Category Archives: Traffic and Safety

Preparing Roads for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles

August 23, 2019 mndotresearch 1 Comment

Proprietary technologies, industry competition and federal regulatory concerns are slowing the advent of defined standards for connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs). Researchers investigated the state of CAV implementation to help local agencies begin preparing for the infrastructure needs of these vehicles. CAV-friendly options are considered for eight infrastructure categories. Since truck platooning is the likely first application of this technology, and optical cameras appear imminent as an early iteration of sensing technology, researchers suggest that wider pavement striping and well-maintained, uniform and visible signage may effectively serve the needs of CAVs in the near future while enhancing infrastructure for today’s drivers.

What Was the Need?

For transportation agencies, which manage infrastructure in time frames of decades, the potential of connected and autonomous vehicle (CAV) technology influences infrastructure upgrade plans.

New pavements and overlays, traffic signal systems and signs may serve for decades, while pavement markings face shorter life cycles. Optimizing spending today requires anticipating future infrastructure needs, and the infrastructure requirements of CAVs may differ from standards currently in place.

It remains unknown how imminent the CAV future is, and competing technologies and designs for guidance systems, sensor formats and other facets of the developing vehicle technology keep outcomes unsettled. Enthusiasm in the technology and automotive sectors for this new model of road user tools nevertheless suggests that short-term preparations warrant consideration within the current limited-budget environment for infrastructure improvements.

How local agencies can best brace their roadway systems for a CAV-driven shift in road usage remains unclear, and public transportation officials cannot predict what the technology will look like if and when autonomous vehicles roll onto streets in significant numbers.

What Was Our Goal?

Researchers sought to create a toolbox for local road agencies to use in preparing for CAVs in the next five to 10 years. Recommendations would help agencies leverage ongoing infrastructure plans and expenditures to prepare for CAVs and the potential technologies for roadway navigation and travel the vehicles will deploy.

What Did We Do?

Researchers began by studying the literature, attending conferences and consulting with industry experts to describe likely CAV technologies and potential implementation timelines. Based on this research and discussions with the project’s Technical Advisory Panel, investigators developed recommendations in eight categories of infrastructure needs. The research team also prepared seven case studies showing how road agencies have addressed different aspects of preparing for CAV fleets.

What Did We Learn?

Industry competition and proprietary technologies make CAV outcomes difficult to project, and federal standards and regulations have yet to develop to meet potential forms of the technology.

“Connected and autonomous vehicles are further away than we think. Full integration of driver assistance technologies—which is where the real power in CAVs is at this time—may be a slow process.”
—Shauna Hallmark, Professor, Iowa State University Department of Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering

Some consensus within the CAV industry suggests truck platooning, in which two or more CAV trucks follow one another at distances of 30 to 50 feet, seems the most promising initial implementation of CAV technology within the next five to 10 years. In addition, optical cameras will be a likely early iteration of sensing technology. Accommodating these technologies will impact two infrastructure categories—pavement markings and signage. Recommendations for these infrastructure needs follow:

Pavement Markings. Consider California’s plans to install 6-inch-wide lane lines (the current Minnesota standard is 4 inches) on highways and Interstates during regular maintenance and new construction within three years.
Signing. Ensure that signs are standardized, easily visible, and not blocked, damaged or faded.

The other six infrastructure categories impacted by CAVs entail less-specific recommendations:

Traffic Signals. Create space at signal control cabinets for additional hardware related to CAV technologies.
Consistency and Standardization. Install and maintain striping, signing and signals consistent with CAV algorithms and technologies.
Pavement Maintenance. Continue to keep road surfaces well-maintained.
Data Capture and Information Sharing. Begin or continue collecting and organizing data for bridge heights, speed limits, load restrictions, crosswalks, roadway curvatures and other infrastructure characteristics.
Communication Infrastructure. In new construction and information technology infrastructure built for agency use, ensure adequate conduits for power and fiber optic cables.
High-Resolution Mapping. Consider developing high-resolution mapping capabilities.

