2016

Olga Slobodova

Safety Shield Systems

White Paper on Cycle Safety Shield Trials

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Table of contents

Background ....................................................................................................................... 2

How big is the problem? ..................................................................................................... 2

Accidents with buses and lorries ....................................................................................... 4

Solutions ........................................................................................................................... 5

Indirect vision devices ..................................................................................................... 5

Protection of vulnerable road users .................................................................................. 7

Development of Cycle Safety Shield .................................................................................. 7

Trials ................................................................................................................................ 8

Ealing Borough of London ................................................................................................ 8

Sainsbury’s Supermarket ............................................................................................... 10

Reviews ....................................................................................................................... 12

Data collection ................................................................................................................. 13

Further development ..................................................................................................... 16

References ...................................................................................................................... 17

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Background

Today, governments and municipalities are actively promoting cycling as a single solution to

many problems faced by the modern highly urbanised society. Cycling not only contributes to

reducing pollution from motor vehicles and congestion in city centres, it also improves health by

exercise.

However, cycling is often considered dangerous, especially in urban areas, and not without

reason. Indeed, cyclists alongside with pedestrians, are the most vulnerable road users, whilst

also being the most difficult to observe both in day and in night conditions.

In London, the most often cause of fatal cyclists accidents representing 25% occur when a

large vehicle is turning left1 into a side road (Transport for London, 2014). The manoeuvre

includes a necessary positioning of the vehicle to the opposite side of the road edge within the

lane, so as to allow sufficient space for rear wheels, which have a shorter trajectory than the

front wheels during a turn. This creates a gap tempting for cyclists to fill into and putting them

into the blind spot. In this position they cannot be seen by the driver either directly or indirectly

in the side mirror.

This health and safety issue needs to be addressed quickly as more and more citizens are

encouraged to use bicycle as a daily mode of transport, including children.

While municipalities are actively investing into cycling infrastructure such as separate lanes and

protected intersections for bicyclists, they need reliable information about the most common

causes of dangerous situations involving cyclists and pedestrians and about the most dangerous

junctions to be reconstructed in the first place.

How big is the problem?

Deaths among cyclists represent a swaggering share of all road fatalities. It considerably differs

from country to country depending on various conditions, such as share of cycling in the modal

split, cycling infrastructure and general driver behaviour.

While in the UK, the share of cyclists deaths is over 5 times lower than in the Netherlands, it is

important to consider that over 10 times less British choose bicycle as their typical mode of

transport, as compared to Dutch (see Figures I and II). In fact, the more cyclists there are on

the roads, the bigger share they represent in the overall road deaths.

1 For the exception of the examples from the countries with left hand traffic, the direction of turns in the

present document corresponds to the right hand traffic system

3

Figure I: Fatalities among cyclists in the Netherlands, Spain and the United Kingdom

Sources: European Cyclists’ Federation, 2013; World Health Organisation, 2013

Figure II: Bicycle as a mode of transport in the Netherlands, Spain and the United

Kingdom

Sources: European Cyclists’ Federation, 2013; EPOMM, 2010-20152

2 Bicycles do not have to be registered, thus there is a lack of reliable statistics on the share of cycling in

the modal spilt. For this reason the figures taken from EPOMM Modal Split Tool are not entirely

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4 6

2

5

6

3,4 3,8

2,8

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

Netherlands Spain UK

Fatalities among cyclists (in % to all road deaths)

Number of fatalities among cyclists per 100 000 cyclists

Number of fatalities among all road users per 100 000 population

36,0

3,1 3,0

28,9

4,4 3,8

0,0

5,0

10,0

15,0

20,0

25,0

30,0

35,0

40,0

Netherlands Spain UK

On a typical day most often used mode of transport is the bicycle (% of population)

Share of cycling in modal split (in %)

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At the same time, the share of fatalities among cyclists in Spain is lower than in the UK, even

though Spanish citizen cycle more. However, Spain has the highest overall road death rate

among the three countries, which explains the distortion.

The good news is that the interdependence between the number of vulnerable road users and

the risk of accident involving them is nonlinear (European Cyclist's Federation, 2010), which can

be seen in the numbers of fatalities per 100 000 cyclists, taking into consideration the modal

split of the corresponding countries. In other words, the more people cycle, the less is the risk

for each cyclist. However, it does not mean that the absolute number of fatalities among

cyclists always follows the same trend.

Accidents with buses and lorries

The most dangerous accidents for cyclists are those with buses, LGVs and HGVs. These

accidents represent about 30% of cyclists’ fatalities both in the UK and the Netherlands (OECD,

1998).

