Advanced Driver Assistance Systems: A Look at Their Rapid Rise in the U.S. Passenger Vehicle Market

Advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) are taking off in U.S. passenger vehicles. More mature features—such as automatic emergency braking and forward collision warning—are becoming standard in later-model vehicles. And newer features are rapidly gaining ground.

These are just some of the findings of a recent report on ADAS market penetration, the most comprehensive of its kind to date.

“ADAS features can reduce the risk of fatal and serious crashes by providing warnings and automated responses to potential hazards,” says Michelle Michelini, MITRE’s director of surface transportation. “As these features become standard, they’ll help reduce overall risk.”

The recently released report on ADAS market penetration was made possible by the Partnership for Analytics Research in Traffic Safety (PARTS), a partnership between automobile manufacturers and the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). PARTS is operated by MITRE, and partners share their safety-related data to improve traffic safety.

This latest report examined 14 ADAS features—up from the five included in a 2021 analysis. It also employed a much larger dataset, contributed by PARTS automakers Ford, General Motors, Honda, Hyundai, Mazda, Mitsubishi Motors, Stellantis, Subaru, and Toyota.

“The manufacturers provided us with data on 98 million vehicles and 168 models from model years 2015–2023. Their data represents approximately 80% of the U.S. automobile market,” says MITRE’s Kate Berman, PARTS project manager. “Another change is the inclusion of ADAS data on a variety of pickup truck models, which weren’t represented in the earlier dataset.”

Penetration Rates Demonstrate Automakers’ Commitment to Advancing Safety

Five of the ADAS features studied reached market penetration rates higher than 90% by model year 2023, MITRE’s analysis showed. In the previous report, none of the studied features had exceeded 75% penetration.

“That’s a significant increase,” Berman says. “Automobile manufacturers are voluntarily introducing these features in their vehicles. The penetration rates demonstrate their commitment to advancing vehicle safety.”

The five ADAS features found to have achieved the highest market penetration are forward collision warning, automatic emergency braking (AEB), pedestrian detection warning, pedestrian AEB, and lane departure warning.

Newer Features’ Adoption Is Accelerating

Several other features achieved greater than 50% market penetration, including some fairly new ones.

“Lane keeping and lane centering assistance had barely been introduced in model year 2015, and even lane departure warning was pretty new at that time, so I was pleased to see that all of these lane management systems have made dramatic gains in market penetration,” Berman says.

Among the newer ADAS features, another of the standouts for Berman is intersection AEB, which had achieved 34% penetration by 2023 and had jumped more than 12 percentage points from the previous year.

“Intersection crashes tend to be severe in terms of injuries and property damage, so there’s an intensifying focus on preventing them,” she says. “It’s good to see the acceleration of ADAS features to address those risks.”

Coming Soon: A Look at the Effectiveness of ADAS Features

The ADAS market penetration report lays the foundation for another ongoing PARTS study, one that is examining the real-world effectiveness of ADAS features. By combining the data on ADAS equipage with police-reported crash data provided by NHTSA, the partnership is examining how well ADAS features worked in real-world crash scenarios.

“This will be our second study of this kind, and it’s even more comprehensive than the previous one,” says Michelini. “We have crash data from more states over a longer time period. We also have data on 51 million additional vehicles and data from more manufacturers covering the full range of ADAS features available today.”

“Because the expanded dataset is more representative of passenger vehicles, it will provide deeper insights into ADAS effectiveness than has ever been possible,” adds Ed Walsh, PARTS partner engagement lead.

Results from that study are expected to be released in early 2025.

“None of this would be possible without PARTS,” Berman notes. “Without the collaboration of the PARTS partners, we would not have the necessary data to conduct studies like this.”

MITRE’s role is crucial as well. “Our partners rely on us to analyze their data securely and impartially,” Michelini says. “We’re committed to contributing to safer roads.”