Skip to main content

US to field trial connected vehicle technology

The US Department of Transportation (DOT) has announced that the University of Michigan will conduct a road safety field trial in Ann Arbor, Michigan, which will include the installation of wireless devices in up to 3,000 vehicles in one location, to evaluate the effectiveness of connected vehicle technology to prevent crashes.
April 17, 2012 Read time: 2 mins
RSSThe 324 US Department of Transportation (DOT) has announced that the University of Michigan will conduct a road safety field trial in Ann Arbor, Michigan, which will include the installation of wireless devices in up to 3,000 vehicles in one location, to evaluate the effectiveness of connected vehicle technology to prevent crashes.

During the pilot, to be carried out on the streets and highways of Ann Arbor from August, 2012 to August, 2013, drivers will be alerted to impending dangers in real-time so they can take action to avoid crashes. Data will be collected from the vehicles in order to understand how different types of motorists respond to safety messages in the real world.

"This test will be an important step towards the US Department of Transportation's top priority – a safer transportation system," said Peter Appel, administrator of the 321 Research and Innovative Technology Administration. "Technology is an investment in the future and this pilot deployment of vehicles that 'see' and 'talk' with one another with the help of wireless communication will allow us to learn how drivers use electronic alerts to avoid crashes in a real-world environment."

The safety pilot is the second part of a two-part connected vehicle research initiative. The first part is the Safety Pilot Driver Acceptance Clinics, which began on this month. The driver clinics are the first step in identifying how motorists respond to innovative wireless devices for safety. Participants in the six driver acceptance clinics will test cars equipped with connected vehicle devices in a controlled environment where researchers can observe the drivers' responses to the technology.

To continue the data collection under real-world conditions, the Ann Arbor safety pilot will allow drivers using cars, trucks, and transit vehicles fitted with wireless devices to carry out their normal routines while their vehicles sense the presence of other equipped vehicles nearby.

Related Content

  • Technology holds the key to painless parking
    March 21, 2014
    Parking has been the most innovative of all the transportation sectors in the past five years. Richard Harris, Solution Director, Xerox Services outlines some of the key drivers and trends
  • Autonomous driving – what can we really expect?
    June 6, 2016
    Dave Marples of Technolution BV looks beyond the hype to the practical implementation of autonomous vehicles. Having looked at the development of this sector for some time, I am concerned about the current state of autonomous driving development as engineering (and marketing) have run way ahead of the wider systemic, and legislative, requirements to support an autonomous future.
  • Daimler’s double take sees machine vision move in-vehicle
    December 13, 2013
    Jason Barnes looks at Daimler’s Intelligent Drive programme to consider how machine vision has advanced the state of the art of vision-based in-vehicle systems. Traditionally, radar was the in-vehicle Driver Assistance System (DAS) technology of choice, particularly for applications such as adaptive cruise control and pre-crash warning generation. Although vision-based technology has made greater inroads more recently, it is not a case of ‘one sensor wins’. Radar and vision are complementary and redundancy
  • Anywhere card delivers prepaid contactless ticketing
    January 25, 2012
    David Crawford investigates a far reaching initiative in integrated travel. The Port Authority Transit Corporation (PATCO), an operator of high speed commuter rail in the north eastern US, is not one of the world's best known transit providers. Its 13 stations along a single east-west route (three of them interchanges with other regional commuter lines) handle 40,000 passengers a day, travelling to and from Philadelphia, the US' fifth most populous city.