EUROPEAN NEW CAR ASSESSMENT PROGRAMME(Euro NCAP)ASSESSMENT PROTOCOL – OVERALL RATING
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Copyright ©2009-2012 Euro NCAP This work is the intellectual property of Euro NCAP. Permission isgranted for this material to be shared for non-commercial, educational purposes, provided that thiscopyright statement appears on the reproduced materials and notice is given that the copying is bypermission of Euro NCAP. To disseminate otherwise or to republish requires written permission fromEuro NCAP.

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EUROPEAN NEW CAR ASSESSMENT PROGRAMME (Euro NCAP)ASSESSMENT PROTOCOL – OVERALL RATING
Table of Contents
1INTRODUCTION....................................................................................................................12

PRINCIPLES ...........................................................................................................................13

OVERALL RATING CALCULATION...................................................................................33.1Method..........................................................................................................................................33.2

Weight Factors and Limits .........................................................................................................33.3

Balance Criteria...........................................................................................................................43.4

Rounding ......................................................................................................................................4

APPENDIX I....................................................................................................................................7

EUROPEAN NEW CAR ASSESSMENT PROGRAMME (Euro NCAP)ASSESSMENT PROTOCOL – OVERALL RATING
1INTRODUCTION

Euro NCAP’s original assessment protocol was developed jointly by TRL and Vehicle Safety
Consultants Ltd., under contract to the UK Department of the Environment Transport and theRegions and International Testing, respectively. Subsequent versions of the protocol have beendeveloped and released by the Euro NCAP Secretariat. Beginning with Version 5, importantchanges have been included that have been brought about by the introduction of the overall rating
scheme in 2009. Individual documents are released for the four main areas of assessment:Assessment Protocol – Adult Occupant Protection;
Assessment Protocol – Child Occupant Protection;
Assessment Protocol – Pedestrian Occupant Protection;
Assessment Protocol – Safety Assist;

In addition to these four assessment protocols, the present document is provided describing themethod and criteria by which the overall safety rating is calculated on the basis of the car
performance in each of the above areas of assessment.
2PRINCIPLESThe Euro NCAP programme is designed to provide a fair, meaningful and objective assessment of
the safety performance of cars. It is intended to inform consumers, so providing an incentive tomanufacturers as well as giving credit to those who provide maximum protection. The impact
tests are based on those developed for legislation by the European Enhanced Vehicle safety
Committee (EEVC) for frontal and side impact protection of car occupants and for the protectionof pedestrians hit by the front of cars. Other tests are derived from existing legislative tests (suchas the assessment of speed limiters), based on existing consumer tests (like whiplash) orcompletely developed by Euro NCAP (for example seat belt reminders).
The overall safety rating covers the protection of adults and children in the event of a car crashand that of vulnerable road users who may be struck by the car. In addition, the rating addresses
the ability of the car to support safer driving. No stylised test procedure fully reflects the safety
provided by a car in the wide variety of accidents or near-accidents which may occur on the roads.
However, cars that perform well in these tests should be generally less exposed to and provide
better protection in accidents than cars which perform less well. The limitations of using
standardised crash test dummies in fixed seating positions in the crash tests is partly overcome bytaking into account other information related to occupant kinematics, interior contact points andvehicle structure, collected as part of post-crash vehicle inspections.
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Economic constraints prevent the tests from being repeated, so to take account of vehicle and test
variations a number of actions have been taken:a)

Manufacturers have been asked to compare the results from these tests with those fromtests they may have conducted and to draw our attention to any anomalies they may find.
They have also been requested to supply data from their own tests to us for comparison.
Several manufacturers have supplied data for this purpose. Apart from considering theeffects of test variation and identifying anomalies, no account of such data is taken in
rating the cars and it is kept confidential.

b)

The overall assessments are based on the combination of multiple results. Variations in
any one of these will only have a limited effect on the overall rating.

The least demanding performance boundaries for the frontal and side impact parameters havebeen set to be equivalent to the limits proposed in regulatory test procedures. The regulatory
limits were set to provide a basic minimum level of protection and to protect only in a moderate
proportion of accidents. For car occupants, these limits are too lenient to adequately identify bestpractice in current production cars and to provide a goal for further improvement. Additional,
more demanding, protection boundaries have been set, to identify aspects of a car’s performance
which offer significantly greater protection. Based on the performance improvements provided by
car fronts over the last couple of years, a similar approach for the pedestrian body form tests has
been adopted for the coming period.
Assessment of the safety assist functions is based both on fitment requirement and performancerequirements or fitment requirements alone. The intention is to promote standard fitment acrossthe car volume sold in the European Community in combination with good functionality for thesesystems.

