Skip to main content

US to test connected vehicle technologies in six cities

The US Department of Transportation has announced the six cities where it will hold Driver Acceptance Clinics for the connected vehicle programme. The first clinic will be held in Brooklyn, MI, near Detroit, in August, while the remaining clinics will be held in Minneapolis, Orlando, FL, Blacksburg, VA, Dallas and San Francisco.
April 25, 2012 Read time: 3 mins
The 324 US Department of Transportation has announced the six cities where it will hold Driver Acceptance Clinics for the connected vehicle programme. The first clinic will be held in Brooklyn, MI, near Detroit, in August, while the remaining clinics will be held in Minneapolis, Orlando, FL, Blacksburg, VA, Dallas and San Francisco.

The Connected Vehicle Drive Clinics are part of a Department of Transportation research programme conducted by the 321 Research and Innovative Technology Administration (RITA) and the 834 National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). The Department is working with the Crash Avoidance Metrics Partnership (CAMP), a research consortium of eight automobile manufacturers, to develop technology that will help cars, trucks, buses and other vehicles avoid crashes by communicating with nearby vehicles and roadway infrastructure such as traffic signals, dangerous road segments and grade crossings. Drivers will receive safety warnings when there is a risk of a crash or other safety driving hazard.

RITA Administrator Peter Appel says, “Connected vehicle technology has the potential to address 81 per cent of all unimpaired driver related crashes. We must take a serious look at how this technology will work in the real world to create a safer transportation system.”
The clinics will take place in urban, suburban and rural communities around the country to see if the technology is accepted by a cross-section of US residents. The driver clinics will measure the acceptance by ordinary drivers of in-car collision warnings, “do not pass” alerts, warnings that a vehicle ahead has stopped suddenly and other similar safety messages. The clinics will also be used to test the performance of DSRC wireless safety technology in geographically diverse environments.

Approximately 100 local drivers will be recruited for each clinic, which will take place in controlled locations. Each clinic will include about 24 cars equipped with DSRC-based safety applications. Drivers will be evaluated by researchers as they use the vehicles in a controlled environment designed to simulate real roadways and intersections.

After the driver clinics are completed, the US Department of Transportation will 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 the latter part of 2012 at a site that will be selected through an open competition. Both the driver clinics and the model deployment results will help NHTSA decide, in 2013, if the technology is sufficiently advanced enough for NHTSA to begin a series of rulemakings that could eventually require manufacturers to provide vehicle-to-vehicle communications capabilities in new vehicles.

The CAMP vehicle safety consortium includes: 278 Ford, 948 General Motors, 1683 Honda, 1684 Hyundai 5229 Kia Automotive Group, 1685 Mercedes-Benz, 838 Nissan Technical Centre North America, 1686 Toyota, and 994 Volkswagen of America.

Related Content

  • German cars learning US traffic regulations
    September 19, 2014
    Mercedes-Benz is expanding its research activities in the US, now that it has received a licence permitting it to test autonomous vehicles on public roads in California. The company says it now plans to take autonomous driving to a new level in the US, despite the differences between US and German traffic systems, which it says are vast. While motoring in Germany commonly takes place on narrow roads, the roads in the USA are frequently wider and may have more than six or even eight lanes. Traffic lights
  • Lane departure warning, blind spot detection help drivers avoid trouble, say researchers
    September 7, 2017
    According to new research from the US Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), lane departure warning, a technology designed to address an often-fatal type of crash, is preventing crashes on US roads. A separate study shows that blind spot detection also is yielding benefits when it comes to preventing lane-change crashes.
  • ChargePoint America programme shipping milestone
    April 11, 2012
    Coulomb Technologies has announced the completion of more than 2,400 shipments of its public and commercial charging stations for electric vehicles through its ChargePoint America programme. The company claims it has seen exceptional demand in all 10 regions of the programme and is finalising the installation of charging stations within these regions.
  • New Volvo challenges connected car thinking
    September 8, 2014
    In America, the introduction of the Wi-Fi Innovation Act has sees the debate over the future of the 5.9GHz band and the potential to open it up to non-licenced users, enter a new phase. Amid the claim and counter-claim of the opposing camps, the launch of Volvo’s new XC90 is easily overlooked and while a connection between the two is not immediately apparent, the new all-wheel drive SUV could be a game-changer.