Safety

In November, 1999, the United States Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) awarded a major Intelligent Vehicle Initiative (IVI) grant to the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT). Minnesota’s project was a three-year Generation '0' Specialty Vehicle field operational test of technology providing lateral guidance and collision avoidance warnings to drivers in low visibility conditions. In addition to MnDOT and FHWA, there were a variety of other public and private partners participating in the project. Active operational testing was conducted over the winter of 2001-2002. The intent of the project was to identify the safety and operational impacts of the technology, to guide future decisions regarding installation on specialized vehicles, and to encourage the development and appropriate deployment of such systems on all vehicle platforms. The technologies were tested in four snowplows, a State Patrol squad car, and an ambulance on a fifty-mile rural highway. This paper provides an overview of the project including technologies and evaluation results.

Minnesota DOT

Presented at the ITS America Annual Conference and Exposition, May 19-22, 2003 Minneapolis, Minnesota

In August, 2002, California became the first state to use freeway message signs as part of a statewide Amber Alert program. This use of ITS technology has prompted a review of CMS activation procedures, resulting in interim guidance documents being issued by the California Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration. In general CMS signs have proven effective in this heretofore unanticipated role but there are some key operational issues that must be addressed in the use of this technology. Alternatives or additions to freeway sign use include the use of the 5-1-1 system and/or Highway Advisory Radios. This use of ITS technology is an opportunity for transportation and law enforcement agencies to engage in a meaningful dialogue on operational coordination even as their perspectives and interests may differ.

National Engineering Technology Corporation

California DOT

Presented at the ITS America Annual Conference and Exposition, May 19-22, 2003 Minneapolis, Minnesota

The goals of this project are to quantify the security costs and benefits of an operational concept that applies technology and improved enforcement procedures to the transportation of hazardous materials and to demonstrate an approach that ensures the safety and security of hazardous materials shipments from origin to destination. The technology focus is on the deployment and integration of current off the shelf (COTS) products (rather than designing new products/systems from scratch) that can be used/integrated into a systematic application to improve the security and safety of hazardous materials shipments throughout the United States. The focus is to “package” suites of technologies into applications that specifically address threats and vulnerabilities identified in the task 1 risk/threat assessment.

Battelle

Federal Motor Carrier Administration (FMCSA)

Qualcomm

American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI)

Commericial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA)

Total Security Services International (TSSI)

Presented at the ITS America Annual Conference and Exposition, May 19-22, 2003 Minneapolis, Minnesota

This paper examines the effect of various factors on red light and stop sign violations based on a literature review. This research, in part, supports the experimental design for a field operational test of two intersection violation countermeasures: a vehicle-intersection cooperative signal violation warning system (CSVWS) and a stop sign violation warning system (SSVWS). The former system implements the “traffic signal violation warning” concept, providing advisory/warning messages to the driver of a moving vehicle who is about to run a red light. The latter system implements the “stop sign violation warning” concept, providing advisory/warning messages to the driver of a moving vehicle if it detects a potential violation of a stop sign ahead.

Volpe National Transportation Systems Center

Presented at the ITS America Annual Conference and Exposition, May 19-22, 2003 Minneapolis, Minnesota

Recent events on the nation’s highways have elevated the interest in improving safety thereon. Specific attention has been directed at improving the fatality rate from crashes involving commercial vehicles. To that end, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) was created in the Department of Transportation (DOT) and given specific safety related charters. FMCSA has commenced the process of defining a strategy intended to achieve these goals. Presently, this strategy does not specify the magnitude with which individual initiatives, or sets of initiatives, will reduce in commercial vehicle-related fatalities. Most significantly, there has not been an assessment of whether the funding from Congress is adequate to achieve the safety goals with which FMCSA has been charged. This limitation in strategic planning can be overcome by adapting an evaluation tool developed in support of the DOD (Department of Defense) acquisition process. During the Joint Counter Mine (JCM) Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration (ACTD), a cost-based, system-of-systems (S2) optimization process was developed, which is effective at identifying solutions that are either redundant or not cost effective. This process can be applied to quantitatively manage the application of mitigation techniques to the varied crash causes without a significant disruption of efforts by vendors and users. Such an approach supports a formalized decision process using an analytical examination of alternative solutions. Decisions between alternative safety management strategies can be made based on cost effectiveness and the magnitude of improvements in the fatality metric. A model-based decision tool also provides a documented analytical basis for decisions on the estimation of the funds necessary to achieve a desired performance level. The use of an analytical tool for evaluating alternative solutions provides the information necessary to document the basis for decisions on rejected and accepted strategies.

Ultimately, use of a model to direct safety strategies would lead to improved commercial vehicle safety and reduced operating costs. Improved commercial vehicle safety will benefit all members of the community. Motor carriers will experience reduced operating costs resulting from reduced fatality rates. Government agencies will experience reduced costs from more effective enforcement. Motor carriers and government agencies will experience improved work force stability from safer working conditions. Moreover, the most important benefit is that lives will be saved. This paper describes the operation and construction of such a planning tool.

Johns Hopkins University

Presented at the ITS America Annual Conference and Exposition, June 4-7, 2001 Miami Beach, Florida