Safety benefits of pedestrian autonomous emergency braking

Autonomous Emergency Braking (AEB) fitted to vehicles has proven road safety benefits in terms of preventing collisions with other vehicles. AEB with pedestrian detection (PAEB) extends this capability to protect vulnerable road users: the current paper evaluates these safety benefits in comparison with AEB without pedestrian detection and vehicles without any AEB.

This study from Traffic Injury Prevention examined the real-world safety benefits of Pedestrian Autonomous Emergency Braking (PAEB) systems using injury crash data from Australia and New Zealand between 2016 and 2023. PAEB systems are designed to detect vulnerable road users (VRUs), including pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists, and automatically apply braking when a collision is imminent. The study compared crash rates for vehicles equipped with PAEB, vehicles fitted with other forms of Autonomous Emergency Braking (AEB) without pedestrian detection, and vehicles without any AEB technology.