Work Plan
Goal
The U.S. Department of Transportation (U.S. DOT) will work cooperatively with its industry partners to accelerate the introduction and commercialization of integrated vehicle-based safety systems for light vehicles, heavy trucks, and buses. These systems will assist drivers and reduce the number and severity of injuries resulting from rear-end, run-off-road, and lane change crashes.
Preliminary analyses have shown that about 48 percent or 1,836,000 relevant police-reported crashes could be prevented by rear-end, run-off-road, and lane change crash warning systems. The integration of these individual systems is expected to increase safety benefits, improve overall system performance, reduce system cost, enhance consumer and fleet operator acceptance, and boost product marketability.
Milestone
Evaluate the safety benefits of vehicles equipped with integrated vehicle-based safety systems that address multiple crash types.
Program Activities
Three program objectives were developed to realize the goal of this initiative:
- Establish a partnership with a private consortium consisting of a wide range of key stakeholders from light, commercial, and transit vehicle markets that will take maximum ownership of this initiative and develop new approaches to carry out this program and accelerate deployment of these systems in the U.S. vehicle fleet.
- Facilitate the introduction and commercialization of integrated crash avoidance systems by: developing technology-independent performance specifications, building and testing prototype vehicles that meet these specifications, and determining driver and fleet operator acceptance of these systems.
- Provide the U.S. DOT with the information needed to advance and encourage the deployment of effective safety products, including safety benefits and objective test procedures. Safety benefits are key to U.S. DOT decision-making. Objective test procedures promote compliance with performance specifications and allow the U.S. DOT to issue consumer information such as safety star ratings.
The five program activities to meet the objectives of this initiative are shown in the top row of the block diagram in Figure 1. These activities include preparatory analyses, system design, building and validation of prototype vehicles, field operational tests (FOTs), and independent evaluation. This outline of program activities and tasks will be revised as the U.S. DOT obtains input on program direction from its industry partners and stakeholders.
Image Details
Figure 1. Program Activities and Tasks
Preparatory Analyses
This initiative will begin with a series of tasks that will help the U.S. DOT establish partnerships with industry in order to obtain guidance on the most effective approach to carry out a program that will lead to near-term commercialization and more rapid deployment of integrated safety systems. Industry partners will provide feedback and guidance to the U.S. DOT and help shape the program activities and tasks that will lead to achievement of the goal and objectives of this program.
Stakeholder Input
Early on in the program, the U.S. DOT will solicit input on this initiative from key industry stakeholders. The U.S. DOT will explore various ways to engage industry stakeholders including, but not limited to: holding a public meeting that describes the initiative and solicits comments, questions and suggestions from industry, forming an industry working group that provides input to the U.S. DOT to successfully achieve the program goals, and conducting market research. The vehicle manufacturers, their suppliers, and the commercial and transit fleet operators play a critical role in the voluntary deployment of advanced safety systems. For this reason, the U.S. DOT will seek to have these stakeholders actively involved in the planning and conduct of this program.
Functional Requirements
Following industry and stakeholder input, system functional requirements that are based on target crashes and dynamic scenarios will be developed. The integrated countermeasures will be designed to address these functional requirements
Evaluation requirements will also be defined. This includes data needed to capture a visual image of the driving scene and the driver, as well as recording numerical data to evaluate system performance and to identify and study crash conflict events.
Technical Review
An assessment of the state-of-the-art of system and subsystem technology for each of the three vehicle types will be conducted as part of this activity. Relevant work from prior efforts will be reviewed to leverage lessons learned in the following technical areas: performance specifications, objective test procedures, system development and validation, data acquisition systems, human factors, FOT design, and evaluation. This information will be made available to industry partners and will support program activities.
Driver-Vehicle Interface Concepts
Under this activity, research into different driver-vehicle interface (DVI) concepts will be reviewed and summarized. The U.S. DOT recognizes the challenges of developing and implementing an integrated DVI and will make available to its industry partners prior and on-going U.S. DOT-sponsored research in this area.
