Cross-cutting Issues

The distance control assist system with an active accelerator pedal and a deceleration control was developed for the purpose of assisting a driver to maintain following distance to a lead vehicle. A field test was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of this system. The result showed that, frequency and magnitude of deceleration by the driver were decreased, and, from the characteristics of TTC (Time to Collision) distribution, frequency of closing situations were decreased, that might contributed to the reduction of brake action by the driver. The AWWL (Adapted Weighted Workload) score on the NASA-TLX (Task Load Index) and the salivary amylase activity score were also analyzed and the results showed the decrease of driver’s workload by using the system.

Nissan Technical Center North America, Inc.

Presented at the ITS America Annual Conference and Exposition, November 16-20, 2008, New York, New York

In this paper, as a key technology for improvement of speech recognition system in car environments, we propose an acoustic echo canceller for selecting an optimum cancellation result based on the echo estimation with maximum likelihood using transfer characteristics measured prospectively. The results of experiments conducted to speech superimposed on music show that the proposed canceller can improve S/N ratio and speech recognition rate, compared to the  canceller based on the algorithm of NLMS.

Research Center for Urban Safety and Security Kobe University

Presented at the ITS America Annual Conference and Exposition, November 16-20, 2008, New York, New York

There have been few studies on impacts of independent recurrent and non-recurrent
congestion on the freeway networks. The main reason is due partly to the lacks of traffic data
collected during those recurrent and non-recurrent congestion and partly to the difficulty of
using the simulation tools effectively. This study has suggested the methodology to analyze
the independent impacts of the recurrent and non-recurrent congestion on the target freeway
segments. The proposed methodology is based on elaborately calibrated simulation analysis,
using the real traffic data obtained during the recurrent and non-recurrent congestion
periods. This paper has also summarized the evaluation results from the field tests of 2 ITS
technologies, which were developed to provide drivers with the real-time traffic information
under the traffic congestion. As a result, their accuracy may not be guaranteed during the
transition periods such as the non-recurrent congestion. In summary, this study has been
focused on the importance of the non-recurrent congestion compared to recurrent congestion,
and the proposed methodology is expected to provide with a basic research when one need to
judge any priority of the limited investment to improve the target freeway network
performance degraded because of those congestion types.

The Korea Transport Institute

University of Maryland

Presented at the ITS America Annual Conference and Exposition, November 16-20, 2008, New York, New York

This paper is the discussion of a drafted Florida specific National Transportation
Communications for Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) Protocol (NTCIP)
requirements for closed-circuit television (CCTV) – t h e latest product to come from the
testing and research activities occurring at the Florida Department Of Transportation (FDOT)
-Traffic Engineering Research Lab (TERL) in Tallahassee, Florida, through a joint project
between FDOT and Florida State University. Once completed, Florida will have its own
CCTV Management Information Base (MIB) for CCTV and test procedures that can be used
to verify the NTCIP compliance of a CCTV camera. Preliminary testing results indicate
various degrees of NTCIP compliance among the manufacturers of CCTV cameras.

Florida State University

Florida Department of Transportation

Presented at the ITS America Annual Conference and Exposition, November 16-20, 2008, New York, New York

Using cell phone data to estimate real-time traffic state is becoming a hot topic whether in the academic
or in the industrial field, and the related research is still on the validation and evaluation stage. Several
research programs and traffic agencies are active in exploring the feasibility of deploying such a traffic
information system with this technology. Within the previous works, most of the current research works
focus on the evaluation of cellular probe system performance, but few comprehensive and reproductive
evaluation procedures and methods have been introduced. Based on our study and system deployment
experience, this paper proposes an effective and easily-implemented evaluation method to assess the
performance of mobile probe traffic monitoring system, explains how sample size will affect the system
performance, and how to determine the criteria and threshold for system acceptance test.

University of California Berkeley

University of Wisconsin Madison

Presented at the ITS America Annual Conference and Exposition, November 16-20, 2008, New York, New York