New Doctor of Science
- September 19, 2023
- Katja Peterlin
- 0

On Tuesday, the 19th of September 2023, Matej Barbo successfully presented his PhD thesis entitled “ Impact of Motorcycle Emergency Braking Warning System on Traffic Safety – Hybrid System Dynamics and Agent-Based Modelling Approach “.
The defence committee consisted of Assoc. Prof. Dr. Borut Lužar and Assist. Prof. Dr. Urška Fric.
The doctoral thesis was prepared under the supervision of Assoc. Prof. Dr. Blaž Rodič.
Summary of the doctoral thesis:
Every year several thousand powered two-wheeler (PTW) drivers and passengers die in the EU. Despite the much higher risk of death and injuries for PTW vs. car users, there has been relatively little research on PTW safety. The development and market penetration of safety aids for PTWs is progressing relatively slowly, and motorcycle remains the most dangerous means of transportation per passenger kilometer. Many injuries occur in rear-end collisions, when PTW is struck from the rear by another vehicle. In doctoral dissertation we present a hybrid i.e., multi-method simulation model that allows the simulation of various situations in which a vehicle may collide with the rear end of a PTW. We have used this model to estimate the impact of market penetration of a motorcycle ESS & RECAS system within the EU transport system on the reduction of number of traffic accidents and their consequences and thus potential contribution to the EU “Vision Zero” goal: “reduce road deaths to almost zero by 2050”. The ESS & RECAS system in question, MEBWS (Motorcycle Emergency Braking Warning System), has been developed at the Faculty of Information Studies in Novo mesto and patented. Simulation results using EU traffic accident data show that with 100% EU market penetration of the MEBWS system, the total number of PTW rear-end collisions would decrease by 29.50%, resulting in reduction of economic crash costs in the amount of €43,145,172 according to the standard EU methodology. With the MEBWS system enabled, the number of traffic accidents in the standard rear-end collision emergency braking scenarios Moto, normal drive, Moto, emergency stop and Moto, not moving decreased by 33.15%, 27.76% and 28.76%, respectively. In cases when the collision could not be prevented due to slow response of the following driver or very high relative speed of the vehicles, MEBWS reduced the relative speed at impact, thereby reducing the severity of injuries up to 11.198% as estimated by the amount of kinetic energy released at collision.
Congratulations!



