The Experimental Safety Subsystems (ESSS) proposed by PSA Peugeot Citroën in the Vehicle and Safety on Road VSR program are based on the information coming from aocidentological activities;​ they are the result of synthesis studies performed in the frame of accident avoidance, primary safety and oœupant protection:​

• ESSS 1 are devoted to electronics and intelligent vehicle developments for crash avoidance;​
• ESSS 2 present new methods for dynamic behavior improvement lin order t0 prevent the driver to be in critical driving condition;​
• ESSS 3 given up to enhanced passive safety conditions aim at increase occupant protection in case of accident.

The ESSS have been developed using project management between the various Research and Development Departments of PSA Peugeot Citroën.

The goal of Subsystem of the 1st type is to study information assistance devices that can alert the driver on hazardous driving conditions. They include specific studies related to vehicle driver interface and specially ergonomics.

A great part of the Work pay attention to the driver behavior evaluation through the vehicle control devices.

Dynamic behavior SubSystems of 2nd type want to develop the concept of global dynamic control of the vehicle platform to ground relation, that is to say, adjust, at any time, in the optimal way, the vehicle dynamic functions taking into account the intentions of the driver and the characteristics of road surface.

This part of the program present principally now :​

• a static driving simulator as a special tool for study, simulation and evaluation of global suspension control strategy;​
• the basis of a running experimental vehicle for a final evaluation of the Concepts.

SubSystems of 3rd type, related to passive safety and occupant protection are built on a 3 level approach:​

• better knowledge of materials behavior and failure prediction during high speed deformation;​
• improvement of mathematical modeling of crashwonhiness in order to reduce feedback delay during Car design with the use of simplified models;​
• realization of practical automobile applications for frontal and lateral impacts.