The Long Term Roadmap Defining the Future of Life-Saving Safety

There are several notable changes to the program provided by this recent update, including:

• The addition of four advanced driver assistance technologies that will enhance crash-avoidance safety: pedestrian automatic emergency braking, lane keeping assist, blind spot warning and blind spot intervention.
• The addition of a crashworthiness pedestrian protection program to evaluate the ability of a vehicle’s front end to mitigate pedestrian injuries and fatalities in vehicle-to-pedestrian impacts.
• Midterm and long-term roadmaps – including THOR and WorldSID - to accommodate future updates amid ongoing research and technological advancements in vehicle safety, including crash avoidance and crashworthiness improvements to protect bicyclists and motorcyclists and an updated rating system.

Responding to the alarming 57% increase in pedestrian fatalities from 2013 to 2022, NHTSA is implementing a groundbreaking crashworthiness pedestrian protection program. This initiative will evaluate how effectively a vehicle's front-end design can mitigate injuries in pedestrian impacts, marking a significant shift towards holistic road safety.

NHTSA's vision extends far beyond immediate changes, outlining a 10-year roadmap to keep pace with rapid advancements in vehicle safety technology. View our summary of the NCAP Final Rule and Roadmap Summary.

NHTSA’s new enhanced requirements clearly outline the active safety features that will contribute to delivering crash prevention outcomes. 

1. Humanetics has a complete portfolio of the integrated hardware and software test platforms (Cars, pedestrians, motorcycles) needed to test ADAS features. They come loaded with software libraries of pre-programed NCAP scenarios.
2. We additionally have developed Trackbase Connect™, which is a complete Proving Ground management system that maximizes the number of tests that can be performed on the proving ground.

Male Occupant Protection

With the final rule imminent for THOR-50M and WorldSID-50M ready for implementation in 2027, ATD customers and engineering teams have just 24 months to ensure they have enough ATD’s, and experience with the advanced ATDs, in both Frontal and Frontal Oblique tests, to address test schedules.

Female Occupant Protection

For THOR-05F and WordlSID-05F, NHTSA has said that the final evaluation is near completion (which was due to be complete in Q1 2024). NHTSA’s stated ambition is to ensure that women’s safety is not disadvantaged. Realistically engineers should immediately start to use the THOR-05F in safety tests to understand what changes need to be made in vehicle design, as this will be the first time that US NCAP will address the highest standards of 5-star safety for female drivers. 

With a 2029 implementation date for THOR-05F proposed in Euro NCAP, and then US NCAP will follow later, the engineering groundwork needed to demonstrate success for females in driver seat Frontal crashes should start in 2025.

It is possible that once the THOR-05F testing is finalized there is an option to accelerate its adoption into NCAP, replacing the Hybrid III 5th percentile.

It is possible that once the THOR-05F testing is finalized there is an option to accelerate its adoption into NCAP, replacing the Hybrid III 5^th percentile.