In comparison to crashes between cyclists and passenger cars, accidents with buses lead to

fatalities or serious injuries 7 times more often and those with trams 12 times more often,

taking into account vehicle kilometres driven by the respective crash opponent mode of

transport (SWOV, 2011). Severe accidents (previously having led to at least one serious injury)

with lorries are lethal in 36% of cases and the additional 41% of cases lead to a severe injury

(SWOV, 2015).

Accidents occurring due to the blind spot of a lorry turning right account to almost a third of all

serious cyclist-lorry accidents in the Netherlands, whereas in general in the EU there have been

registered 236 lateral accidents compared to 25 frontal collisions (European Cyclists’ Federation,

2012).

representative of the current situation all around the given country. At the same time, the results of the survey on the most often used mode of transport on a typical day reflects the number of people

dedicates to cycling and is only indirectly correlating with the share of cycling in the modal split.

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Figure III: Blind zone accidents in collisions between cycles/mopeds and goods

vehicles, by type of manoeuvre

Source: Jacobs Consultancy, 2004

Solutions

In addition to general road safety measures provided by the law, such as periodic vehicle

roadworthiness tests, front protection and obligatory training of professional drivers, there is

are two main mutually complementary solutions specifically aimed at reducing the risk of blind

zone accidents: road infrastructure and indirect vision devices.

Indirect vision devices

The European Commission is recognising the danger of blind spots for vulnerable road users

and has imposed Directives 2003/97/EC and 2007/38/EC stipulating the compulsory need for

rear-view mirrors for all lorry fleets driving in the EU, as well as approving devices for indirect

vision3 and vehicles equipped with these devices.

It has been proven that mirrors alone are not able to provide a full view for the front and lateral

sides of the vehicle (Florida Department of Transportation Research Center, 2010). The modern

3 According to Article 1.1 of Annex I of Directive 2003/97/EC, "Devices for indirect vision" means devices

to observe the traffic area adjacent to the vehicle which cannot be observed by direct vision. These can be conventional mirrors, camera-monitors or other devices able to present information about the indirect

field of vision to the driver.

13%

11%

8%

36%

9%

13%

10%

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technologies can provide driver’s assistance in addition to rear-view mirrors in order to

completely eliminate all the blind spots around the vehicle as shown in Figure IV.

Figure IV: Progressive blind zone reduction using sideview video system

Source: Florida Department of Transportation, 2010

While cameras alone provide a complete view around the vehicle, accidents can only be avoided

provided that the driver is looking at the monitor. In order to exclude accidents due to human

error and fatigue, the collision avoidance systems may be equipped with visual, audio and

haptic warnings. Haptic warnings may be delivered by vibrating steering wheel or seat.

According to the European Commission’s research, audio and haptic warnings are preferable for

imminent collision avoidance, since they attract driver’s attention irrespective of where he is

looking.

At the same time, if the system is detecting all objects within the range of the vehicle, giving

too many unnecessary alerts, drivers are constantly distracted and stop paying attention to the

warnings.

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Protection of vulnerable road users

The response to the problem is to give warnings only for imminent collisions, giving sufficient

time to take evasive actions, according to the type of the object and the respective speeds of

the possible collision opponent and the vehicle.

For instance, Volvo is currently offering a collision avoidance system that recognises only

pedestrians. Their current systems can additionally detect cyclists, but are not specifically

designed to do so (Transport Research Laboratory, Luxembourg).

In late 2013, when in a short period of two weeks six cyclists were killed on London’s roads,

five of them involved in accident with a truck, bus or coach, Ealing Council and Transport for

London decided to take a proactive lead in developing a new system to deal with this safety

issue (Ealing Council, 2014).

Development of Cycle Safety Shield

Further to exploring available systems on the market, the Ealing Council specialists were unable

to find a satisfactory product. The Council then worked out its own criteria and specification for

the development of a collision avoidance system that would be able to defeat this safety issue.

After approaching a number of companies that were unable to meet the criteria, the transport

specialists addressed Safety Shield Systems, who identified a collision avoidance system that

had previously been used by the Ministry of Defence for missile detection and was now

available on the market.

Ealing Council worked with Safety Shield Systems to adapt the software and technology to fit

any vehicle and feature a number of functions, including the driver warning of potential

collisions only with cyclists, pedestrians or motorcyclists (PCM), filtering out other inanimate

objects, such as bus stops and lamp posts, to eliminate repetitive and unnecessary alarms. This

‘intelligent’ detection was the key feedback point from the TfL fleet drivers interviewed by the

Council. The Council also wished to enhance the system by including features to help improve

driver training and awareness, as well as reduce running costs through integration with existing

fleet management systems that track driver behaviour and energy consumption. This included

360° Bird’s Eye View around the vehicle, Headway Monitoring and Forward Collision Monitoring

to avoid accidents with other motor vehicles, High Beam Control to automatically lower the

lights blinding for incoming traffic, Lane Departure Warning and Speed Monitoring (Ealing

Council, 2014).

