Identifying crashes potentially affected by conditionally automated vehicles in Finland

Abstract

The objective of the study was to identify the number and national fraction of crashes that could be affected by universal adoption of conditionally automated vehicles (SAE3) based on the expected number of injury crashes, fatalities, and serious injuries in Finland. The study considered passenger cars with automated driving systems (ADS) for motorways and urban areas. The results show that of the national annual average, the motorway ADS has the potential to affect at maximum 3.3% of injury crashes, 3.1% of fatalities, and 3.2% of serious injuries. The corresponding fractions for urban ADS in the four largest Finnish cities were: 2.2%, 1.1% and 2.5%. Of the cities’ annual average, urban ADS has the potential to affect at the most 17.4% of injury crashes, 17.1% of fatalities, and 26.8% of serious injuries. Although the market introduction of these ADS is on the horizon, deployment can be expected to be slow, indicating a need for additional measures to reach the traffic safety goals.