What’s Next?

Case studies about developments in Los Angeles and in Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, Virginia and Wyoming explain how agencies are preparing for the needs of a CAV-friendly infrastructure.

“Making sure that signing and striping are visible will be essential for accommodating autonomous cars. It’s also going to be good for all drivers, especially with an aging population.”
—Douglas Fischer, Highway Engineer, Anoka County

A pilot project in Anoka County, Minnesota, informed decisions about signage to ensure visibility and consistent placement. Pavement markings were also addressed; currently the county continues to place 4-inch edge lines, lane lines and centerlines after resurfacing projects, and painting lines to 10-foot lengths at 40-foot gaps. Conversion to 6-inch markings could be accommodated on existing pavements; however, if a new standard is required for skip stripe spacing, it may only be economically feasible to do so on new surfaces.

This Technical Summary pertains to Report 2019-18, “Preparing Local Agencies for the Future of Connected and Autonomous Vehicles,” published May 2019. Visit the MnDOT research project page for more information.

U.S. DOT image shows current work zone warning signals that may be adopted in connected and autonomous vehicles. — Intelligent transportation system features like work zone warnings may be incorporated in CAVs.

Education, Research, Traffic and Safety

New project: Effectiveness of Teenage Driver Support System

August 21, 2019 mndotresearch Leave a comment

The Minnesota Local Road Research Board (LRRB) has funded a follow-up study to determine whether a monitoring system it field tested for new drivers, called the Teen Driver Support System (TDSS), affected teenagers’ long-term driver behavior.

Background

Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of teen fatalities. Because of inexperience and risk-seeking propensity, new teenage drivers are more prone to behaviors such as speeding and harsh maneuvers, especially during their first few months of licensure.

In an effort to reduce risky driving among new teenage drivers, in 2011, the LRRB funded a one-year field operational test of a prototype system developed by the University of Minnesota’s ITS Institute, which enabled parents to monitor their child’s driving behavior.

The software ran on a teen’s smart phone, which was mounted to the dashboard and provided instant feedback about risky behavior to the teen and communicated to parents if the behavior continued.

The system didn’t allow incoming or outgoing phone calls (except 911) or texting while driving. It provided visual and auditory warnings about speeding, excessive maneuvers (e.g., hard braking, cornering), and stop sign violations. It also monitored seat belt usage and detected the presence of passengers, two known factors that increase the risk of fatalities among teen drivers. The system could also be programmed to monitor if the teen was driving after the curfew set by parents or required by Minnesota’s graduated license requirements.

In January 2013, the University of Minnesota launched a 300-vehicle, 12-month field operational test in Minnesota to determine the effectiveness of the TDSS in terms of its in-vehicle information and feedback to parents.

Research results indicated an overall safety benefit of TDSS, demonstrating that in-vehicle monitoring and driver alerts, coupled with parental notifications, is a meaningful intervention to reduce the frequency of risky driving behaviors that are correlated with novice teen driver crashes. In particular, the system was shown to be an effective strategy for reducing excessive speeds when used with parental feedback and potentially even without parental involvement.

Project Scope

The TDSS study was cutting-edge at the time. Today, there are many systems in the marketplace which families may seek out to provide added support for their novice teen drivers. However, the long-term effectiveness of these systems is largely unknown. Furthermore, the extent to which the TDSS reduced crashes, injuries, and citations among those who participated in the study is unknown.

This new study will collect information on study participants’ self-reported driving behaviors and driving attitudes, as well collect traffic violation and crash history records from the Minnesota Department of Public Safety.

This study proposes to not only provide a follow-up to the TDSS study to further explore the benefit it may have had on participants, but also determine to what extent families, schools, and other organizations should continue to invest in in-vehicle coaching systems similar to the TDSS. Ultimately, the TDSS is a low-cost system, which, if found to have long-term efficacy beyond what was demonstrated in the original study, could help guide cost-effective implementations to reduce crashes among teen or other driver groups.