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Trials

Ealing Borough of London

The initial six month trial using a standard contractor lorry ran from January to June 2014. The

system included a telematics system recording the collision avoidance warnings, their location

and time, the type of the detected road user and the respective speeds to be able to study the

results.

Source: Ealing Council, 2014

Throughout the six month trial period, the results were independently tested and reviewed by a

number of organisations including London Cycling Campaign and an independent automotive

telematics company Ituran.

The report conclusions of the six month trial were:

During the six month trial period Cycle safety shield has potentially stopped 15

serious collisions occurring between the HGV and a PCM.

All of the serious collision warnings given happened at an average speed of 13.6 mph

(22 km/h), at this speed a collision could have been fatal.

Overall vehicle fuel efficiency improved by 8% throughout the trial period,

equivalent to cash fuel savings of £1,000 per vehicle per year, due to reduced

aggressive acceleration and breaking.

Overall safety rating (driver behaviour) improved by 20% throughout the trial

period with the driver’s behaviour significantly improved in speed reduction and the

number of PCM collision, forward collision and lane departure warnings per mile driven.

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The data shows that the majority of serious collision alerts, which were given to the

driver, telling him to break, happened on the left hand side of the vehicle when either

travelling straight or turning left.

As regards the system operation, the results were:

The system is detecting only pedestrians, cyclists and motorbikes (PCM) up to 30m

away from the vehicle by the combined front and left cameras mounted on the vehicle.

There has been over 40 000 detections by the system of a PCM over the trial period.

However, the driver was alerted with an audio and video warning only 15 times during

the same period.

The system stands out from standard detection systems in the following ways:

o Only detects pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists, not other objects such as

railings, other cars, road signs, etc.

o The system is a collision avoidance system, not an all-round detection system,

reducing the alerts given to the driver, which is not overloading, annoying and

distracting.

Luke Brown, the Murrills Construction Ltd driver, who drove the vehicle during the trial, clearly

identified the following benefits in using the system:

A. The system helped improve his driving by eliminating bad habits.

B. Compared to other systems, Cycle Safety Shield is not annoying as it does not pick up

inanimate objects compared to other standard detection systems on the market.

C. The system has helped avoid several collisions as it gave him time to brake after being

warned.

D. The driver has started to keep a safer distance from the vehicle in front due to the

headway monitoring function, which is both safer and has also helped improve fuel

efficiency.

E. The driver would recommend the system to other HGV drivers.

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Cycling next to Transport for London bus fixed with new technology

Source: Ealing Council, 2015

Despite all the features, the Council also negotiated the system to be available at a competitive

price. The trial has revolutionised the thinking towards lorry safety and performance in London

and is now being rolled out across all of Ealing’s fleet with over 100 vehicles with other Local

Authorities around the world starting to follow suit.

(Ealing Council, 2014)

Sainsbury’s Supermarket

Sainsbury’s had the initial two month trial of Cycle Safety Shield as part of their ongoing

commitment to reduce collisions with HGV’s and vulnerable road users and to improve driver

behaviour.

The system included PCM detection, Headway monitoring, Forward collision warning, Speed

monitoring, Lane departure and 360° Bird’s Eye View camera.

The results of the two month trial were:

1. Cycle Safety Shield has potentially stopped 14 serious collisions occurring between

the HGV and a PCM.

2. The overall fuel efficiency has improved by 5% throughout the trial period

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3. The overall safety rating (driver behaviour) has improved by 23% throughout

the trial period, the drivers behaviour has significantly improved by reducing the

following warnings:

PCM collision warnings

Forward collision warnings

Aggressive turns

Speeding

Aggressive acceleration

Headway monitoring alerts

Lane departure warnings

After the trial, Sainsbury’s have permanently applied the system to its fleet of vehicles. Now

their lorries feature the following additional elements:

