New Car Assessment Program Final Decision Notice-Advanced Driver Assistance Systems and Roadmap

<NOTICE> DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>National Highway Traffic Safety Administration</SUBAGY> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. NHTSA-2024-0077]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>New Car Assessment Program Final Decision Notice—Advanced Driver Assistance Systems and Roadmap</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA or the Agency), Department of Transportation (DOT). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final decision notice. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> This final decision notice adds four new advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) technologies—blind spot warning (BSW), blind spot intervention (BSI), lane keeping assist (LKA), and pedestrian automatic emergency braking (PAEB)—to the New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) and enhances the performance evaluation of ADAS technologies currently in NCAP. The notice also finalizes a 10-year roadmap for updating NCAP through multiple phases for the period 2024 through 2033. This notice responds in part to the provisions in section 24213 of the Infrastructure, Investment, and Jobs Act. </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Decisions on planned changes to the New Car Assessment Program are effective for the 2026 model year. </DATES> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> For technical issues, you may contact Ms. Taryn E. Rockwell, New Car Assessment Program, Office of Crashworthiness Standards (Telephone: (202) 366-1810). For legal issues, you may contact Ms. Sara R. Bennett, or Ms. Natasha D. Reed, Office of Chief Counsel (Telephone: (202) 366-2992). You may send mail to these officials at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, West Building, Washington, DC 20590-0001. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Table of Contents</HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">I. Executive Summary</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. Summary of Updates to NCAP and Roadmap for Future Updates</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. Background</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. Updating Forward Collision Prevention Technologies</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">V. Adding Pedestrian Automatic Emergency Braking (PAEB) Technology</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VI. Adding Blind Spot Technologies</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VII. Updating Lane Keeping Technologies</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VIII. Self-Reported Data</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IX. NCAP Roadmap</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">X. Economic Analysis</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">XI. Appendix</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Executive Summary</HD> Since its launch in 1978, NHTSA's New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) has supported NHTSA's mission to reduce the number of fatalities and injuries that occur on U.S. roadways. NCAP, like many other NHTSA programs, has contributed to significant reductions in motor vehicle related crashes, fatalities, and injuries, with passenger vehicle occupant fatalities decreasing from 32,043 to 26,325 from 2001 to 2021. <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> Unfortunately, this reduction was not universal, with pedestrian fatalities increasing by 51 percent during the same timeframe, from 4,901 to 7,388. <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> Despite improvements in automotive safety since NCAP's implementation, far more work must be done to reduce the continued high toll to human life on our nation's roads. In response to this need, on March 9, 2022, NHTSA published a Request for Comments (RFC) notice outlining proposed NCAP updates. <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  Traffic Safety Facts 2021 “ <E T="03">A Compilation of Motor Vehicle Crash Data.</E> ” U.S. Department of Transportation. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. NHTSA acknowledges a recent increase in passenger vehicle occupant fatalities occurring during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2019, 22,372 passenger vehicle occupants were killed in traffic crashes. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  Traffic Safety Facts 2021 “ <E T="03">A Compilation of Motor Vehicle Crash Data.</E> ” U.S. Department of Transportation. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>  Docket No. NHTSA-2021-0002. 87 FR 13452 (March 9, 2022). </FTNT> After careful consideration of all comments received and applicable regulatory considerations, this notice announces the Agency's decision to update NCAP with the enhanced evaluation of advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) technologies currently in NCAP  <SU>4</SU> <FTREF/> and to add four new ADAS technologies to NCAP: blind spot warning (BSW), blind spot intervention (BSI), lane keeping assist (LKA), <SU>5</SU> <FTREF/> and pedestrian automatic emergency braking (PAEB). This notice also establishes a 10-year roadmap for updating NCAP through a multi-phased approach, with RFC notices planned over the next several years. NHTSA will address comments received on program elements outside the scope of the March 2022 RFC notice in subsequent final decision notices as part of the multi-phase efforts to update NCAP over the next several years. <FTNT> <SU>4</SU>  The ADAS technologies currently evaluated in NCAP are forward collision warning (FCW), lane departure warning (LDW), dynamic brake support (DBS), and crash imminent braking (CIB). