Dr. Stefan Guserle Receives the European Commercial Vehicle Safety Award

Dr. Stefan Guserle has received the European Commercial Vehicle Safety 2019 Award. The 52-year-old head of the Body & Crash Simulation department at MAN Truck & Bus AG was honored at the DEKRA Commercial Vehicle Outlook Conference in Berlin. This year, the award was presented for the 30th time by the European Association for Accident Research and Analysis (EVU), the German Road Safety Council (DVR) and DEKRA.

“By presenting Dr. Guserle with this award, we are once again honoring a person whose professional achievements have made a special contribution to the safety of commercial vehicles,” said EVU President Jörg Ahlgrimm in his congratulatory speech. “He is responsible for a whole series of projects, all of which are ultimately concerned with optimizing passive safety and occupant protection. His work in the field of simulation, testing and the definition of crash load cases goes far beyond the standard statutory requirements.”

Dr. Stefan Guserle studied mechanical engineering at the Technical University of Munich and earned his PhD in 2001. In 2000, he joined MAN as a calculation engineer specializing in strength calculations and crash simulations for truck cabins. In 2006, he was appointed head of department and so became responsible for passive safety and occupant protection at MAN.

His responsibilities include crash calculation and testing, strength calculations for trucks and buses as well as the development of virtual testing methods and homologation in virtual processes. The passive safety of commercial vehicles with electric drives is nowadays increasingly coming to the fore.

Dr. Guserle is also responsible for accident statistics and accident analysis for trucks and buses – an important basis for assessing risks in vehicle development.

His dedication to enhancing the safety of commercial vehicles can also be seen in his numerous scientific publications. In the Research Association of Automotive Technology (FAT), Dr. Guserle is chairman of the Safety of Commercial Vehicles working group.

He also conducts research into how occupants of commercial vehicles can be rescued from severely deformed vehicles after accidents. “With great personal dedication, Dr. Guserle has established accident rescue as a key area of research at MAN. In numerous campaigns conducted with Daimler, fire departments, accident doctors and DEKRA, he has developed extensive expertise, which he has passed on to the emergency and rescue services so that it can be put into practice. For this, too, he deserves our thanks and recognition,” said EVU President Ahlgrimm.

Jann Fehlauer, Managing Director of DEKRA Automobil GmbH, commented: “In the commercial vehicle sector in particular, enormous progress has been made in recent decades with regard to road safety, as the accident statistics impressively demonstrate. Thanks to his endeavors, Dr. Stefan Guserle has played a key role in ensuring that this positive development can continue into the future. The European Commercial Vehicle Safety Award is our way of acknowledging his contribution.”

Welf Stankowitz, Head of Vehicle Technology at DVR, was also full of praise for the winner: “Together with its members, the DVR has been working tirelessly for 50 years to further reduce the number of accidents and mitigate their consequences. In doing so, we are guided by the ‘VISION ZERO’ safety strategy. The introduction of active and passive safety systems has already helped to significantly reduce the number of accidents and will continue to play a key role in enhancing safety on our roads in the future,” said Stankowitz.

The award winners:
1990 Professor Pal Strifler (Daimler), Hungary
1991 Professor Nikolaus Marx (University of Bremen), Germany
1992 Professor Ernst Göhring (Daimler), Germany
1993 Professor Klaus Langwieder (European Insurances Association), Germany
1994 Professor Egon-Christian von Glasner (Daimler), Germany
1995 Professor Gyula Köfalvi (Széchenyi István University), Györ, Hungary
1996 Siegfried Werber (DVR), Germany
1997 Professor Pál Michelberger (University of Budapest, President of FISITA), Hungary
1998 Eric Thoms (Scania), Sweden
1999 Toru Kajiyama (Isuzu), Japan
2000 Richard Hildebrandt (Allied Signal), USA
2001 Paul Oppenheimer MBE (Lucas-Girling), Great Britain
2002 Professor Jovan Todorovic (University of Belgrade), Serbia
2003 Bernard Tripier (Bosch), France
2004 Professor Sigmar Micke (Bosch), USA
2005 Friedrich-Wilhelm Matzner (Bendiberica), Spain
2006 Dr. Fujio Momiyama (Hino), Japan
2007 Dr. Jürgen Trost (Daimler), Germany
2008 Lennart Svenson (Volvo), Sweden
2009 Professor László Palkovics (Knorr), Hungary
2010 Professor Hartmut Marwitz (Daimler), Germany
2011 Hidehiko Enomoto (Hino), Japan