Field Study of Light-Vehicle Crash Avoidance Systems: Automatic Emergency Braking and Dynamic Brake Support
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Summary
This report details a large-scale field study evaluating the real-world performance of General Motors’ Front Automatic Braking (FAB) and Intelligent Brake Assist (IBA) systems, collectively termed the Collision Preparation System (CPS). The research was motivated by the need to assess the safety impacts and driver acceptance of emerging crash avoidance technologies using naturalistic driving data. Unlike controlled laboratory tests, this study aimed to capture long-term effects and rare events, such as automatic braking interventions, across a diverse geographic area. The study builds upon prior research on warning systems, focusing specifically on active braking interventions to understand system behavior, driver interactions, and potential safety benefits. The methodology utilized telematics data from GM’s OnStar system to collect information from 1,021 Model Year 2015 Cadillac vehicles equipped with FAB and IBA. Data was gathered over a one-year period from consenting owners across 46 U.S. states, resulting in nearly 12 million miles of driving data. The study captured high-priority event data surrounding FAB, IBA, and combined activations, alongside GPS location buffers and trip summaries. Researchers validated the data using kinematic scenarios and analyzed driver settings, noting that 96% of driving time occurred with the system set to full capability. The analysis categorized events by kinematic conditions and driver responses, distinguishing between short, low-speed activations and "key events" occurring above 10 mph. Key findings indicate a CPS event rate of 1.04 per 10,000 miles, with 44% of vehicles never triggering an event. FAB activations accounted for 78% of events, IBA for 21%, and combined FAB+IBA for 1%. Most events were brief and occurred at speeds of 10 mph or less. "Key events," which comprised 30% of all activations, showed that FAB contributed to 28.2% of total speed reductions, while IBA contributed 52.4%. Combined FAB+IBA events, though rare (0.7%), resulted in the largest average speed reduction of 16.2 mph. Repeat events at specific locations were minimal and mostly occurred at low speeds in parking areas, suggesting unwanted activations were not a significant issue. Safety analysis using Automatic Collision Notification (ACN) data revealed that FAB/IBA-equipped vehicles experienced 17% fewer overall ACN crashes and 11% fewer frontal crashes compared to unequipped vehicles. The study concludes that telematics-based data collection is a cost-effective and efficient method for evaluating rare safety system events on a large scale. The high usage rate and low event frequency suggest that long-term driver adaptation or reliance on the system is unlikely. The results demonstrate that FAB and IBA function as complementary systems, with FAB handling lower-speed or earlier interventions and IBA assisting during harder braking maneuvers. The observed reduction in crash rates supports the efficacy of these systems in improving vehicle safety. The findings provide critical evidence for regulatory bodies, such as NHTSA, in assessing the performance requirements for crash avoidance technologies in new car assessment programs.
Key finding
FAB and IBA equipped vehicles experienced 17 percent fewer Automatic Collision Notification events and 11 percent fewer frontal crashes compared to unequipped vehicles.
Methodology
field_study
Sample size: 1021
Provenance
The full processing record for this entry. Every stage of this paper's journey through the pipeline is logged — what ran, with which tool and model, how many attempts it took, and when it last completed. Discovered via bulk_ingest_rosap on 2026-05-23 (6 acquisition events logged).
| Stage | Outcome | Tool | Model | Prompt | Attempts | Completed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| discover | success | rosap | — | — | 2 | 2026-05-23 |
| archive | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-05-23 |
| extract | success | cached | — | — | 2 | 2026-06-10 |
| clean | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-01 |
| chunk | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-01 |
| embed | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-02 |
| enrich | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-05-23 |
| promote | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-05-23 |
| summarize | success | llm | qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant | summ-v5 | 3 | 2026-06-10 |
| tag | success | vector_similarity | — | — | 19 | 2026-06-11 |
| verify | success | — | — | — | 2 | 2026-06-10 |
Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant on 2026-06-10; verification: verified.
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Information type
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- Empirical Findings: crash risk outcomes, observational prevalence
- Methodological Resource: dataset resource