TMA Truck Safety

Edara, Praveen K.; Qing, Zhu; Sun, Carlos; Brown, Henry; Guess, Trent; Stokes, Johnathan · 2025 · ROSA P / Missouri. Department of Transportation

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Summary

This study evaluates the effectiveness of in-vehicle safety countermeasures for Truck-Mounted Attenuator (TMA) drivers, motivated by a rising trend of TMA-involved crashes in Missouri work zones. Historical data from 2021 to 2023 revealed that rear-end collisions constitute 79.3% of these incidents, frequently resulting in whiplash injuries to drivers. The research aimed to identify which safety features—specifically active headrests, reactive seatbacks, and anti-whiplash systems—best mitigate injury risks during such impacts. The methodology combined a review of crash reports, vendor interviews, and biomechanical simulations. Researchers utilized a digital multi-body model of a 50th-percentile male occupant, developed in Adams View software, to simulate collision dynamics. The model incorporated telematic acceleration data from the Missouri Department of Transportation’s fleet to ensure realistic impact profiles. Six distinct collision scenarios were tested, varying vehicle weights from 4,000-pound sedans to 80,000-pound semi-trucks, and including both straight and 30-degree offset impact angles. Injury severity was quantified using Neck Injury Criterion (NIC), Normalized Neck Injury Criterion (Nij), and Neck Protection Criterion (Nkm). Results indicated that active headrests, particularly those with 40 mm displacement, were the most effective countermeasure. They consistently reduced injury criteria values across all scenarios, effectively lowering head and neck injury risks in both straight and angled collisions by minimizing backward head momentum. In contrast, reactive seatbacks and anti-whiplash systems demonstrated mixed efficacy. While these systems provided modest injury reduction in low-impact conditions, they performed poorly in high-impact scenarios involving heavy vehicles. Specifically, reactive seatbacks with higher rotational resistance caused acceleration spikes that increased NIC values, while lower resistance settings allowed excessive momentum. The study also noted limitations in validating high-impact simulations due to a scarcity of telematic data for collisions involving 80,000-pound vehicles. The findings suggest that integrating advanced active head restraint systems, specifically with 40 mm travel, could significantly enhance TMA truck driver safety. The study concludes that while reactive seatbacks and anti-whiplash systems offer benefits in low-speed impacts, they are unreliable in severe collisions. Future research is recommended to expand telematic data collection for high-impact scenarios and to refine countermeasures for better adaptability in extreme crash conditions.

Key finding

Active headrests with 40 mm displacement consistently reduced neck injury criteria values across simulated collision scenarios, whereas reactive seatbacks and anti-whiplash systems demonstrated limited efficacy in high-impact conditions.

Methodology

modeling

Provenance

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Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant on 2026-06-10; verification: verified.

Topics

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• adas effectiveness

Information type

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• Empirical Findings: crash risk outcomes