Smart Environment Technology: The Critical Component For Driver Vehicle Communication Within The Intelligent Vehicle/Highway System by Carmen W. Daecher

Technology is the key to the most significant improvements we can make to our transportation systems in the twenty-first century. Our efforts toward Intelligent Vehicle/Highway Systems are of great importance towards improving the efficiency and safety of our transportation network in the future. Our groundbreaking efforts with the electronic surveillance of vehicles, real time dispatch communication with commercial vehicles, and real time guidance and navigation systems provide some insight into the future. Intelligent Vehicle/Highway Systems will serve to make traveling more efficient by providing more timely and accurate information about transportation and traffic conditions and through the automated operation of vehicles along major roadways, thus improving the efficiency and capacity of our highway systems.

Certain Intelligent Vehicle/Highway System technologies are already being tested and used within vehicles. For the most part, these technologies are being applied towards improved routing and navigation systems. There are various projects under way in the United States to explore the use of real time mapping within vehicles to improve trip efficiency for passenger car drivers. Commercial vehicles are using on-board computers to monitor vehicle, external sources and recipients of information. For example, truck drivers are communicating with dispatchers and receiving route guidance information in real time. In the future, hopefully, real time traffic information will be available to supplement this route guidance system. The Heavy Vehicle Electronic License Plate program (HELP) continues to explore the value of such technology within commercial vehicles in North America.

These technologies will also lead to significant improvements in bus and para-transit operations. Dynamic routing and scheduling will be accomplished through on-board devices, communications with the Fleet Management Center, and public access to a transportation information system containing information on routes, schedules and fares. Automated fare collection systems will also aid in improving service to the users of these transit systems.

While these technologies are useful and have benefit to the individual users, they do not substantially improve capacity and safety on our highway systems.

While complete automation would offer the greatest potential for efficiency and safety along our highway transportation systems, it will never be practical to expect full operation in this way. Fully automated operations are limited in their utility because of the desire of drivers to have control of their vehicle in some instances, the need for drivers to make choices of when to enter and exit automated systems, and because of the economic magnitude of trying to automate our highway transportation systems in any extensive way.

Automated Vehicle Control Systems have a more fundamentally important role within the total Intelligent Vehicle/Highway System framework for the future. Automated Vehicle Control Systems are essentially dedicated to aiding with the driving task. As such, Automated Vehicle Control Systems can be fundamental communication links between the vehicle and the driver, informing the driver about all components of the highway system: the driver, the vehicle, roadway conditions and other environmental conditions. When viewed in this context, Automated Vehicle Control Systems offer unexplored and untapped potential for communicating with and appealing to the critical decision maker within the transportation system, namely the driver. It offers the most immediate and economical application of technology with significant results in efficiency and safety as well as one of the most enduring applications of technology towards improving the highway systems of the future. The driver will always be at the center of the decision making process for our highway transportation systems, and it is appropriate that we position the driver at the center of our concerns and designs within the Intelligent Vehicle/Highway System concept. Automated Vehicle Control Systems accomplish this. The Transportation Research Board, in a recently published report, stressed that Automated Vehicle Control Systems are the technologies that could yield the largest benefits by increasing road capacity and improving safety (Transportation Research Board, 1991).

So just what do we mean by Automated Vehicle Control Systems? Automated Vehicle Control Systems include collision warning, vision enhancement, automatic headway keeping and lateral control, collision avoidance braking, ambient temperature/weather information, driver performance monitoring, and subliminal/neuro-linguistic communications. Collision warning systems will sound an alarm when a vehicle moves dangerously close to an object. Sensor and computer technologies can enhance a driver's vision under adverse driving and weather conditions. Sensors mounted on vehicles can provide information regarding headway and lateral distance between vehicles. Collision avoidance systems, in which the vehicle applies brakes to avoid an imminent collision if the driver failed to respond in time, incorporates the use of automated back-up systems for errors in driver performance. Sensors on the vehicles can read and provide information to drivers regarding outside temperature and roadway conditions for use by the driver in defining headway, speeds, etc. Driver performance can also be monitored which will include an assessment of driver fatigue, so that a driver can be given a warning to be more alert when performance measures fall below a predetermined level. Subliminal/neuro-linguistic messages provide a means to continually remind the driver of safe driving practices or other important information without conscious communication.

Automated Vehicle Control Systems are an intelligent co-pilot to the driver. This co-pilot serves as navigator, tutor, persuasive advisor, and more generally, the friend of the driver as he or she goes about driving tasks. The intelligent co-pilot is an important concept that is part of the Prometheus Project (Programme for European Traffic with Highest Efficiency and Unprecedented Safety).

Automated Vehicle Control Systems can be used in any type of vehicle, is compatible with vehicle technologies such as anti-lock brakes, and has value to all age groups of drivers. The potential flexibility of Automated Vehicle Control Systems technology will allow priority of importance for various types of vehicles. Older drivers may find night vision enhancements to be more important than other age groups; commercial vehicle drivers may find driver performance monitoring to be of immense value, and subliminal/neuro-linguistic messages can be focused and directed to key issues given the variable conditions of vehicle type and driver age.

Automated Vehicle Control Systems have the ability to overcome some of the performance limitations of drivers (such as speed of response to stimuli, sensory-motor accuracy, lapses of judgement or attentiveness), as well as to remind them of such limitations so that they are conscious of their limits of ability to drive under various conditions.

The true value of Automated Vehicle Control Systems lie in their potential to help prevent accidents. A premise of the PROMETHEUS Program is that 50% of all rear end collisions and accidents at crossroads and some 30% of head-on collisions could be prevented if the driver is given another half of a second of advance warning and reacts correctly. Over 90% of these accidents could be avoided if drivers take appropriate countermeasures one second earlier. Automated Vehicle Control Systems are intended to provide the necessary lead time for a driver to take evasive action. According to the Transportation Research Board Report, safety benefits from collision warning systems alone could be "several hundred lives saved, several hundred injuries avoided, and several hundred million dollars saved annually by 2001" (Transportation Research Board, 1991). A study of 58 of the largest losses handled by the Progressive Transportation Division for public transportation customers indicates that a 25 to 35 percent reduction in the severity and a 15 to 20 percent reduction in the frequency of rear end accidents alone could have been accomplished with the employment of Automated Vehicle Control Systems which would have provided information to the driver regarding headway, weather condition, and driver performance factors. This reduction would result in millions of loss dollars saved and numerous injuries and deaths avoided.

The reduction of trauma associated with accidents through accident prevention is one of the fundamental commitments shared by the transportation engineering and risk management safety communities. Through my experiences of understanding and exploring safety from both a transportation engineering and a risk management perspective, I strongly believe that Automated Vehicle Control Systems are an application of technology which can enhance driver performance and prevent accidents through vital, real-time communication between the vehicle, the environment, the roadway system and the driver. This technology can be applied relatively more quickly and more economically than automated roadway technologies or infrastructure-wide technologies which will take more time and more capital investment to accomplish. We must be committed to exploring and implementing the use of Automated Vehicle Control Systems with the fundamental belief that they can help in preventing accidents and reducing the trauma associated with such harmful events.

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