Cost-Benefit Analysis to Assess the Effectiveness of an External Airbag and Autonomous Emergency Braking System

One of the recent developments in safety systems is an external airbag installed on the front bumper of a vehicle and autonomous emergency braking system. In this paper, we propose a framework for a cost-benefit analysis of the external airbag and autonomous emergency braking system in order to validate its commercialization. Road traffic crash data obtained from the National Automotive Sampling System/Crashworthiness Data System (NASS/CDS) was used, and three different crash types related to frontal damage in vehicles were extracted to estimate the safety performance of an external airbag. An ordinal logistic regression model was applied to estimate the safety performance in terms of the reduced maximum abbreviated injury scale (MAIS) based on a reduction in the total delta-v following the installation of an external airbag. Given the estimated safety performance of the external airbag, a cost-benefit analysis is conducted. According to the results, the external airbag system saves 46% of occupants with MAIS 3+ injuries and prevents 40% of fatalities. Moreover, the benefit/cost ratios of the external airbag system range from 0.496 to 0.509 depending on the scenario. Lastly, sensitivity analyses were performed with important parameters, including the initial and maximum market penetration ratio and the price of the system. This study aims to evaluate the technology of safety devices by analyzing the effectiveness of a new safety device using real-world vehicle accident data. We also statistically estimated its effectiveness and analyzed its societal value. We expect that our comprehensive findings will be helpful in evaluating the effectiveness of safety devices.