AWARE2ALL

AWARE2ALL is a consortium selected by the EU Horizon Europe program to improve the safety of occupants of connected and automated vehicles and human road users (HRU).

In 2020 every 25 minutes someone died on European roads. EU-wide, around 70% of road fatalities in urban areas involve vulnerable road users. There is an increased safety risk across different age groups (children, adults, older adults), types of impairment (e.g., sensory, developmental, cognitive, physical impairments), and among users of mobility devices. Most user studies in the field of automotive safety are conducted with predominantly young male and technologically educated participants.

AWARE2ALL will effectively address the changes in road safety derived from the introduction of Autonomous Vehicles, putting special focus on underrepresented populations (female, elderly, sensorial or physical disabilities, cultural minorities, low digital abilities) to ensure that the results provide safety to any occupant and HRU.

The main objective of AWARE2ALL is to address the new safety challenges posed by the introduction of highly automated vehicles (HAV) in mixed road traffic, through the development of inclusive and innovative safety (passive and active) and internal as well as external human machine interface (HMI) systems that will consider the variety of the population and will objectively demonstrate relevant improvements in mixed traffic safety.

AWARE2ALLs concept is based on three pillars:

• P1– Integral safety, to guarantee always that the severity of an unavoidable accident is minimised.
• P2– Interior situation awareness, to ensure that occupant alertness is adequate for the current driving mode.
• P3– Exterior situation awareness, to inform the other road users about the vehicles state and intentions.