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

  • Car makers test next generation connected car communications technology
    July 11, 2016
    Audi, Deutsche Telekom, Huawei, Toyota Motor Europe and other car manufacturers are currently carrying out technical field trials on testing LTE-Vehicular (LTE-V), which is seen as a potential enabler for road safety applications and traffic control services as well as emerging automated driving use. The tests, which are being carried out on the A9 motorway in Germany, with the objective of assessing the performance of LTE-V for connected vehicle communications during its standardisation process. LTE
  • USDoT embraces Vision Zero
    January 31, 2022
    'We cannot tolerate the continuing crisis of roadway deaths,' says transport sec Pete Buttigieg
  • Consumer Watchdog calls for stricter safety standards for autonomous cars
    October 20, 2016
    The US Consumer Watchdog is calling on the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) to prohibit autonomous vehicles without a human driver capable of taking control until the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) enacts enforceable standards covering the safety performance of robot cars. NHTSA has proposed a voluntary safety checklist that contains no enforceable standards. The proposed DMV rules would require manufacturers to submit that federal checklist before testing or deployin
  • Hydrogen filling station operating in California
    April 11, 2012
    Linde North America, a specialist in the design, construction and operation of hydrogen vehicle fuelling systems, has commissioned an installation at AC Transit, the bus operator for 13 cities in the East Bay Area, including Emeryville, Oakland and Berkeley, and also operates trans-bay service to San Francisco. The Emeryville hydrogen fuelling station, which is now fuelling 12 fuel cell buses and up to 20 passenger cars a day, is one of two Linde is supplying to AC Transit. The second, located at the Oaklan