IMMORTAL specifies a research programme concerning the accident risk associated with different forms of driver impairment and the identification of 'tolerance levels' applied to licensing assessment and roadside impairment testing (including drug screening). Thus, IMMORTAL is focused on two societal needs that both contribute to quality of life, namely mobility and safety. IMMORTAL will provide added community value in terms of the generalisation of conclusions relevant to EU policy and standardisation of driver testing and assessment methods with respect to EEC directives.
The 36 month workplan (started 1st Jan 2002) is structured in terms of 'workpackages'. The workpackages are separated into administration, research, and policy functions. The administrative functions include project co-ordination, quality assurance, and dissemination/ exploitation. The research workpackages focus on chronic impairment from ageing, mental illness and disease, as well acute impairment from drugs, alcohol and medicines. The policy function will provide workshops on these and other impairment factors (i.e., fatigue, visual & perceptual deficiencies) and consider relevant countermeasures, including licensing and impairment testing.
The technical and scientific objectives of IMMORTAL are to:
Investigate the influence of chronic and acute impairment factors on driving performance and accident risk;
Recommend criteria ('tolerance levels') for high risk categories of impairment;
Provide key information to support formulation of European policy on licensing assessment and roadside testing.
IMMORTAL is innovative in terms of
the multi-disciplinary expertise and European representation of the consortium,
the range of impairment factors considered and the comprehensive nature of the research;
the inclusion of a User Representation Panel,
the relevance to EU policy and standardisation,
the range of research methodologies applied,
the specification, verification and exploitation of testing and assessment protocols, and
the methods of dissemination and exploitation of programme results.
IMMORTAL will have two demonstrable categories of milestones (each having different forms of Quality Assurance criteria for approval): (i) Progress reports linked to project management meetings (EC approval for the submitted report); and (ii) Workpackage deliverables (authorisation from the internal Quality Assurance procedures).
IMMORTAL shall result in a variety of exploitable results:
The results will provide comprehensive knowledge concerning the influence of acute and chronic impairing factors that may be used in policy decisions.
The results will support recommendations on how to (a) examine chronically impaired people seeking (re)licensing, and (b) assess driver for acute impairment (at roadside).
This consortium is comprised of 10 partners from a range of European institutions. The multi-disciplinary expertise and critical mass of the consortium will ensure that the objectives are feasible and applicable to the European context.