Watch for new developments on this project. Other Minnesota research can be found at MnDOT.gov/research.

Bridges and Structures, Policy and Planning, Traffic and Safety

New Project: Extreme Flood Risks to Minnesota Bridges and Culverts

February 12, 2019 mndotresearch Leave a comment

Extreme flooding is a threat to Minnesota’s transportation infrastructure and the safety and economic vitality of its communities. A spate of recent flooding events around the state has demonstrated this and heightened the level of concern. Furthermore, climate change — a factor not traditionally accounted for in the design of the state’s infrastructure — is projected to enhance precipitation and the threat of flooding in coming decades.

Given this, MnDOT is undertaking an effort to better predict the threat flooding poses to its bridges, large culverts and pipes, which may be increasingly called upon to convey higher, more frequent flood flows than they were designed for.

The state transportation research program recently launched a two-year extreme flood vulnerability analysis study, which will develop a methodology for characterizing the vulnerability of the state’s bridges, large culverts, and pipes to flooding.

The effort builds upon the previously completed Flash Flood Vulnerability and Adaptation Assessment Pilot Project (2014), which scored bridges, large culverts, and pipes in MnDOT Districts 1 and 6 for flood vulnerability, allowing detailed assessments of adaptation options for each of their facilities to be prioritized.

This new study, which will be conducted by WSP, aims to develop and test ways to enhance the vulnerability scoring techniques used in the previous study and ensure their applicability throughout the state. Researchers will not actually undertake the statewide assessment, but specify an approach that could be used for it. They will also explore how the outputs of the analysis can be incorporated into MnDOT’s asset management systems. The results of this work will be a clear path forward for MnDOT to use for prioritizing adaptation actions — a key step towards enhancing agency resilience and maintaining good fiscal stewardship.

Project scope

The primary intent of this study is to develop a methodology for characterizing the flood vulnerability of bridges, large culverts, and pipes statewide. As part of the development process, the methodology will be tested on a limited, but diverse, set of assets across the state. Following a successful proof of concept, recommendations will be made on how the outputs (i.e., the vulnerability scores) can be incorporated into the state’s asset management systems.

By determining which facilities are most vulnerable to flooding through the techniques developed on this project, MnDOT can prioritize where adaptation measures will make the biggest impact, ultimately decreasing asset life-cycle and road user costs. Without the development of assessment techniques, adaptation measures run the risk of being implemented in a more reactive and/or ad-hoc fashion, with less regard to where the biggest “bang for the buck” can be realized.

This project will produce several technical memorandums, and is expected to be completed in early 2021.

Research, Traffic and Safety

Affordable GPS-Based System Warns Drivers About Lane Departures, Approaching Curves

February 7, 2019 mndotresearch Leave a comment

Researchers have developed an affordable camera-free curve and lane departure warning system that relies on consumer-level GPS, rather than sophisticated, expensive digital maps.

The technology uses cumulative driving trajectory data from GPS points detected every 100 milliseconds to predict driving path trajectories and compare these to mapped curves and lanes. With further development, the system can be used as an inexpensive smartphone app or retail device to warn drivers of lane drift and approaching curves.

“The goal of the project is to reduce lane departure crashes. We viewed this as a seed project and demonstrated that the system can be successful,” said Victor Lund, Traffic Engineer, St. Louis County.

What Was Our Goal?

The Minnesota Local Road Research Board sought research to develop a camera-free curve and lane departure warning system that uses consumer-level GPS capability without reliance on sophisticated, expensive digital maps.

What Was the Need?

Lane departures and run-off-road crashes cause more fatalities and serious injuries in Minnesota than any other accident type.

Many current warning technologies rely on cameras that identify lane position based on pavement markings. In inclement weather, stripes and pavement markings can be difficult or impossible to identify; markings also wear off over time, reducing visibility even in clear conditions. Camera-based lane departure warning systems are also expensive and generally restricted to newer luxury vehicles, making them inaccessible to the general driving public.

