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In 1978, the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) established the New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) and began rating vehicles for frontal impact safety for MY1979 with the purpose of providing information to the public so consumers could make better-informed decisions about their purchases. Manufacturers responded to the ratings by voluntarily improving the safety of their vehicles beyond the minimum Federal safety standards. In 1996, NHTSA added testing for side impact protection and more recently to assess the vehicle's rollover propensity. After NHTSA's NCAP, other organizations have followed testing the passive safety performance of the vehicles and publishing the results to the customers with the intention of improving the protection given by the vehicles. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) started in 1995 with an offset frontal impact test and in 2002 with a side impact test using a mobile barrier that represents the typical SUV frontend.

In recent years, platooning emerged as a realistic configuration for semi-autonomous driving. In the SARTRE project, simulation and physical tests were performed to validate the platooning system not only in testing facilities but also in conventional highways. Five vehicles were adapted with autonomous driving systems to have platooning functionalities, enabling to perform platoon tests and assess the feasibility, safety and benefits. Although the tested system was in a prototype, it demonstrated sturdiness and good functionality, allowing performing conventional road tests. First of all the fuel consumption decreased up to 16% in some configurations and different gaps between the vehicles were tested in order to establish the most suitable for platooning in terms of safety and economy. Additionally, the platooning technology enables a new level of safety in highways. Around 85% of the accident causation is the human factor.

South East Asia is one of the regions with highest traffic-related fatality rates worldwide −18.5 fatalities per 100.000 inhabitants-. In response to that, governments of ASEAN countries are currently introducing new regulations, which will help to improve the road safety standards in the region. This paper reviews new safety regulations in force of following ASEAN countries: Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines. General safety trends promote the approach to international standards as well as the adoption of UNECE regulations. In fact, the 1958 agreement was signed by Thailand and Malaysia in 2006. Besides, Malaysia has gradually adopted fifty-three UNECE regulations so far and is currently considering the inclusion of twenty-four more. After the success of other NCAP organizations, the ASEAN NCAP assessment program was established in 2011.

New active and passive safety systems are continuously being developed. To assess these new systems, new testing requirements have appeared along with constraints and requirements that must be overcome while at the same time maintaining higher safety and quality standards. However, the increasing variety of test configurations and the requirements of various customers have led passive safety laboratories to carry out more complex vehicle tests, which usually involve non-straight trajectories and cannot be performed with the usual testing system. In order to increase the testing capabilities, a new guiding system was developed to satisfy the above-mentioned requirements. Several requirements for the desired system were established. It had to be reliable, robust and solid in order to guarantee repeatability and durability in crashes. Additionally the system had to be installed inside the vehicle without modifying its structure or interfering with the mass distribution.

The introduction of the new NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) oblique test configuration presents a new and critical load case that manufacturers are on the way to solving. Towards providing the best tools for passive safety development, this paper presents the work carried out to enable the analysis of the loads transmitted to the barrier in this kind of test. These data enable the identification of the elements of the vehicle that take part in the absorption of energy during the crash and are a valuable tool to improving the safety of vehicles by comparing the loads transmitted to the barrier in oblique tests. To record these data, a load cell wall system located between the deformable barrier and the trolley was installed. To assess the barrier design, one oblique test with the RMDB barrier was carried out. The deformable barrier for the oblique test is instrumented with 9 columns of 3 and 4 load cells with a total of 32 x-axial load cells.

In recent past years, the most important challenges for car manufacturers in terms of crashworthiness have been related to the introduction of the Frontal Small Overlap crash test promoted by the IIHS. The introduction of this new configuration presents a new and critical load case that manufacturers are on the way to solving. Now, with several OEM's starting to achieve good results, a new configuration is being studied for introduction: the frontal oblique crash test against a deformable barrier based on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) proposal in the US. Towards providing the best tools for passive safety development, a tool to enable the analysis of the loads transmitted to the barrier in both tests has been developed.