Facilities

The laboratory's crash test facility is situated on the site of Lyon Saint Exupéry international airport, around 25km east of Lyon in France. The test facility, extending over 30 hectares, is particularly easy to access being close to the airport, TGV high-speed train station and a number of motorways. Indeed, the site is situated at a major hub of the European transport network.

The test facility comprises principally seven crash test zones for full-scale testing.

Four zones are dedicated to barrier testing, allowing tests with right or left-hand impacts to the vehicle and giving clients the choice of testing on asphalt, stabilised soil or concrete (with or without curb) to simulate a bridge deck.
Barrier lengths of up to 180 m can currently be accommodated and the test zones are constantly evolving to ensure that virtually any test configuration required can be catered for.

Two zones are used for crash cushion testing and another is dedicated to the testing of systems designed for the protection of motorcyclists.

Clients may have the possibility to install two or more test items in parallel on different test zones in order to maximise the number of tests performed during their stay at the laboratory.