Research on highway safety

issues using crash-test films, on-the-road

crash statistics, and

vehicle crash-test data.

* Research, investigation, and

traffic injury studies and effectiveness

analyses on safety

improvements.

* Validation and engineering data

services for existing and new

programs.

* Maintenance and improvement

of available vehicle and road-side-object

computer models.

* Operation, maintenance, and

support for the Crash Analysis

Information System (CAIS).

* Maintenance and support

services for the Crash Test

Information System (CTIS).

* Response to user inquiries on

computer programs.

* Response to user inquiries on

crash-film resources.

* Development and support of

the International Visiting

Scholars Program.

Vehicle and Highway Safety Research

The main goal of NCAC is to use its available resources to resolve transportation safety issues. FHWA's Office of Safety and Traffic Operations Research & Development is primarily concerned with the crash analysis and testing for highway design safety and roadside objects, NHTSA's Office of Crashworthiness Research focuses on regulations for safer vehicles and occupant protection.

Research at NCAC focuses on both aspects of the and combines the safety problem and combines the findings from both roadside objects and vehicle/occupant analyses. Research at NCAC starts with reviewing the accident data from various data bases and statistical analyses of injury patterns, frequencies, and severity to identify and characterize the impact problems for further investigation. The specific problems, tasks, and objectives are defined jointly with FHWA and NHTSA.

The research philosophy at NCAC is to look at the overall safety issue, use the available resources to identify and characterize the problem, use the most appropriate methods and tools or a combination of them to analyze the problem, and ultimately, recommend solutions or approaches that will enhance the safety of occupants and reduce harm. Another aspect of the research at NCAC is to evaluate the current methods of transportation safety analysis and make improvements as research progresses, rather than relying on the existing tools.