Nationwide Differential Global Positioning System (NDGPS)
Improving traveler safety and reducing congestion on our
Nation’s highways are key goals of the Federal Highway Administration. To accomplish these goals requires an effective
means to compliment existing techniques and technologies with time saving and
safety enhancing technologies.
In 2000, almost 41,821 Americans died and 3,289,000
Americans were injured in auto crashes.
According to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, 17,430 of these
fatalities were from single vehicle crashes.
By warning drivers they are about to leave the roadway, many of these
fatalities and injuries can be avoided.
Advanced driver assistance systems can offer drivers additional safety
enhancements by predicting crashes and offering ways to avoid them or, if it is
too late to avoid them, can better time deployment of safety devices, such as
air bags.
Congestion due to highway maintenance can mean long delays
getting to or from work, delays picking up children from day care, and long
hours spent sitting in traffic. Over the duration of the Transportation
Equity Act for the 21st Century, funding levels for highway construction will
increase nearly 40 percent, while congestion has been projected to increase by
50 percent in the next 10 years. Further, as the nation's highway
infrastructure ages, more rehabilitation is needed. Efforts have been made to perform
maintenance during off-peak hours and automate as many process as feasible to
speed the maintenance process. More
improvements can be made through automating maintenance systems. Included in this category is development of
as-built drawings that map road grade, friction, and roadside safety
devices.
One Key to the Solution: Radionavigation Research
One of the keys to solving this problem is the ability to
determine where you are with respect to the road infrastructure. Radionavigation systems provide the
potential, when coupled with other devices, to dynamically provide navigation
data to the vehicle. Not only can
drivers know where they are, they can use the information to navigate travel
lanes more safely and with greater confidence.
GPS, NDGPS, and HA-NDGPS are all types of the radionavigation systems. To learn more about each of these systems,
select the one below:
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