Intelligent Transportation Systems Safety

Intelligent transportation systems (ITS) improve transportation safety and mobility and enhance American productivity through the integration of advanced communications technologies into the transportation infrastructure and within vehicles. ITS encompasses a broad range of wireless and wire line communications-based information and electronics technologies.

What is the Federal Role in ITS?

Located in the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Intelligent Transportation Systems Joint Program Office (ITS JPO), Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology, the ITS program researches ways that information and communications technologies can improve surface transportation safety and mobility and contribute to America’s economic growth.  ITS applications focus on both the infrastructure and vehicle as well as integrated applications between the two.  Familiar ITS technologies include electronic toll collection, in-vehicle navigation systems, rear-end collision avoidance systems, and dynamic message signs. 

Connected vehicles are currently one of the main areas of focus of the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Intelligent Transportation Systems Joint Program Office (JPO). Connected vehicle safety applications will enable drivers to have 360-degree awareness of hazards and situations they cannot even see. Through in-car warnings, drivers will be alerted to imminent crash situations, such as merging trucks, cars in the driver’s blind side, or when a vehicle ahead brakes suddenly. By communicating with roadside infrastructure, drivers will be alerted when they are entering a school zone, if workers are on the roadside, and if an upcoming traffic light is about to change (see http://www.its.dot.gov/safety_pilot/index.htm for more information).

What is the Role of FHWA, Office of Safety?

The FHWA Office of Safety is currently working with the ITS JPO and other multimodal partners to ensure safety is a major component of the USDOT’s ITS Strategic Research Plan.  Over the next 5 years, the Office of Safety will be working to promote the following connected vehicle-related programs:

• Vehicle to Vehicle (V2V)Communications for Safety: This research will investigate key questions such as whether vehicle-based safety applications using V2V communications are effectiveand do they have benefits.
• Vehicle to Infrastructure (V2I) Communications for Safety: This research will investigate similar questions of effectiveness and potential benefits as that being conducted for V2V communications. The initial focus of the research is on applications that relay traffic signal phase and timing information to vehicles. The purpose is to accelerate the next generation of safety applications through widespread adoption of V2I communications. Low-cost rural ITS safety countermeasures are included as part of this effort.
• Vehicle to Pedestrian (V2P): This research will investigate V2P and Pedestrian to Infrastructure (P2I) technologies that help to eliminate or reduce pedestrian crashes.
• Road Weather Management: This research will consider how vehicle-based data on current weather conditions can be used by travelers and transportation agencies to enable decision-making that takes current weather conditions and future weather forecasts into account.
• Cross-Cutting Activities: This program includes architecture, standards, professional capacity building, technology transfer, and evaluation.