Applied Intuition Comments on NHTSA’s Proposal to Update the New Car Assessment Program

Applied Intuition provided comments in response to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA) request for comment on a proposal to update the New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) to measure and rate the ability of vehicles to protect vulnerable road users, such as pedestrians. We support NHTSA’s decision to update the NCAP, which is a critical program to provide important safety information to consumers.

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In our comment, we recommended that NHTSA direct the submission of both physical and predicted test results, rather than just physical results. Predicted test results allow the agency and OEMs to use tools like modeling and simulation technologies, which allows for more testing of more and better scenarios in virtual environments.

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We also discussed our significant experience with the use of simulation and modeling tools to evaluate vehicle performance and safety. Applied’s CarSim software has been used to create several Euro NCAP-related data sets focused on the assessment of automatic emergency braking (AEB) vulnerable road user (VRU) systems within the Euro NCAP Pedestrian AEB Assessment.

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In addition, simulation software products, like those developed by Applied, are valuable tools for evaluating the performance of vehicles to protect pedestrians. These products can be used as part of the self-reporting process for OEMs – both to generate the data to be reported, and to help NHTSA verify and validate that data as it prepares NCAP results. 

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Read our full comments here.