Trains Magazine recently featured Volpe senior research engineer and train crashworthiness expert David Tyrell in an article on crash energy management.

Cited as an expert on crashworthiness, safety standards, and regulations, Tyrell offers insights into how Volpe's simulation and crash modeling work informs design, which helps the Federal Railroad Administration set standards and ultimately save lives.

Tyrell and his team have helped develop the crashworthiness for intercity and commuter passenger trains such as Amtrak's Acela and Southern California's Metrolink. Metrolink's new bi-level cab and coach train cars include many of the structural crashworthiness and interior occupant protection strategies developed by Tyrell and his team. The Volpe team worked with Metrolink after its 2005 accident in Glendale, California, in which 11 people were fatally injured.

Tyrell's work, like much of the other work done at Volpe, The National Transportation Systems Center, is an important first step towards achieving better safety standards.

View the May 2012 Trains Magazine article: "Crash course in passenger safety."