Open-Source Tools for Road User Safety Abessment from the VIRTUAL Project

In the abessment of road user and vehicle occupant safety, physical testing is limited to a few scenarios. Virtual testing (VT) offers an opportunity to advance transport safety by introducing additional test cases. The objective of the VIRTUAL project is to provide tools such as finite element models, guidelines and a corresponding platform to foster the uptake of VT. A VT platform, OpenVT, has been established and provides open-source human body models (HBMs) of both an average female and male, seated and standing, as well as a seat, generic vehicle and tram front models. The tool chain from virtual to physical testing has been illustrated in the low severity impact case where the seat evaluation tool was developed. The newly established organisation OVTO will run the OpenVT platform in the future and govern the evolution of the results of the VIRTUAL project after its completion.