A Brief of the Economics of ADAS for Full Size Light Duty Pickup Trucks: Relating Effectiveness to Cost

Abstract

Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) have become increasingly common in vehicles in the last decade. The majority of studies have focused on smaller vehicles with gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) under 5,000lbs, predominantly sedans, for their ADAS evaluations. While it is sensible to use this style of vehicle because it is ubiquitous worldwide for a typical vehicle body style, these studies neglect full-size light-duty pickup trucks, GVWR 5,000 – 10,000lbs, which are abundant on the roads in the United States. The increase in mass, higher center of gravity, and utilitarianism of the vehicles allows for unique conditions for studying the effects of ADAS. This work evaluates the effectiveness of ADAS in full-size light-duty pickup trucks across brands, representing 18% of registered vehicles in the US, at reducing severity of injury for occupants during accidents involving fatalities relative to expense of the ADAS technology. This work will illustrate the cost benefit of ADAS at reducing the severity of injuries for occupants of full-size light-duty pickup trucks for multiple different brands.