Measuring the Safety of ADS: How safe is safe enough?

Automated driving systems (ADS) are being developed faster than any point in history. There is a need to have an independent system to measure the safety of ADS across technologies and corporations. There are a variety of efforts around the world trying to estimate the impact of these systems on safety both prior to and after implementation. A missing piece that could allow for more cohesion and safer implementation is the knowledge of what type of data is needed for the refinement and further development of these systems. The purpose of this project is to determine the best method to collect data on the earliest adopter of these advanced vehicle control system and how to rapidly to use this data to evaluate the safety of these systems in the field. A new data acquisition system will be developed through this project according. The data collected by this new data acquisition system will be analyzed, including root cause assessments to measure the safety levels of these systems, as well as how to understand why a system may not be achieving the safety benefit envisioned. The project focus will be on the data that should be collected, how to collect that data, how to rapidly get that data from the field and how to rapidly use that data to assess the safety of these advanced features including any benefit and disbenefits. The project scope will not include developing a data acquisition system for this purpose but will include envisioning, developing, and testing some of the key components required to access and analyze the necessary data.