1975 Ride Quality Symposium

NHTSA · 1975 · ROSA P / United States. Dept. of Transportation. Office of the Secretary

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Summary

This document compiles proceedings from the 1975 Ride Quality Symposium, jointly sponsored by NASA and the U.S. Department of Transportation. The symposium addressed the research problem of defining and quantifying "ride quality" to improve passenger acceptance of air, land, and water transportation systems. The motivation stemmed from the need to establish a technology base that could guide vehicle design and operation, balancing passenger comfort with economic and engineering constraints. The authors defined ride quality as the impact of all aspects of the carrier vehicle’s physical environment on passenger acceptance, distinguishing it from safety or health concerns which involve higher magnitude inputs. The paper outlines three distinct perspectives on ride quality: psychophysical, systems engineering, and systems marketing. The psychophysical view focuses on passenger comfort reactions to environmental inputs like motion and vibration, often studied via simulators. The systems engineering view examines how vehicle dynamics respond to perturbing inputs (e.g., turbulence, track roughness) to predict the resulting ride environment. The systems marketing view integrates these factors with economic considerations, such as cost and frequency, to determine traveler acceptance and justify design trade-offs. The compilation includes papers organized into five categories: needs and uses, vehicle environments, investigative approaches, experimental studies, and ride quality criteria and modeling. Key findings from the included papers, particularly a review of industry needs, highlight significant gaps in existing technology. While vibration and noise are primary concerns, current criteria are often inadequate for modern high-speed vehicles. For instance, aircraft ride quality is challenged by low wing loading and structural flexibility, while ground transportation faces issues with guideway roughness. The review noted that existing data bases are fragmented, particularly regarding human response to vibration frequencies below 1.0 Hertz and combined-axis motions. Furthermore, there is a lack of consensus on universal criteria, as passenger expectations vary by transportation mode; a ride acceptable for a train may not be acceptable for an airplane. The document also critiques the International Standard ISO 2631, suggesting that absorbed power might be a preferable metric for expressing criteria than the standard’s frequency-weighted plots. The significance of this work lies in its comprehensive assessment of the state-of-the-art in ride quality technology in 1975. It establishes a framework for understanding ride quality not just as a physical phenomenon, but as a complex interaction between vehicle dynamics, human physiology, and market economics. The findings underscore the necessity for more sophisticated criteria that account for multi-axis vibrations, low-frequency motions, and subjective passenger variables. By identifying these technological weaknesses, the symposium provided a roadmap for future research aimed at developing viable design standards that balance comfort improvements with economic feasibility for public transportation systems.

Key finding

The symposium proceedings provide a comprehensive overview of the state of ride quality technology, focusing on passenger comfort criteria, vehicle dynamics, and subjective response modeling across various transportation modes.

Methodology

review

Provenance

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Topics

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• passenger motion sickness comfort