Made available by UDV.de

Riders of powered two wheel vehicles (PTWs) are at particular risk of having an accident on the roads. The German Insurers Accident Research (UDV) has investigated accidents involving PTWs in a number of projects and found that, as things stand, there is little technology available for preventing or mitigating the effects of accidents involving mopeds and motorcycles.

UDV therefore investigated which future developments could have a positive impact on accident statistics. Experts talk about intelligent transport systems (ITSs) in this context. This term is used to refer to all information and communication technology systems in the road transport sector that make a significant contribution to reducing the impact of vehicles on the environment and improving efficiency and road safety. For the purpose of this study, they are considered as intelligent safety systems that can, for example, exchange information with the environment in order to improve the safety of PTWs. The vehicles range from mopeds limited to 25 km/h to high powered motorcycles. Taking the official accident statistics as a basis, the accidents were analyzed in detail using the insurers' accident database. In the next step, conceivable intelligent safety systems were specified and the best ones were selected for each accident. Finally, the most promising systems for PTWs were evaluated.

When the statistics for fatalities by modes of transport are compared for the years 1996 and 2016 (Figure 1), it can be seen that the percentage of fatalities among riders of PTWs has increased by nearly 70 percent. During the same period, the share of car occupants killed has fallen by around 15 percentage points. With regards to the absolute numbers of fatalities in both groups, fatalities among car occupants have fallen by 73 percent since 1996 while fatalities among riders of PTWs have only fallen by 38 percent.