Crashing safely: technology at the service of safer road standards

Vehicle Restraint Systems (VRS) are passive safety devices including safety barriers, bridge barriers, crash cushions and the terminals of barriers. The standard EN 1317 provides a common testing and reporting system to describe the design, performance, production and testing of VRS. The ROBUST (Road Barrier Upgrade of Standards) project was set up to address the question of uncertainty in VRS measurement by applying state of the art technology to the existing European standards. It examined whether EN1317 tests reflect the real-life performance of barriers involved in roadside accidents, whether VRS test results could be streamlined from one laboratory to another and how simulation could help in designing and certifying VRS. The project also examined ways of improving the scientific validity of the moving average measurement.