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>5</SU>  “LKS” was used for this technology in the March 2022 RFC. However, in this final decision notice, “LKA” is used instead to maintain consistency with other agency initiatives. </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">A. Legal and Policy Considerations</HD> In finalizing its decisions for this notice, in addition to comments received, the Agency sought to address requirements from the 2015 Fixing America's Surface Transportation (FAST) Act, <SU>6</SU> <FTREF/> the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL), enacted as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, <SU>7</SU> <FTREF/> and the U.S. Department of Transportation's National Roadway Safety Strategy. The Agency also took into consideration its May 9, 2024, final rule for FMVSS No. 127, “Automatic Emergency Braking for Light Vehicles.”  <SU>8</SU> <FTREF/> These considerations are described below. <FTNT> <SU>6</SU>  Public Law 114-94. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>7</SU>  Public Law 117-58. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>8</SU>  Docket No. NHTSA-2023-0021. 89 FR 39686 (May. 9, 2024). </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD2">1. 2015 Fixing America's Surface Transportation Act</HD> This final decision notice serves as NHTSA's initial step in fulfilling section 24322 of the FAST Act, which directs the Agency to promulgate a rule ensuring the display of crash avoidance information next to crashworthiness information on window stickers that manufacturers place on motor vehicles. <SU>9</SU> <FTREF/> The Agency is currently working to develop a crash avoidance rating system based on comments received in response to several rating system concepts discussed in the March 2022 RFC, and this notice finalizes additional crash avoidance technologies that will be included in the future crash avoidance rating system. <FTNT> <SU>9</SU>  Section 24322 of the FAST Act, otherwise known as the “Safety Through Informed Consumers Act of 2015.” </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD2">2. 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law</HD> This notice also fulfills in part several mandates in section 24213 of the BIL, enacted on November 15, 2021 as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. <SU>10</SU> <FTREF/> First, section 24213(a) requires NHTSA to “finalize the proceeding for which comments were requested” on December 16, 2015. <SU>11</SU> <FTREF/> This final decision notice does so by adopting four new ADAS technologies discussed in the Agency's December 16, 2015 RFC notice, <SU>12</SU> <FTREF/> thus finalizing that proceeding and notice. <SU>13</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>10</SU>  Public Law 117-58. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>11</SU>   <E T="03">Id.</E> at Section 24213(a); the notice referred to in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is 80 FR 78522 (Dec. 16, 2015). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>12</SU>  Docket No. NHTSA-2015-0119. 80 FR 78591 (Dec. 16, 2015). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>13</SU>  As communicated in the March 2022 RFC, while NHTSA is adopting a roadmap that includes aspects of the 2015 RFC, this notice is not an extension of the December 2015 notice. </FTNT> Second, this notice addresses the Advanced Crash-Avoidance Technologies portion of section 24213(b) of the BIL, which directs the Secretary of the Department of Transportation to “publish a notice, for the purposes of public comment, to establish a means for providing consumer information relating to advanced crash-avoidance technologies” within one year of enactment that includes an appropriate methodology for: (1) determining which advanced crash avoidance technologies should be included in the information, (2) developing performance test criteria for use by manufacturers in evaluating those technologies, (3) determining a distinct rating system involving each crash avoidance technology, and (4) updating overall vehicle ratings to incorporate the advanced crash avoidance technology ratings. This notice satisfies two of these four requirements by (1) adopting established criteria for determining which advanced crash avoidance technology  <SU>14</SU> <FTREF/> should be included as referenced and discussed in the March 9, 2022 RFC notice, and (2) finalizing test procedures and criteria to evaluate performance for each of these advanced crash avoidance technologies. Although the Agency is not yet implementing a rating system for individual crash avoidance technologies, it has sought comments in this regard and has detailed plans in its roadmap to finalize such ratings, along with an updated overall ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> crashworthiness and crash avoidance) rating, in the near future. <FTNT> <SU>14</SU>  This notice refers to advanced crash avoidance technology as ADA ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 1197k characters. 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