6. Mr Carroll presented an update of the activities done by TRL on behalf of the European Commission (document TF-BTA-03-06/Rev.1 which is an update of the presentation provided in advance). He explained that in EEVC there had been some discussion in Working Group 10 on the use of a 45° plane or a 60° plane in late 1990. However, it cannot be discovered why finally a change to 60° had been decided but obviously the decision was related to already existing legislation in Europe (UNECE Regulation 42) as well as the US (part 581). Mr Carroll finally pointed out that legislation is used in a different context in the bumper requirements compared to the pedestrian requirements.

7. Also, Mr Carroll presented some information from Euro NCAP tests were vehicles performed different at positions outside the bumper corners. Also, some geometric measurements were taken for the top-selling vehicles in the UK. Mr Carroll pointed out that the differences between the test areas are clearly seen between earlier and current generations of the same car.

8. Finally, Mr Carroll outlined that TRL will conduct some tests with both, the EEVC LFI as well as the FlexPLI to discover differences in the protection level between earlier and current vehicles front ends. These activities are planned to be done as the next steps.

9. Mr Roth wondered whether TRL could also consider the influence of the front ends’ design, specifically whether this has an influence on the protection level. Mr Carroll promised to consider this if possible.

10. Regarding the timing of the TRL activities, Mr Kinsky reminded that the timing could become an issue especially when considering the tough schedule of the Informal Group that oversees the activities of this Task Force. The chair pointed out that the timing should be considered by TRL and therefore should not create issues.

11. Mr Bilkhu wondered whether, seeing accident figures, the number of accidents could be decreased with the amendment of the test procedure. Mr Carroll promised that they will conduct analyses of the statistics under consideration of this aspect. Dr. Konosu added that some figures on this from Japan are available that will be shown later during the meeting.

12. Seeing the discussion to change the bumper corners, Mr Roth pointed out that the physical abilities of the impactors, especially the influence of rotation during the tests, need to be considered. He promised to show some details on this later during the meeting.

13. The discussion came back to Mr Bilkhu’s question on accidentology: Will the number of accidents and specifically of injuries be decreased? This should be the starting point of the investigation. Mr Broertjes explained that the Commission sees a need for the amendment of the bumper test area as it is obvious that a number of manufacturers are benefiting from engineering solutions to decrease the testable area. The accident data will be checked but it needs to be noted in advance that an absence of detailed data does not prove that there are no injuries in this area of the vehicle front. According to the Commission’s opinion the absence of detailed data may just lead to the assumption that accidents/injuries are equally distributed over the vehicle width.

14. Mr Nguyen added that from the perspective of the US a benefit analysis needs to also contain the effects of an impact outside of the test area. For NHTSA, it will not be acceptable to amend the bumper corners definition without detailed justification.

15. Finally, Mr Roth added that the analysis should also consider the changes of the front end designs relating to CO2 emissions and fuel consumption.

Mr. Hardy presented the latest results of the tests done at TRL (document TF-BTA-5-03). He noted that a preliminary version of the activities had already been presented to the attendees of the last gtr9 informal group meeting in December 2013 in Geneva.

Mr. Hardy explained the intention of the tests was to assess the protection level across the whole front of the vehicle and to investigate whether a new procedure could provide better protection. Also, some concerns existed with the behavior of the impactor and that these concerns were also considered in TRL’s activities.

As already explained in one of the earlier presentations of TRL, three different vehicles representing some of the most sold vehicles in Europe were used for the test series. On request of Mr. Roth it was confirmed that all three vehicles were designed to meet pedestrian safety requirements in Europe but had not been designed to meet the FlexPLI requirements.

Mr. Hardy explained that several different tests were conducted. The results of these tests were presented and Mr. Hardy concluded that, according to the outcome of the test series, TRL sees four options to be possible for a future extension of the bumper test area:
1. Do nothing,
2. Use the solution that already is used by Euro NCAP,
3. Extend to bumper corners to a 45° angle (with or without 66 mm offset from the bumper corner, representing half a diameter of the impactor),
4. Remove all bumper corner limits and test across the whole width of the vehicle.

Ms. Sipido wondered how many tests were conducted to draw the conclusions from and Mr. Hardy confirmed that one test per test configuration per vehicle, resulting in 15 tests in total, were conducted. Mr. Broertjes added that also Euro NCAP results were reviewed and that these results also show a need to widen the test area. Also, in certification testing just one test per impact location is done to assess the vehicle.

Discussion came up on how representative the test results are and whether or not the conclusions should be drawn as proposed by TRL and whether the potential benefit can be assessed. Mr. Buenger explained that the benefit analyses already shown seem to offer too much variety. Mr. Schmitt added that it needs to be considered that the average age of (at least the German) vehicle fleet is 9 years and therefore the benefit analyses need also to consider this. However, it was proposed to await the presentation of TRL on the cost benefit analysis before further discussion on this.

Before going further Mr. Knotz mentioned that also the influence of upcoming changes on the upper leg to bumper test for high bumper vehicles need to be considered. The current test equipment does not allow the test to be conducted against an angular surface.

Mr. Takagi noted that a new test procedure needs to be representative for the real world accident scenario where no rotation of the vehicle occurs. Mr. Broertjes however clarified that a permissible vehicle rotation would just be proposed to address the concerns with the impactor rotation observed in traditional testing and to have a test procedure that can be conducted in a proper way.

Mr. Buenger and Ms. Sipido explained that the decrease of the width of the bumper test area assumed by TRL may be a theoretical approach. Older vehicles with a wider test area provided less protection than newer cars and the next generations of vehicles may again have wider test areas. Mr. Schmitt added that a further decrease of the test areas is unlikely since structural parts cannot be removed due to consumer testing requirements. Mr. Broertjes pointed out that these are valuable comments but that not all manufacturers design their vehicles according to consumer metric requirements and that at some newer vehicles the test areas are already extremely small. Therefore, the Commission sees a need to act on this as it had already been shown in document TF-BTA-3-06r1 of TRL.

Mr. Gehring wondered why the test results for the oblique testing were much lower and Mr. Knotz noted that the impact speed in these cases was lowered. However, Mr. Gehring noted that he also sees the problem that other points than actually aimed for are finally hit and assessed since structural parts are covered by the bumper fascia.