Safety

This experiment investigated whether people were able to identify and comprehend the purpose and message content for visual status displays of advanced collision warning systems (ACWS).  The main goal was to assess whether individuals understood what systems were present or operational in a vehicle and whether prior exposure to that vehicle’s owner’s manual (or another vehicle’s owner’s manual) affected that knowledge. The four key systems investigated were forward collision warning (FCW), lane departure warning (LDW), blind spot warning (BSW), and adaptive cruise control (ACC). Participants were presented with high-resolution images of a vehicle’s interior, and then asked about system presence or operational status. Overall, individuals were not accurate in assessing whether an advanced crash warning system was present (more than 40% of these responses were incorrect), but participants were nonetheless confident in their response accuracy. Familiarity with the vehicle’s owner’s manual improved comprehension slightly. ACWS design issues are discussed.

Westat

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

Presented at the 18th World Congress on ITS, October 2011, Orlando, Florida

Plan4Safety is a powerful tool that provides a myriad of benefits for safety professionals in New Jersey. This web-based application is a multi-layered decision support program for transportation engineers, planners, enforcement, and decision makers in New Jersey’s transportation and safety agencies to analyze crash data in tabular and geospatial forms. Besides identifying crash hot spots which merit further investigation, and prioritizing them for potential safety improvements, Plan4Safety integrates statewide crash data and roadway characteristic data, calculates statistical analyses, incorporates network screening layers and models, offers a diagnosis and countermeasures tool based on FHWA best practices, prioritizes countermeasures using economic analysis methods, proposes safety countermeasure post-evaluation and includes a visual analytical tool (GIS).
In this paper, different functionalities provided by Plan4Safety and technical methods supporting then are presented followed by a number of real cases illustrating Plan4Safety applications.

Authors: Mohsen A. Jafari, Ali Maher, Niloufar S. Mirhosseini

Presented at the 18th World Congress on ITS, October 2011, Orlando, Florida

The Mn/DOT Connected Vehicle Road User Fee Test (MRFT) is an extensive demonstration project undertaken in parallel with other Connected Vehicle Programs.  Mn/DOT’s efforts include designing, building, and testing three new software applications that combine safety and mobility applications from the Connected Vehicle world with a mileage-based user fee application from the road user pricing world. The combination of these different types of applications causes challenges in balancing the need for detailed information to support safety and mobility needs with protecting the privacy of the traveling public.  A unique solution to this dilemma has been developed and will be tested through the demonstration.  This presentation will provide a background of the conflicting needs of Connected Vehicle versus MBUF applications and will summarize the solution being implemented in Minnesota.

Battelle

Presented at the 18th World Congress on ITS, October 2011, Orlando, Florida

Long before Hurricane Katrina and the active hurricane seasons of 2004 and 2005, there was Hurricane Andrew. In 1992, Category 5 Hurricane Andrew devastated the south Florida region, packing 165 mph winds and causing $30 billion in damage. With that hurricane, many state and local agencies were enlightened on what a major hurricane could do to local inhabitants and the surrounding infrastructure. This single hurricane rewrote building design standards and redefined emergency response plans. State and local officials began reviewing their current facilities and were surprised to find out that most buildings could not even withstand a Category 3 hurricane impact. Many first responders’ warehouses and facilities may not even withstand a strong Category 1. With that review, Pinellas County embarked on a program to hardening facilities in the mid 90’s and came to a realization there was a dramatic need to establish an emergency responder’s facility that could house workers and equipment throughout the strongest of hurricanes, and be able to be the first out the door to start the cleanup effort. This paper will summarize the characteristics and abilities of the new Pinellas County Emergency Responders Building and traffic control center.

Pinellas County Public Works

Presented at the 18th World Congress on ITS, October 2011, Orlando, Florida

While the most common application of the Automatic Vehicle Identification (AVI) is electronic toll collection and travel time estimation, there is a promising traffic safety application in the context of Advanced Travel Management (ATM). This paper examines the usefulness of traffic data collected from Automatic Vehicle Identification systems and weather data in real-time crash analysis. Matched case-control was used to link real-time space mean speed collected by AVI and real-time weather data and crash likelihood.  The 10-minute average speed five minutes before the crash occurrence and the 1-hour visibility both before the crash time were found to be the most significant factors that affect the crash likelihood.

University of Central Florida

Presented at the 18th World Congress on ITS, October 2011, Orlando, Florida