Not Professional Drivers on a Closed Course

This month at Michigan International Speedway, RITA will begin testing of wireless connected vehicle warning devices with ordinary drivers in normal roadway situations.

“Connected vehicle technology has the potential to address 81 percent of all unimpaired driver-related crashes,” says RITA administrator Peter Appel. “We must take a serious look at how this technology will work in the real world to create a safer transportation system.”

The Connected Vehicle Safety Pilot Program includes six driver clinics, in which motorists will be monitored in a controlled environment, and a model deployment during which drivers will test the safety technology with volunteer drivers in one geographic region without any restrictions.

The two components of the program include:

• Safety Pilot Driver Clinics: During these tests, which will take place in six locations in the United States, regular drivers will test cars with built-in wireless safety warning devices in a controlled environment. The goal will be to see how motorists handle various alert messages such as in-car collision warnings, do-not-pass signals and warnings that a car ahead has stopped suddenly.

• Safety Pilot Model Deployment: This trial will include up to 3,000 vehicles fitted with devices that will communicate with other vehicles and the surrounding infrastructure, while operating on everyday streets in a highly-concentrated area where the cars will regularly interact with each other. Motorists will be able to tell when another vehicle fitted with a wireless safety device has moved into their immediate driving area, and they will get warnings if either car is in danger of crashing.

The Connected Vehicle Drive Clinics at Michigan International Speedway are part of a DOT research program held in conjunction with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and the private-sector Crash Avoidance Metrics Partnership Vehicle Safety Communications Consortium, a research effort of eight automobile manufacturers.

The program is aimed at developing technology that will help vehicles avoid crashes by communicating with nearby vehicles and with roadway infrastructure such as traffic signals, dangerous road segments and grade crossings. This is achieved by alerting the driver when there is a risk of a crash or other safety driving hazard.

But before real-world testing is undertaken, agencies must test in a safe, controlled environment, and this is where the MIS facility serves this critical role. In Michigan, some 100 local drivers will be recruited for the clinic, which will take place in controlled locations around the racetrack. Each clinic will include about 16 cars equipped with technology applications that drivers will evaluate as they use the vehicles in a controlled environment designed to simulate real roadways and intersections.

The trials will take place along the speedway’s road course, some of which will be outfitted with temporary traffic signals to mimic city streets and roads. Movable traffic lights will allow agencies to test anywhere on the track’s pavement throughout the 1,400-acre property.

After the driver clinics are completed, the DOT plans to deploy thousands of wirelessly-connected vehicles to test how the technology performs in a real-world driving environment. The model deployment is scheduled to begin in fall of 2012 at a site that will be selected through an open competition.

Previous to the six field tests involving actual drivers off the street, NHTSA completed study of Integrated Vehicle-Based Safety Systems (IVBSS), and in June 2011 released a final report.

The project involved light-vehicle and heavy-truck field operational tests of the effects of a prototype-integrated crash warning system on driver behavior and driver acceptance. Both platforms included three integrated crash-warning subsystems, forward crash, lateral drift and lane-change/merge crash warnings. The light-vehicle platform also included curve-speed warning.

The integrated systems were introduced into two vehicle fleets of 16 light vehicles and 10 Class 8 tractors. The light vehicles were operated by 108 volunteer drivers for six weeks, and the heavy trucks were driven by 18 commercial-truck drivers for a 10-month period.