Figure V: 360-degree vision front/rear cameras on Sainsbury’s trucks

Source: Sainsbury's, 2014

The video technology in the cab giving 360 degree vision of the surrounding road

New proximity sensors down the sides of the lorry that beep to alert the driver’s

manoeuvres to other road users

Side guard extensions and reflective infills to help stop cyclists from falling under the

vehicle

More indicators along the sides to increase awareness that the truck is turning

More downlights along the sides that glow at night, giving the driver more visibility of

road users in the dark

A warning sticker to alert road users that they are in the driver’s blind spot

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A tail lift operation warning – so that there will be an audible sound when the tail lift is

being lowered – that’s for anyone behind the vehicle

Further driver training on higher safety standards in the truck

(Sainsbury's, 2014)

Reviews

Mayor of London, Boris Johnson MP, has welcomed the roll-out of cutting edge

technology to help improve road safety: “It’s fantastic to see that cutting edge technology,

such as Cycle Safety Shield, is being utilised to help make London’s roads safer. Amey’s

commitment to fitting Cycle Safety Shield to its fleet of trucks is to be applauded and I hope

that other big companies follow their lead. As we work towards strengthening our Safer Lorry

Scheme we’re giving real consideration to making sensor technology like this a requirement for

HGVs operating in London. I've said that improving the direct vision of drivers is one of our key

priorities going forward, but high tech solutions like this being developed by Safety Shield

Systems and others are sure to play a big part in helping us to deliver future improvements to

road safety”.

Ealing Councillor Bassam Mahfouz, cabinet member for Transport and Environment

for Ealing, said: “The Cycle Safety Shield is life-saving technology which is proving to be a

game-changer in the field of road safety. With lorries being responsible for two-thirds of cycling

deaths in London, this innovative piece of kit, installed on Ealing vehicles, makes such a positive

difference and I am delighted and honoured that this has been recognised with awards from

Brake and across Europe."

Ben Plowden, Director of Surface Strategy and Planning at TfL, said: “Our efforts to

continue making London’s streets as safe as possible include the ground-breaking trials of

innovative detection technology on London Buses. We welcome Ealing Council’s work with Cycle

Safety Shield, which will help continue the positive trends we’ve seen in reducing serious

injuries to road users. The trial of detection software on London Buses, in addition to our

ongoing work with the Construction Logistics and Cyclist Safety (CLOCS) programme, further

demonstrates our commitment to safer streets for all.”

Charlie Lloyd, road danger reduction campaigner from the London Cycling

Campaign, said: “There have been another three tragic cyclist fatalities involving large lorries

in London in the past few weeks. Preventing more deaths from these lorries is almost

always the greatest concern for people cycling in London. The trial results we have seen

suggest that the Cycle Safety Shield system will produce a step change in reducing this danger

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to cyclists. Providing drivers with a warning system they can trust is one of our Safer Lorry

Campaign objectives."

Ealing and Cycle Safety Shield have won numerous industry awards for their Cycle Safety Shield

initiative. It won the Fleet Safety Analysis and Action category at road safety charity, Brake’s

awards in October. In September, London was named best ‘Innovative Transport City’ at the

Transport Innovation Deployment for Europe (TIDE, EU Project) event for Ealing Council’s cycle

safety work. And in March the partnership was recognised at the London Transport Awards as

the winners of the ‘Most Effective Road Safety, Traffic Management & Enforcement Project’

(London Assembly, 2014).

Data collection

Vehicle based ITS solution have a substantial capacity to improve road safety for vulnerable

road users. However, in busy city centres, intersections where various road users need to share

the road and constantly negotiate their space, road infrastructure is the primary solution, with

collision avoidance systems playing an important complementary part for complex road

situation both in infrastructure equipped intersections and beyond them.

While protected intersections and bicycle lanes provide a more secure environment for cyclists

both physically and psychologically, this is a long term and resource intensive process. In the

meantime, the ITS systems are a lighter solution that can be also highly beneficial for a more

efficient road infrastructure planning, since they have the capacity to provide data, based on

their collision avoidance operations.

Indeed, road safety statistics are often limited to fatal cases and do not necessarily include less

serious accidents, though they are crucial to understand what might cause future accidents with

possibly a more severe outcome. Even if these cases are included in the statistics, they are

based on serious accidents reported to the police. However, there are numerous incidents

which are not being reported and are not being covered in the road safety data.

In order to respond to the demand of city administrations and traffic planning departments for

complete and reliable information, upon which they could make corresponding decisions on

traffic planning and infrastructure, by the end of the last year Safety Shield Systems has

developed Data Collection Telematics System, which records in real time:

all collision avoidance warnings

they location and time

the type of the potential crash victim

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the speed of both the vehicle and the detected road user

it may also include the recorded video just before and during the warning, which could

help analyse the road situation and investigate accidents, if they were not being able to

avoid

all other warnings, such as lane departure, speed control, headway monitoring and

forward collision warnings, as well as aggressive acceleration and breaking, energy

efficiency, etc.

