High-resolution urban fatal crash rate benchmarks for automated driving system assessment

Fatal crash rates were stratified by road type (freeways vs. surface streets), temporal groupings (day vs. night; weekday vs. weekend), and a crash typology.</p> <p>The median fatal crash rates across the top 50 urban areas were generally lower than the national average, indicating that lower population and rural areas tend to have a higher fatal crash rate. The analysis of trends revealed an 7.5-times difference in <i>FCIR</i> between the highest-risk (Memphis, TN) and lowest-risk (Boston, MA) urban areas.

On average, surface streets exhibited <i>FCIR</i> 2.3 times higher than freeways. Temporal effects were pronounced, with weekend nighttime driving presenting a risk level 6.2 times greater than weekday daytime driving. Pedestrian, V2V intersection, and single vehicle collisions were the most prominent fatal crash types on surface streets, while single-vehicle, V2V front-to-rear, and secondary crashes dominated freeway involvements.</p> <p>The substantial geographic, road type, and temporal variability in fatal crash rates observed across the 50 studied urban areas underscores the necessity of localized, stratified benchmarks to avoid analytical bias in ADS safety performance assessments.

By proactively defining these high-resolution benchmarks, this study provides a transparent roadmap for the incremental evaluation of ADS as statistical power accumulates, ensuring conformance with safety assessment best practices such as the RAVE Checklist.</p>