PIONEERS
01/05/2018
PIONEERS (Protective Innovations of New Equipment for Enhanced Rider Safety) aims to reduce the number of Powered Two Wheeler fatalities and severely injured by increasing the safety, performance, comfort and usage rate of Personal Protective Equipment and the development of new on-board safety devices.
A dedicated project on PTW safety is needed to tackle the issue, involving a representative sample of stakeholders: from research specialists, dedicated test facilities and expertise and the related industry (both PTW manufacturers and protective equipment suppliers). PIONEERS bring all these together in a community dedicated to increasing PTW safety putting the user (rider) at the centre.
Four main pillars are built around the figure of the PTW user with the objective of enhancing the four most critical areas in PTW safety: improved injury assessment, safety system performance (both PPEs and on-board systems), reliable test and assessment and use of PPEs, and increased awareness. The main pillars of PIONEERS are:
- To achieve a deep understanding of the injuries sustained by the riders
- To increase the performance of safety systems
- To develop better test and assessment methods
- To increase the usage rate of PPE
The main goal of the PIONEERS project is to improve the safety of PTWs by providing an integrated approach to rider protection considering on-rider (PPE) and on-board systems. Therefore, this project will investigate and assess the direct contribution to the reduction of fatalities and severity of injuries, as well as the number of injured PTW users by developing new PPEs and on-board safety systems, improving the validation and assessment methods and increasing the usage rate of such devices.
The main results of PIONEERS will be:
- Higher understanding of how to prevent injuries to PTW users
- Better testing methods enabling better performance assessment
- Better products (PPEs and onboard systems) from European manufacturers, achieving an increased safety level for PTW users and improving European competitiveness.
Finally, the implementation of the PIONEERS’ main results will contribute to reducing PTW fatalities up to 25% in 2025 and injuries by defining test methods to develop protective systems and on-board systems to reduce impact severity. The development of new testing methods and products will strengthen European leadership in the PTW industry.
IDIADA will coordinate the whole project and ensure its successful execution through professional and effective management and coordination, with the achievement of the project objectives.
The project management methods and tools of PIONEERS are based on experience in many successful European Research and Innovation Actions.
Apart from managing the project, IDIADA will also be leading a Work Package whose main objective is the transfer of results from other WPs into reliable test methods and the associated assessment to ensure the protection of the user with the best balance between repeatability, reproducibility and reliability.
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under Grant Agreement number 769054.
