Volvo's Accident Research Team celebrates 50 years of research

At Volvo Cars, they are known as the company's in-house detectives. Yet they could also be called the Swedish manufacturer's own CSI team.

The crash scene investigators of the Volvo Car Accident Research Team, which celebrates its 50^th anniversary in 2020, are on 24 hour standby to make sure that Volvo learns from real-life accidents and constantly improves its cars.

The team has been in operation since 1970. Whenever an accident involving a Volvo car occurs around Gothenburg, Sweden, where Volvo has its headquarters, they quickly get to the scene when notified. Upon arrival, they start an investigation and document the sequence of events in as much detail as possible.

The research team will ask the accident victims question like 'how forceful was the impact', 'how quickly did the active safety systems intervene', 'how are the passengers', on top of other questions like the weather, time and road conditions during the accident.

The research team also requests publicly accessible police reports, contacts the driver and examines the accident damaged Volvo when possible. The team also tries to understand how the driver experienced the accident, a process that involves the Volvo Cars Safety Centre's behavioural scientists.

Finally, the team will ask the people involved in the accident to share their medical records, which allows them to take note of any injuries sustained. These are analysed by biomechanics experts, in cooperation with physicists, to understand the exact causes of the injury.

All the data and knowledge collected is coded and depersonalised. Research conclusions are shared with Volvo's product development teams, who use it to develop and implement future technology. The team also identifies things that can't be solved with current methods, allowing Volvo to remain at the forefront of safety development.

Annually, the team investigates around 30-50 accidents in person, but accidents happen all over the world and the scene can be hard to reach in time. In those cases, and to the degree possible, the detectives work to map out accidents with the support of Volvo personnel and emergency services closer to the site.