Though in-vehicle technology for the public usually falls outside the research interests of the Minnesota Department of Transportation and the Minnesota Local Road Research Board, the agencies have been funding development of lane departure warning technologies to improve driver safety. GPS technologies offer an intriguing path to consumer-level lane departure warning systems.

High-level GPS can be accurate to the centimeter level, but access is restricted and use is expensive. These systems also rely on accurate, lane-level roadway mapping, an elusive data set with high access costs.

What Did We Do?

Researchers began with a literature search of the uses of standard GPS receivers in lane departure and navigation. The research team then developed an algorithm for travel direction that uses standard GPS in a straight road lane departure system to determine driving trajectories at accuracy levels suited to safe driving needs.

Investigators adapted a publicly available digital mapping platform to the same algorithm to identify navigational points along curves and develop the curve lane departure warning system. The team enhanced standard safe distance methods to consider driver reaction time in determining when approach warnings should be issued.

Researchers then brought the two developmental stages of the system together with a warning system that identifies vehicle speed, curvature characteristics and safe speed limits, and calculates distance for driver response times to issue an audible warning to drivers on lane drift and a text warning of when and how much to reduce speed as the vehicle approaches a curve.

Two figures, each with a photo of a road segment an a graph that plots roadway curve distances with warning times. — The advanced curve warning system issued audible lane departure warnings when cumulative trajectories showed lateral drift within a curve.

For project testing and demonstration, investigators programmed the algorithm into a device with a built-in GPS receiver, connected it to a laptop for messaging and conducted driving tests on Rice Lake Road and on Interstate 35 near Duluth.

“From a technical point of view, this approach works. We developed a warning system with standard GPS that everyone has in a phone or vehicle. This is a lifesaving technology in a sense,” said Imran Hayee, Professor, University of Minnesota Duluth Department of Electrical Engineering.

What Did We Learn?

Finding no research on development of consumer-grade GPS for lane departure purposes, the research team adapted previous work on the relative accuracy of GPS readings from a MnDOT study on wearable GPS for work zone safety.

Researchers adapted a consumer-level GPS device to acquire data at 10-hertz frequency, which yields a GPS position point of 2.7 meters if a vehicle is driven at 60 mph.

The system calculates lane trajectory from cumulative readings and detects turns or drift. The curve warning system plots trajectories and compares these with open-source digital maps with road-level (rather than lane-level) accuracy to anticipate curves.

In road testing, the system issued audio warnings for every one of the approximately 200 lane changes, including curves. For curve warnings, the system scanned for curves at least half a mile ahead and calculated the vehicle’s speed and the distance to a curve to issue a timely text warning of the curve ahead and an advisory speed limit. Additional messages were issued when the vehicle was on the curve and when the curve had ended.

False alarms—warnings issued when the vehicle was not departing its lane—occurred in 10 percent of the tests, usually on sharp curves. Further adjustment of the algorithm and additional testing reduced false alarms significantly as the system accumulated data over multiple uses of the same roadway.

What’s Next?

Investigators filed a patent for the technology and will continue to develop the system. Further refinement of reference road direction information will improve accuracy and safety; the research team has developed a new project to employ vehicle-to-vehicle dedicated short-range communication technology to expand road direction reference data. The system will then need to be adapted for a consumer-level device or a smartphone app for use in any vehicle.

This post pertains to the LRRB-produced Report 2018-34, “Development and Demonstration of a Cost-Effective In-Vehicle Lane Departure and Advanced Curve Speed Warning System,” published December 2018.

Research, Traffic and Safety

New System Measures Travel-Time Reliability to Reduce Traffic Delays

December 27, 2018 mndotresearch Leave a comment

Researchers for the Minnesota Department of Transportation have developed a new travel-time reliability measurement system that automates the process of gathering and managing data from multiple sources, including traffic, weather and accident databases, to generate travel-time reliability measures and reports for the metropolitan freeway network.

