Tuesday, 12 September 2017

Euro NCAP launches Road Map 2025

Since its establishment in 1997, Euro NCAP has been the catalyst for significant and sustained advances in automotive safety. Their independent crash tests and continuously evolving assessment protocols have given consumers the knowledge they needed to help choose safety and an estimated 76 thousand lives have been saved in the EU as a result.

Today, during their 20th Anniversary celebrations, Euro NCAP launches its Road Map 2025, setting out for the first time the programme's priorities for the mobility and technological revolution the auto industry is just beginning to experience. Their objective is to offer clarity and confidence to motoring consumers, highlighting new automated driving technologies and raising awareness of their benefits whilst also helping to ensure their safety potential is fully realised.

As their Road Map 2025 makes clear, Euro NCAP will challenge vehicle manufacturers to offer the best possible technology as standard in all segments and countries, protecting not only car occupants of all ages but also increasingly addressing the safety of other more vulnerable road users.

Secondary safety is and will remain at the heart of Euro NCAP's consumer ratings for some time but we recognise that primary safety will have an increasingly important role to play, and for the first time now tertiary safety is addressed. Their strategy going forward will be to emphasise the integration of primary, secondary and tertiary safety features as enablers of a more holistic, safe system approach, in Pursuit of Vision Zero.

The Road Map outlines a timeline for the introduction of key protocol enhancements, including:

Primary Safety

Driver Monitoring (2020), Automatic Emergency Steering (2020, 2022), Autonomous Emergency Braking (2020, 2022), Vehicle to Vehicle Data Exchange and Vehicle to Infrastructure (2024)

Secondary Safety

Whiplash/Rear-end Crash Protection (2020), Pedestrian and Cyclist Safety (2022)

Tertiary Safety

Rescue, Extrication and Safety (2020), Child Presence Detection (2022)

Euro NCAP President, Pierre Castaing, said, 'Safety has come a long way since we started testing cars twenty years ago and consumers now see it as a key aspect of their purchasing decision. Many predict that the car and our personal mobility will change more in the next ten years than it has in the last one hundred. Going forward one of Euro NCAP's vital roles will be to offer clear, impartial guidance on these emerging and increasingly automated technologies, whilst also raising awareness of their significant life saving benefits.'

Michiel van Ratingen, secretary general, said, 'The potential safety benefits of automated driving are huge. If we can eliminate human error, we should see road casualty numbers tumbling and many lives being saved. But there is a lot of misunderstanding, over-expectation and perhaps some suspicion, of a world in which cars can drive themselves. Our role will be to provide clear information to consumers about the degree of automation in a car and how safely that automation has been implemented. Quite a challenge, but essential if Euro NCAP is to continue pressing for improvements from those who make cars and providing meaningful information to those who buy them.'