SmartStop in Action
The Product
SmartStop.
The Customer
Traffic Management Services , Ireland.
About this company: "It is the aim of TMS to provide a high quality, safe traffic management service at a competitive price." TMS was established in 2001 and they are the market leader in the implementation of traffic management schemes on a nationwide basis.
The Objective
- To use some sort of deformable, energy absorbent barrier that will be mounted to a lorry and used both stationary and in moving work zones.
- To allow a vehicle to crash into it, with minimum damage to the car and importantly prevent injury and save the lives of the occupants inside the vehicle.
- To protect both the road maintenance workmen and the occupants of a vehicle in a collision.
The Test
In February 2006, Traffic Management Services were contracted for work on a dual carrigeway in Ireland.
The workman were protected from danger from traffic by a SmartStop crash cushion, which was mounted to the back of a lorry.
A car hit the SmartStop Crash Cushion in excess of 100kph (60mph). Both occupants were unharmed, and able to walk away from the accident. The SmartStop Crash Cushion also prevented any injury to the work team. As you can see from these photos, the vast majority of the impact energy was absorbed by the SmartStop Crash Cushion. A potential tragedy was avoided by using this crash cushion.
Conclusion
As you will see from the images above, the SmartStop crash cushion acted as an energy absorber for the car that crashed into it that day. In turn, this meant that both the lives of the occupants in the vehicle, and the workmen on the dual carriageway were free from injury, or indeed loss of life, which, sadly today is a common occurrence in work stations around Europe.
