Toyota invests US$30 million in safety innovations

Toyota has pledged a US$30 million, five-year investment to the Collaborative Safety Research Center (CSRC) to fund automotive safety projects.

The automotive brand created the CSRC in 2011 to advance safety for the industry as a whole through open partnerships with universities, hospitals, and other institutions.

The aforementioned funds, Toyota said, will be used for projects designed to explore the safety needs of evolving mobility ecosystem and analyze protection for vulnerable and at-risk populations on our roads.

“Humans are at the center of Toyota’s technology development strategy, so we are designing our new safety research in pursuit of ‘Safety for All.’ As part of this, our projects will explore the diversity of safety needs and analyze safe mobility options that accommodate different applications, physical characteristics, and levels of accessibility for people and society,” said Toyota’s Future Research Department (FRD) and CSRC Director, Dr. Danil Prokhorov.

In the last 10 years, the CSRC has received US$85 million. Through these fundings, CSRC has initiated various projects ranging from foundational research into the factors that lead to distracted driving to the development of tools and testing procedures related to the efficacy of advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS).

Since its inception, CSRC has completed 85 research projects with more than 25 different institutions, published over 260 research papers, and engaged more than 300 researchers who have publicly shared the output globally.

CSRC has also partnered with leading institutions and experts from organizations such as the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the University of Michigan, among many others.

According to CSRC, they have identified three new research tracks to guide their work over the next five years: Human-Centric, Safety Assurance, and Assessment. These research tracks will ensure CSRC’s work evolves to address the emerging challenges of the changing mobility ecosystem.

Photo from Toyota

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