Safety

TRW has built, under NHTSA contract, a fully automated data acquisition system for assessing the effectiveness of a lane change collision avoidance system. The system features two subsystems that allow for automated acquisition and analysis of data. The first is a scanning laser rangefinder which serves both as the collision warning sensor and collector of ground truth information. The second subsystem is an eye-tracker which outputs, at 30 Hz, the driver’s gaze direction. Preliminary data, taken at a test track and on local freeways using team members, have refined the parameters that make up the driver warning algorithm. The data is consistent with a keep out zone adjacent to and 30 ft. behind the car and a 3 second time to arrival for fast approaching vehicles.

Battelle Human Factors Transportation Center

SAIC - Turner-Fairbank Research Center

Federal Highway Administration - Turner-Fairbank Research Center

University of Iowa - Department of Industrial Engineering

Presented at the 10th ITS Annual Conference and Exposition, May 1-4, 2000 Boston, MA

TRW has built, under NHTSA contract, a fully automated data acquisition system for assessing the effectiveness of a lane change collision avoidance system. The system features two subsystems that allow for automated acquisition and analysis of data. The first is a scanning laser rangefinder which serves both as the collision warning sensor and collector of ground truth information. The second subsystem is an eye-tracker which outputs, at 30 Hz, the driver’s gaze direction. Preliminary data, taken at a test track and on local freeways using team members, have refined the parameters that make up the driver warning algorithm. The data is consistent with a keep out zone adjacent to and 30 ft. behind the car and a 3 second time to arrival for fast approaching vehicles.

TRW Space and Technology Division

Idiom Technology

Presented at the 10th ITS Annual Conference and Exposition, May 1-4, 2000 Boston, MA

The concern for enhancements for safety at highway-rail grade intersections (HRI) has been developed through the National ITS Program’s User Service #30. Through the U.S. Department of Transportation, numerous efforts have been undertaken to reduce the incidence of injuries and fatalities due to motor vehicle collisions at highway-railroad crossings. Current efforts include the demonstration and/or deployment of various innovative technologies. In May, 1999, the Federal Highway Administration ITS Joint Program Office (ITS JPO) sponsored a workshop that provided information on seven projects utilizing ITS HRI technologies. Consequently, ITS JPO tasked the John A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center to compare the seven high priority ITS-HRI projects and address performance measures that track progress and the effectiveness of each. This document is an interim report of the comparative analysis. These projects cover HRIs with respect to light rail, passenger rail, and heavy freight. Many projects have a similarity with respect to the type of technology and project goals, but vary due to environmental, administrative, and legislative issues. All projects have received cost sharing funding and support. Although two of the seven projects have not been deployed, the other five have provided benefits for the HRI, target users, and adjacent community.

Volpe National Transportation Systems Center

Presented at the 10th ITS Annual Conference and Exposition, May 1-4, 2000 Boston, MA

The Gary Chicago Milwaukee (GCM) ITS Corridor Awareness & Communications (A&C) Work Group is a multi-agency, multi-state group striving to achieve the overall goals and objectives of the GCM Corridor Program. The GCM Corridor A&C Work Group has been operating on a minimal budget since the elimination of the National ITS Priority Corridor Program under the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA 21) legislation. Nonetheless, the GCM Corridor A&C Work Group continues to make effective use of resources across state lines on a minimal budget to produce effective communications tools for outreach and education throughout the GCM Corridor. One of the reasons the A&C Work Group is effective is the diversity of perspectives brought to the committee by its members. Today, the A&C Work Group members represent the public relations, the policy, and the planning perspectives and together they are working to provide exceptional outreach and education efforts for the GCM Corridor Program.

Illinois Department of Transportation

Minnesota Department of Transportation

Presented at the 10th ITS Annual Conference and Exposition, May 1-4, 2000 Boston, MA

A novel, engineering-based methodology is described which estimates the effectiveness and predicts the safety benefits of intelligent vehicle safety systems. The safety benefits are expressed in terms of the number of collisions that might be avoided if drivers were assisted by such systems. This methodology utilizes as input non-crash data collected from field operational tests, which characterize driver/vehicle performance in distinct safety-critical driving conflicts with and without the assistance of intelligent vehicle safety systems. Crash data are non-existent during the conduct of field operational tests that normally employ few instrumented vehicles operating for a relatively short period of time. In support of this novel methodology, dominant driving conflicts leading to rear-end, single vehicle roadway departure, and lane change collisions are defined and ranked in terms of the relative frequency of occurrence using national crash databases. Moreover, the quantification of boundaries between benign and safety-critical driving conflicts is proposed based on the 95th percentile values of driver reaction time and vehicle acceleration level exhibited in extreme collision avoidance maneuvers. Finally, the formulation and calibration of mathematical models is discussed, which estimate the probability of a crash in a safey-critical driving conflict.

Volpe National Transportation Systems Center

Presented at the 10th ITS Annual Conference and Exposition, May 1-4, 2000 Boston, MA