What Was the Need?

Improving traffic efficiency has become a key goal of traffic operations managers. In heavy traffic periods, MnDOT’s Regional Transportation Management Center (RTMC) coordinates with Minnesota State Patrol and MnDOT Maintenance Services to detect and quickly respond to freeway incidents in the Twin Cities. The RTMC works with the Freeway Incident Response Safety Team to assist and remove stranded vehicles using MnDOT emergency road service trucks. RTMC also updates real-time road condition information on its 511 traveler information system.

Overhead view of RTMC operator monitoring multiple screens — RTMC engineers use travel-time reliability data to plan for and respond to accidents, event traffic,
bad weather and road construction that cause freeway congestion.

MnDOT and RTMC measure delay and congestion on the metropolitan freeway system, reporting the data in annual reports like the 2017 Congestion Report. While useful, this data offers little predictive value on its own. MnDOT’s metropolitan freeway system features 4,000 loop detectors that transmit traffic data every 30 seconds; this data informs the congestion and delay reports.

Correlating this data with locations on the freeway system and various operating conditions, such as weather and traffic incidents, is time- consuming. But the data could be used to systematically evaluate traffic delays and develop strategies to mitigate congestion.

What Was Our Goal?

In this project, investigators sought to develop a system for automatically accessing weather, crash and traffic data to assess travel-time reliability—the variability in travel times for any given route. Travel-time reliability measures are becoming the key indicators for transportation system operations and management.

What Did We Implement?

Investigators developed a new travel-time reliability measurement system (TTRMS) that integrates different types of data (such as weather, traffic, incident, work zone and special event) acquired from multiple sources and automatically produces various types of travel-time reliability measures for selected corridors following user-specified operating conditions and time periods.

“Travel-time reliability is another way of looking at congestion and at strategies for making it more tolerable. It used to take several hours, even days, to process travel-time reliability data. The TTRMS processes it in minutes,” said Brian Kary, Director, MnDOT Regional Transportation Management Center.

How Did We Do It?

Investigators began by developing a detailed design of the TTRMS architecture—its modules, their functions and their interactions. The team then developed a work-zone data input module, where detailed lane configurations of a given work zone can be specified.

Developers designed a travel-time reliability calculation module as the core of the new system that can automatically access MnDOT’s traffic data archive, its incident database and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s weather database. It can also accept a set of input data for work zones, such as lane-closure periods and locations. The reliability calculation module was then integrated with user interfaces and reporting modules. Finally the integrated system was tested with the real data gathered in 2012 and 2013 from Interstates 35E and 35W, U.S. Highway 169 and State Highway 100.

What Was the Impact?

The system generated accurate travel-time reliability measures for the test periods and given operating conditions. In particular, the output measures were automatically generated in both table and graphical formats, thus saving traffic engineers significant amount of time and effort.

The TTRMS includes map-based interfaces, which provide administrators and general users with substantial flexibility in defining corridors, specifying operating conditions and selecting types of measures depending on the purposes of applications.

To test the new system’s performance, the research team used the TTRMS to evaluate traffic strategies deployed for the February 2018 Super Bowl in Minneapolis. Two weeks before the event, reliability was low for the freeway system serving the football stadium. During the week of the Super Bowl, MnDOT and the Department of Public Safety aggressively managed traffic incidents to keep traffic moving, and reliability rose substantially despite the increase in tourist traffic. In the days immediately after the Super Bowl, operational strategies returned to normal levels, and reliability fell to previous levels. Results suggest that aggressive incident management during this exceptionally high-volume regional event enhanced traffic efficiency.

What’s Next?

Further enhancements to the TTRMS should include automating inputs for work zone data, such as lane closures, changes in work zone locations and time periods. Future research could help traffic operations prioritize resources and develop short-term and long-term freeway improvements, including studies of bottlenecks and the freeway network’s vulnerability and resilience for natural events and large-scale incidents.