Business Case
The business case and deployment potential will be assessed based on industry and stakeholder input as well as the results of separate analyses. An analysis will be conducted to assess the transit authority business case for the deployment of an integrated system, building upon prior return-on-investment/cost/benefit analyses, and identifying issues related specifically to transit deployment of new technology. This task will also analyze the technical and business case requirements and issues that commercial fleets, suppliers, and OEM's envision for an integrated safety system. A key issue will be to gain information on the types of integrated safety system features required by commercial fleets to make these systems attractive for purchasing and justified from a business case perspective.
Program Execution Strategy
Outputs from the preparatory analyses tasks will be used to define the program and prepare a program execution strategy that addresses the safety problems being considered while meeting the needs of U.S. DOT's industry partners. The program execution strategy will include information that will be used to develop cooperative research agreements with industry, as well as revised activities and program timeline.
System Design
This activity will define the system operational concepts that meet the program safety needs, and develop corresponding performance specifications and objective test procedures. The industry partners will design, build, and test sensor subsystems, threat assessment algorithms, and the DVI. The goal of the initiative is to field test integrated safety systems that exceed the performance of current individual systems that have been tested in the U.S. DOT-sponsored FOTs.
Advanced technology subsystems such as enhanced digital maps, driver state identification, and vehicle-to-vehicle communications will be used to the extent feasible. The industry partners will make the decision on whether or not these technologies are mature enough for consideration and use in this program.
There are several technical issues and challenges that this initiative will address. Each of the individual countermeasure systems is at a different level of technical maturity. For instance, the rear-end and run-off-road crash countermeasure systems are more technically mature than systems for lane change crashes since they have been developed and deployed in field operational tests. Another challenge will be the design of a DVI that helps, rather than confuses the driver in hazardous driving situations.
Prototype Vehicles
This activity will integrate the subsystems into prototype vehicles that will be built and tested in order to ensure conformance with the performance specifications. This activity will also design and build a data acquisition system to collect the data needed to validate the performance of the integrated systems. Validation tests comprise a series of controlled test scenarios and procedures, which are typically conducted on a test track or pre-defined on-road public routes. The results of these tests will help refine the design and build of the integrated safety systems prior to the FOT.
Field Operational Test
An FOT will be conducted with representative drivers to gather data on driver performance with and without the assistance of an integrated safety system. This activity will involve the definition of FOT concepts, recruitment of subjects and compliance with human use guidelines, building the FOT vehicle fleet, and the conduct of pilot tests prior to the FOT to assure the quality of test procedures and data.
Independent Evaluation
An independent evaluation will be performed to assess the safety benefits and acceptance of integrated vehicle-based safety systems based primarily on data collected from the FOT. In addition, evaluation tasks will include cooperation with the industry partners to define performance specifications and devise objective test procedures, and data analysis of validation tests. This activity will set up the FOT database and develop the tools necessary to analyze the large amount of multi-media data expected from the FOT.
Program Timeline and Milestones
Figure 2 illustrates the program’s timeline and milestones. The duration
of this program will be adjusted based on input from industry stakeholders.
Beyond the preparatory analyses, planned program activities are based on
a successful system design and development process proposed and followed
by an OEM and first tier supplier to carry out the recent field operational
test of a rear-end crash warning system.
One of the major outcomes of the preparatory analyses will be cooperative
agreements with industry partners. There is also a key milestone at
the end of these analyses, which presents arguments for a “go/no go” decision.
This program will also produce performance specifications, objective
test procedures, prototype vehicles, a database of driver performance with
and without the assistance of integrated safety systems, and an evaluation
report on benefits and user acceptance. There will be a key milestone at the
end of prototype vehicle validation and a decision point on whether or not
to continue with the FOT phase based on the results of integrated system validation
tests.
.
Image Details
Figure 2. Program Timeline and Milestones
|
