Evaluation of Adult Occupant Protection on Body Region using Analytical Hierarchy Process: Side Impact Test

Abstract

ASEAN NCAP is a well-known automobile safety rating program in evaluating new cars for performance against various safety threats on the road. For the Southeast Asian countries, Adult Occupant Protection (AOP), Child Occupant Protection (COP) and Safety Assist Technology (SAT) are domains used in the ASEAN NCAP assessment. In a recent rating protocol, the AOP domain contributes 50 percent of the overall rating system with a maximum 36 points from three main elements consisting of Offset Frontal Test (OFT), Side Impact Test (SIT) and Head Protection Technology (HPT). Frontal crashes resulted in a severe injury that comes from contact with frontal components and ejection; however, side crashes are also reported to have high rates of serious injury and fatality as compared to other crash types. However, in the ASEAN NCAP assessment programme, to what extent side impact test helps to reduce the severity of injury to the car driver and passenger when the collision happened need to be explored. Therefore, the injury of body region on the side impact due to AOP failure were evaluated and reported in this paper to strengthen this program where the recommendation for performing side impact test could be proposed to ensure successful performance. The elements on the side impact test were extracted and decomposed from the existing structure. Next, input from the expert panels of various related backgrounds regarding the injury of body region on side impact test was gathered and evaluated using the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP). The result shows that the head, neck, and chest have the highest rank, followed by an abdomen with a Consistency Ratio (CR) of 0.0079. The finding of this paper will help to evaluate the existing side impact test in the AOP assessment.