The feasibility of undertaking a

naturalistic driving project in

New Zealand
Peter Baas

Current road safety research tools

Police crash data
(CAS)

Limited by Police:
role, resources and
reporting

Driving simulator
Snapshot in controlled
studies at Waikato Uni environment

Need to understand real

life driving behaviours

Examples of possible NDB use

in New Zealand

Driver inattention
Driver fatigue
Failure to see other party
Young drivers
Safety of older drivers
Self explaining roads
Link between safety and fuel efficiency
Fleet safety

Self explaining roads

Road designs that promote desirable driver
behaviour
Changing driver scripts and schema
(hierarchy of roads)

Next stage of SER research

MSI (FRST) funded research with
instrumented vehicle:
Influence of road environment on speed
Road features that redirect driver attention
Tandem model (Samuel Charlton)

Safety & fuel efficiency

Common driving style:
Anticipating situation ahead
Driving to the conditions
Maintaining a relaxed, calm
driving style
Managing speed
35% difference between drivers in
amount of fuel used

Alexander Petroleum
Achieved in 3 years:
18% reduction in fuel consumption (l/100km)
50% reduction in incidents
99% reduction in 90km/h speed exception reports
from vehicle instrumentation
Four main factors addressed:
Management / leadership
Drivers
Vehicles
Journey

SAFEDNZ
MOT and NZTA driver training scheme
Based on UK govt scheme with proven safety

and fuel efficiency benefits

Launched July 2010
284 drivers trained (7.26% fuel saving on day of

training)

www.safednz.govt.nz

SAFEDNZ Senior instructors

Standard circuit ~ 35 km long

Mix of: urban and rural roads,

intersections and different terrains
Before and after measurements
Reductio Reductio Reductio Reductio Reductio
n in trip n in fuel n in gear n in
n in
time
use
changes brake
braking
use
distance

6.0%

Reductio
n in time
spent
braking

4.9% 48.2% 25.7% 38.3% 49.8%

Effect on travel time

Fuel savings diminish when driver has to manage
fuel and time saving together (Dogan et al 2011)
Drivers speed to keep the boss happy
Small reductions in posted speed limit have minor
impact on travel time (Archer, Fotheringham et al 2008, Haworth, Ungers et
al 2001)

5 minute difference in travel time but 30% difference

in fuel use for 61km journeys in Melbourne (RACV 2000)

Influence of fleet management on

safety
Fleets with good safety management systems: have
less than the crash rate of those that dont
irrespective of fault
Crash rates halved when safety management
systems introduced

Based on:
Analysis of the crash rates of 48,000 heavy vehicles in NSW,
Queensland and Victoria, half of which were accredited to Trucksafe or
NHVAS
US, Australian, Canadian and other studies

NDB tool limitations

Cost: NZ has very small road safety research budget
Large sample sizes often required
Variables measured and equipment required can
vary considerably
Data analysis can be complex and time consuming

May be more suited for comparative studies in NZ

especially the effectiveness of interventions

Possible equipment options

Most have GPS, video cameras (2 to 6),
accelerometers, microphone and event trigger
Range in price from $500 to >$60,000
DriverVisionR by Transecurity (ex 100 car
study) about $15,000
Low cost systems ($500 to $1,000) developed for
fleet monitoring purposes (e.g. Drive Cam).
Promoted by insurance companies.

Key measures for basic system

Camera data
GPS
Lateral and longitudinal acceleration
Speed
Speech (to help identify events)

T-eye ADR3000 trial

Video images acceptable
Unable to identify events from accelerometer (poor
resolution)
Generally difficult to identify events. Would require
highly trained observers
Driver wore sunglasses most of the time, making it very
hard to check if distracted
Looking at trialling SBX3100 device
For Self Explaining Roads research will use Waikato
Uni instrumented vehicle.

Summary
NDB tools provide the opportunity to make a
major step forward in the understanding how
to improve road safety and fuel efficiency
Likely NZ use is for evaluating the effectiveness
of interventions because of cost
International collaboration would help