The information on collision warnings is presented by the software on a map view in real time,

showing areas of concern with regards to potential collisions with cyclists, pedestrians or

motorcycles.

Figure VI: Recorded collision avoidance warnings displayed on a map view in real

time

Source: Safety Shield Systems, 2016

Each warning can then be seen on a street view, in order to be able to immediately get an

overview of the potential accident hotspot and analyse possible reasons for numerous alerts.

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Figure VII: Each collision warning displayed on a street view

Source: Safety Shield Systems, 2016

In the case shown above, on Myrtle Avenue in Brooklyn, New York, cyclists tended to deviate

from the cycle lane onto the main street, when drivers and passengers of the parked cars were

opening the doors. This caused dangerous situations for cyclists and resulted in appropriate

warnings by the system.

As a result, the City is now carrying out numerous projects for the construction of protected

cycling lanes, including on the adjacent Clinton Avenue.

Figure VIII: Project for the construction of protected cycling lanes on Clinton

Avenue

Source: New York City Department of Transport, 2016

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Further development

The goal of Safety Shield Systems is to create a statistical data set retrieved from different

urban environments, which would be as complete as possible, in order to make reliable analysis

on most common reasons of dangerous road situations involving vulnerable road users and,

subsequently, on the most appropriate solutions.

In this regards, Safety Shield System is calling for partners until the 1st of August 2016 to

participate in a three month pilot project. This would allow traffic planning department to get

initial statistics on potentially dangerous spots in the city. Transport companies could

additionally benefit from the test of the collision avoidance system.

Among the authorities and private companies that have confirmed their participation in the trial

are such organisations as Transport for London, East Riding Council, Sainsbury’s Supermarket,

Amey Group, Arriva, etc.

Municipal and transport authorities, private companies with a fleet of vehicles and research

organisations are invited to take part.

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References

Ealing Council. (18 September 2014). Ealing Council leading the way in cycle safety. Retrieved

2016, from Ealing Council:

https://www.ealing.gov.uk/news/article/1057/ealing_council_leading_the_way_in_cycle_

safety

Ealing Council. (2014). London Borough of Ealing Road Safety Plan. Ealing .

EPOMM. (2015). TEMS - The EPOMM Modal Split Tool. Retrieved 2016, from epomm.eu:

http://www.epomm.eu/tems/index.phtml

European Cyclist's Federation. (2010). Halving injury and fatality rates for cyclists by 2020, ECF

Road Safety Charte.

European Cyclists’ Federation. (2012). Gigaliners/Megatrucks and Road Safety.

Florida Department of Transportation Research Center. (2010). Evaluation of Camera-Based

Systems to Reduce Transit Bus Side Collisions. Tampa.

Jacobs Consultantcy. (2004). Cost-Benefit Analysis of Blind Spot Mirrors.

London Assembly. (10 November 2014 г.). Mayor welcomes roll-out of road safety technology.

Retrieved 2016, from London Assembly: https://www.london.gov.uk/press-

releases/mayoral/road-safety-technology

New York City Department of Transportation. (2016). Clinton Avenue Enhancement. Retrieved

2016, from Feedback Portals: http://nycdotfeedbackportals.nyc/clinton-ave

OECD. (1998). Safety of Vulnerable Road Users.

Safety Shield Systems. (2015). Introducing Cycle Shield Systems. Retrieved 2016, from Safety

Shield Systems: http://safetyshieldsystems.com/cycle-safety-shield/

Sainsbury's. (2014). Cycle Safety Shield Trial.

SWOV. (2011). SWOV Fact sheet: Road safety hazards of public transport. Leidschendam.

SWOV. (2015). SWOV Fact sheet: Blind spot crashes. The Hague.

Thorpe, D. (2015, May 26). Revealed: The Top European Countries for Cycling Safety, Advocacy

and Popularity. Retrieved 2016, from Sustainable Cities Collective:

http://www.sustainablecitiescollective.com/david-thorpe/1076466/revealed-top-

european-countries-cycling-safety-advocacy-and-popularity

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Transport for London. (2014). Cycle Safety Action Plan. London.

Transport Research Laboratory. (Luxembourg). Benefit and Feasibility of a Range of New

Technologies and Unregulated Measures in the fields of Vehicle Occupant Safety and

Protection of Vulnerable Road Users. 2015: Publications Office of the European Union.

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Safety Shield Systems

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Skelmersdale, WN8 8EA United Kingdom

T: +44 (0)1257 425742

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E: info@safetyshieldsystems.com

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