Enhancing Driver Safety During Severe Weather Conditions

Vehicle crashes on the roads and highways cost loss of life and damage to property. The per-person cost of traffic fatalities is $3.2M and $68,170 for injuries. According to statistics published by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, almost a quarter of the crashes happen during severe weather conditions. The weather-related crashes arise from wet pavements, rainfall, snow or sleet, icy pavement, and snowy or slushy pavement. Previous efforts on increasing safety have primarily focused on better weather prediction, better pavements, helping people survive crashes. There has not been much effort in increasing safety by helping drivers to avoid crashes by providing the drivers with real-time road weather conditions in the neighborhood during inclement weather conditions. Modern vehicles are equipped with lots of sensors for measurement of vehicle operating conditions and the surrounding weather conditions. The sensors collect information about the vehicle, such as location, speed, braking intensity, road traction, etc., some of which can represent road weather conditions. The objective of this project is to reduce vehicle crashes, fatalities and injuries due to adverse weather conditions, by alerting drivers in real-time of potentially hazardous road conditions in the region based on information from neighboring vehicles. The dissemination of vehicle and road condition information will be carried out in this project by an Ad Hoc network which will connect the vehicles in the neighborhood. An experimental test bed will be constructed using vehicles outfitted with communication capability to wirelessly communicate with neighboring vehicles using the industry-standard communication protocol for vehicular communications. A safety application will analyze the information from neighboring vehicles and develop a threat map to alert the driver of potentially hazardous road conditions. The objective of this project is to reduce vehicle crashes, fatalities and injuries due to adverse weather conditions, by alerting drivers in real-time of potentially hazardous road conditions in the immediate region, based on information from neighboring vehicles. The dissemination of vehicle and road condition information will be carried out by an Ad Hoc network connecting the vehicles in the neighborhood. The data measured by vehicle sensors will also be transmitted to road side units for transmission to servers for road condition prediction and control of road side infrastructure, such as traffic lights, work zones, dynamic message signs, pedestrian signals, and curve speed warning.

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Active
• Funding: $375997.00
• Contract Numbers:

  DTRT13-G-UTC36

  SPTC 14.1-03

• Sponsor Organizations:

  Oklahoma Department of Transportation

  200 NE 21st Street
  Oklahoma City, OK  United States  73105

  University of Oklahoma, Norman

  Three Partners Place
  Vice President for Research
  Norman, Oklahoma  United States  73019-5710

  University of Oklahoma, Norman

  School of Computer Science
  Norman, OK  United States  73019

  University of Oklahoma, Norman

  School of Civil Engineering and Environmental Science
  202 West Boyd Street, Room 334
  Norman, OK  United States  73019

  Research and Innovative Technology Administration

  University Transportation Centers Program
  1200 New Jersey Avenue
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Performing Organizations:

  University of Oklahoma, Norman

  107 Carson Engineering Center
  Norman, OK  United States  73019-1021
• Principal Investigators:

  Hayat, Majeed

  Havlicek, Joseph

  Barnes, Ronald

  Atiquzzaman, Mohammed

• Start Date: 20140801
• Expected Completion Date: 0
• Actual Completion Date: 20160731
• Source Data: RiP Project 37438

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: In vehicle sensors; Mobile communication systems; Real time information; Traffic safety; Vehicular ad hoc networks; Weather conditions
• Subject Areas: Data and Information Technology; Highways; Safety and Human Factors; Vehicles and Equipment;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01543054
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: Southern Plains Transportation Center
• Contract Numbers: DTRT13-G-UTC36, SPTC 14.1-03
• Files: UTC, RiP
• Created Date: Nov 4 2014 1:00AM