Safety is a key consideration when making a new car purchase, but this choice is usually focused on advertised safety features, such as ratings that indicate how well a vehicle will perform in a crash.

BS ISO 13216-1 describes a universal system for anchoring child restraint systems to vehicles. The purpose of this system is to improve the overall safety performance of child restraints, particularly by improving the convenience of installation and reducing the risk of misuse.

From originally measuring impact strength, these ratings have expanded to not just include active safety features like the number of airbags and Brake pre-charging systems, but also systems assisting the driver in avoiding an accident, like LaneKeeping Assist systems or Emergency Braking Assists.

Unlike other transport systems, which have regulatory oversight that sets targets and criteria for safety and assess and monitor the performance of manufacturers and operators, this is not the case for road vehicles.

Currently, passenger cars are sold to the public by vehicle manufacturers through dealer networks, and it is up to the vehicle manufacturer to achieve an acceptable level of safety for their products. Vehicle manufacturers have, of course, been required to achieve type approval prior to being able to sell a particular vehicle for some time. This process ensures that motor vehicles meet relevant environmental, safety and security standards. Type Approval is granted when vehicle components and systems meet the requirements of the type approval regulations.

These regulations define certain performance characteristics, (e.g. lighting functionality or braking performance) that are considered necessary for a safe vehicle. Type Approval is obtained by the manufacturer at the end of vehicle development and once achieved, the vehicle can be produced and sold to the public with the type approval process ensuring that the manufacturing process can maintain the validated criteria.

Standards for Functional Safety 

Product safety for a vehicle goes further than requirements for specific performance criteria or properties of individual components or systems.

This was sufficient for mechanical components or simpler electromechanical systems, but the trend to more differentiating content, stricter emissions regulation, and the general advancement of mobile technology - which has also found a way into the vehicle - has increased the software content within vehicles rapidly.

Based on the need for additional measures to supplement the traditional techniques that ensured safety through reliability and robustness, the discipline of Functional Safety - which is concerned with that part of the overall safety of a system that depends on it operating correctly in response to its inputs - has been adapted to the application of automotive programmable electric, and electronic (EE) systems, and addresses hazards that could be caused by their malfunctions.

The BS ISO 26262 series of standards, have, since their initial release in 2011, are considered the best practice for automotive Functional Safety.

It provides guidance for establishing a Functional Safety management system, with processes to supplement all development lifecycles of an automotive EE system with Functional Safety activities. From the beginning it has been set up around the organization of the automotive supply chain and, following additional work and expansion, now facilitates the achievement of Functional Safety for most vehicle types and at all levels of design detail, hence covering activities at vehicle OEMs (original equipment manufacturer), system and component suppliers and even semiconductor manufacturers.

In 2018 the guidance, previously aimed at passenger cars, was extended to cover trucks and buses, and guidance for motorcycles and semiconductors - which had previously been published as PAS (publicly available specification) in the phase between the 1st and 2nd edition of BS ISO 26262 - was incorporated into the 2nd edition of BS ISO 26262 series of standard. As a result, BS ISO 26262:2018 gives guidance on the achievement of Functional Safety for automotive EE systems for most production vehicle types at vehicle, system, software, and hardware level, including guidance for semiconductor level.

How Does BS ISO 26262 Achieve Functional Safety?

BS ISO 26262 provides guidance on how to achieve Functional Safety of a vehicle system (referred to as an “item” in BS ISO 26262 terminology) through the implementation of a safety lifecycle that provides an approach to risk management during product development. It provides a particular risk model that has been adapted around a driver control model. Although not setting any quantitative targets for safety, there is an implied “accepted” level of risk that the application of BS ISO 26262 gives.

However, it should be noted that this risk is concerned with malfunctioning behavior only and does not cover risk due to the general use of the product - the vehicle - within the road transport environment. Instead, the focus of BS ISO 26262 is how to address the malfunctioning behavior of automotive systems, caused by software or hardware faults.

New Trends Affecting Safety 

Vehicle technology continues to advance, and with the trend towards safer, cleaner mobility there is an increased focus on systems that facilitate some level of automated driving capability. This is seen as an enabler for more efficient mobility, through a reduction in accident rates, reduced congestion, and improved traffic flow.

The aim is to identify key standards of relevance in the design, production, operation, and testing of CAVs in the UK, Europe, and internationally.

The connected vehicle had been with us for several years. This is not just evident in the obvious such as GPS and in-car entertainment. But the slightly less obvious to most drivers is in the form of remote vehicle diagnostics, eCall, and engine control systems. A number of countries have developed showing the continual move to the connected and onwards to the completely autonomous vehicles.

Companies looking to commercialize emerging technologies with the CAV area are part of a developing business ‘ecosystem’, and the stronger they can exploit the networks within the ecosystem. However, these complex ecosystems can give rise to obstacles that get in the way of successful innovation.

Automated driving systems constitute a challenge to safety engineers.

BS ISO 26262 focuses on reducing risk due to malfunctioning behavior of EE systems. This assumes that the fault-free performance of the EE system is free from risk, and that risk only arises as a result of faults in the hardware and/ or software. Guidance is given for addressing random hardware faults (like short circuits in motor driver circuits or an open resistor in a filter circuit) and systematic hardware and software faults, through achieving the requirements the standard sets out. But when advanced automated driving systems were first introduced a new phenomenon was discovered. It was noted that these EE systems could result in hazardous behavior in the absence of malfunctions.

As a result, much of the recent guidance published to date relates in some way to developing safe systems for automated driving systems:

• PAS 1880 provides a set of initial guidelines focused on developing safe control systems for automated vehicles (AVs).

• PAS 1881 is designed to assure the safety of related trialing and developmental testing activities alongside CCAV’s own Code of Practice. This specification determines minimum safety case requirements for AV trials and development testing in the UK to demonstrate such activities can be undertaken safely.

• PAS 1883 provides a universal taxonomy for specifying the operational design domain (ODD), or intended operating conditions, of an automated driving system (ADS).

As vehicles become more connected and automated, keeping up to date and meeting the relevant safety standards will be vital for your customers, your supply chain, and your competitive edge. With a BSI Knowledge subscription, automotive safety is at your fingertips with instant access to over 2,000 best practice documents related to the automotive industry - all in one place. Request to learn more.

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