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Pedestrians are a vulnerable road user group, comprising 22% of global road traffic deaths [1]. In Japan, pedestrian fatalities accounted for 28% of total road fatalities and approximately 16% in Australia. These figures compare with 13% for the USA and 40-50% for India and Thailand [2]. Various pedestrian safety requirements are mandated in different markets in recent years worldwide. For pedestrian head-form, vehicle front-end styling and the free package space below bonnet plays a vital role in deciding the pedestrian head-form safety performance. Currently during initial phase of vehicle development, the free package space requirement is decided based on benchmark data. However, the benchmarking data does not give any insight into the physics involved and is subjective in nature as it varies from vehicle to vehicle. This paper gives an analytical approach for defining the free package space requirements for meeting the targeted pedestrian head form performance requirements.

As per WHO 2018 report, pedestrian fatalities account for 23% of world road accident fatalities. Every day 850 pedestrians lose their lives in the world. As per MoRTH 2018 report, 16% of road accident fatalities are of pedestrians in India. Everyday 64 pedestrians lose their lives in India. Based on accident data, one of the most common reason for the pedestrian fatality is head injury due to primary contact from vehicle front-end structure. Pedestrian head injury performance highly depends on front-end styling, bonnet stiffness, clearance with aggregates underneath the bonnet and hard contact points. During concept stage of vehicle development, safety recommendation on front-end design is provided based on geometric assessment of the class A surface.