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23

OVERALL RATING CALCULATION

3.1

MethodThe overall rating is composed of scores achieved in the four areas of assessment, also referred toas “boxes”: Adult Occupant, Child Occupant and Pedestrian Protection and Safety Assist. The
score in each box is based on the car performance in different tests.
For each box, a total score is normalised with respect to the maximum achievable score available
for the box. In this way, the maximum score for each box, and hence the total maximum score, isa constant. The weighted overall score is calculated from the individual assessment scores using
weight factors. These weight factors reflect the relative importance of the four boxes in the finalscore. Foremost, the selection of percentages is guided by real world priorities and societal
considerations. At the same time, the number and expected effectiveness (in terms of expected
accident and injury reduction) of the protocols in each box are considered.
The overall weighted score, determined by taking the weighted average of the scores in the fourboxes, is used to generate the overall star rating by applying the score against the percentage scorerequired for each star. Vehicles that show a poor performance in one of the boxes will have theirstar rating restricted to show that they do not provide good all-round protection. There will be aminimum score required in each box to validate a star rating. See Figure 3.1 (Appendix I) for aflow diagram of the method of calculation of the overall star rating.
3.2

Weight Factors and Limits

The weighted overall score is calculated from the individual scores in each box using weightfactors. These weight factors are fixed for a certain period but may be updated from time to time
as priorities or the contents of the boxes change. A change in weight factors will become effective
no sooner than at the start of the year following the year in which the decision was made. Table
3.1 summarises the weight factors applied in the upcoming period.
Table 3.1
Weight factors
Year2013

2014

2015

Box 1: Adult Occupant Protection

50%

40%40%

Box 2: Child Occupant Protection

20%

20%

20%

Box 3: Pedestrian Protection

20%

20%

20%

Box 4: Safety Assist

10%

20%

20%

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Provided there is sufficient balance between the four boxes, the weighted score, after rounding,applies to star values according to the following scheme:
Table 3.2
Limits applied to star values, based on weighting
Year2013

2014

2015

For five stars, at least:

80%

75%

75%

For four stars, at least:

70%

65%

65%

For three stars, at least:

60%

50%

50%

For two stars, at least:

55%

40%

40%For one star, at least:

45%

30%

30%

Note: Percentages reflect the proportion of points in relation to the total points available. Theapparent decrease of thresholds for 2014 and 2015 are the consequence of a scheduled increaseof total points in the individual boxes.
3.3

Balance Criteria

Additional criteria are applied to the individual scores in order to assess all-round performance.
The limits given in Tables 3.3a, 3.3b and 3.3c are applied after the individual test scores havebeen rounded.
3.4

Rounding

The following rounding rules will be applied in the calculation of the overall rating.





Data is entered to 2 decimal places.
Intermediate calculations (e.g. calculations needed to derive parameters which are thenused to calculate scores) are not rounded.
Calculation of points scores (e.g. for individual body regions) are rounded to 3 decimal
points e.g. a head score of 3.1238 in frontal impact would be rounded to 3.124.
The total points score in each box is the sum of scores rounded to 3 decimal points. To
calculate the percentage score in each box, the 3 decimal points total is divided by themaximum points available for that box and the resulting percentage is rounded down to
the nearest integer. In the example case: 25.124 / 36 * 100% = 69.789 is rounded to 69%.
That integer is then compared with the balance percentage thresholds for the box in Table
3.3. In the example case, 69% qualifies for 3 stars AOP in 2013.

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The overall weighted score is calculated as follows:- The 3 decimal point score in each box is divided by the maximum points available inthat box.
- The resulting percentage in each box is rounded to 2 decimal places.
- The percentages are multiplied by the respective weighting factors for each box, andthen added.
- The resulting sum is rounded down to the nearest integer.
- This integer is compared with the threshold requirements for star ratings for therelevant year.

Euro NCAP provides a Calculation Spreadsheet at request.
Table 3.3aBalance limits for year 2013
2013

Box 1:
Adult OccupantBox 2:
Child OccupantBox 3:
PedestrianBox 4:
Safety Assist

5 stars

80%

60%

60%

65%

4 stars

70%

60%

50%

55%

3 stars

40%

30%

25%

30%

2 stars

30%

25%

15%

20%

1 star

20%

15%

10%

10%

Table 3.3b
Balance limits for years 2014
2014

Box 1:
Adult OccupantBox 2:
Child OccupantBox 3:
PedestrianBox 4:
Safety Assist

5 stars

80%

75%

60%

65%

4 stars

70%

60%

50%

55%

3 stars

50%

30%

40%

30%

2 stars

30%

25%

20%

20%

1 star

20%

15%

10%

10%

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5Table 3.3c
Balance limits for years 2015
2015

Box 1:
Adult OccupantBox 2:
Child OccupantBox 3:
PedestrianBox 4:
Safety Assist

5 stars

80%

75%

65%

70%

4 stars

70%60%

50%

60%

3 stars

50%

30%

40%40%

2 stars

30%

25%

20%

20%

1 star

20%

15%

10%

10%

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6

APPENDIX I

StartProtocols

VehicleAssessment

Assessment
Scores

WeightFactors

Calculate Weighted
Score

Overall
Weighted
Score

Calculate OverallStar Rating

Meeting
Balance
Criteria?

LimitsNo

Downgrade

Yes
Overall
RatingEnd

Figure 3.1
Flowchart for the Calculation of the Overall Star Rating
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