This post pertains to Report 2018-28, “Development of a Travel-Time Reliability Measurement System,” published September 2018.

Maintenance Operations, Traffic and Safety

Report recommends ways to reduce snowplow operator fatigue

December 3, 2018 mndotresearch Leave a comment

Snowplow operators face harsh driving conditions and must also deal with fatigue and drowsiness. A recent multi-state research project identifies factors that cause driver fatigue in snowplow operators and recommends cost-effective solutions to help reduce it.

Clear Roads – a winter maintenance research initiative – surveyed 33 member states to gather data on snowplow operators’ experiences with fatigue. More than 2,000 snowplow operators from 23 Clear Roads states responded.

Nearly all the respondents (94 percent) reported feeling fatigue at some point while operating a snowplow during winter weather events. The majority of vehicle operators (59 percent) reported their shifts of 8 to 16 hours included both daytime and nighttime segments. Smaller proportions reported that they worked primarily during the day (22 percent) or primarily at night (18 percent).

Survey results also indicated that more experienced operators were more prone to fatigue, and those who worked shifts lasting longer than 16 hours reported significantly higher levels of fatigue.

Based on the results and analysis, researchers ranked the in-cab and external equipment that caused fatigue. The top four equipment-related sources of fatigue were bright interior lighting, standard windshield wipers, misplaced or insufficient auxiliary lighting, and old or uncomfortable seats.

Among the non-equipment-related sources of fatigue, the most commonly reported factor was silence (lack of music or talking), followed by length of shift, lack of sleep, and insufficient breaks.

Using the same ratings, researchers developed a list of recommended actions that can be implemented by agencies to decrease driver fatigue. The recommendations were based on a comparison of each solution’s costs (equipment costs and potential risk of adversely affecting fatigue) and benefits (effectiveness in reducing operator fatigue).

Among the researchers’ equipment-related recommendations, the most cost-effective called for adding:

A CD player or satellite radio to deliver music or speech, preventing short-term fatigue.
Dimmable interior lighting to reduce reflections on the windshield and windows, providing better visibility.
Dimmable warning lights to reduce back-reflected light from the warning lights, lowering visual distraction.
Snow deflectors to reduce the amount of snow blown on the windshield, providing better visibility.
Heated windshields to reduce snow and ice buildup on the windshield, providing better visibility.

Non-equipment solutions included encouraging adequate breaks, limiting shifts to 12 consecutive hours when feasible, developing a fatigue management policy, encouraging a healthy lifestyle, and designating dedicated rest locations for operators.

According to the report, both the equipment-related and non-equipment-related solutions provide easy and quick corrective actions that agencies can implement immediately to increase the health and safety of snowplow operators.

Learn More:

Identification and Recommendations for Correction of Equipment Factors Causing Fatigue in Snowplow Operations (Clear Roads, Nov. 2017) (LRRB/MnDOT 2017-31, July 2017)
“Truckers disregarding sleep apnea treatment show greater crash risk,” CTS Catalyst (Apr. 2018)

Clear Roads is a multi-state winter maintenance research initiative. This article originally appeared in the September issue of the LTAP Technology Exchange.

Education, Environment, Maintenance Operations, Traffic and Safety

Pilot Program Promotes Benefits of Snow Fences

December 3, 2018 mndotresearch Leave a comment

A new program piloted in western Minnesota to increase snow fence use among private landowners has been so successful that MnDOT is looking at rolling it out statewide.

The University of Minnesota’s Center for Integrated Natural Resource and Agricultural Management worked with MnDOT District 8 staff for more than a year to develop and test a snow fence outreach program that could be used by MnDOT district offices.

“After our training, we saw a 300 percent increase in the number of standing corn rows, and that was on the initiative of a few people in the maintenance group. We’d like to spread the training to other districts,” said Dean Current, Director, University of Minnesota Center for Integrated Natural Resource and Agricultural Management.