Government Documents (VTTI)

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Browsing Government Documents (VTTI) by Author "Bocanegra, Joseph L."

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    Assessment of a Drowsy Driver Warning System for Heavy Vehicle Drivers: Final Report
    Olson, Rebecca Lynn; Morgan, Justin F.; Hanowski, Richard J.; Daily, Brian; Zimmermann, Richard P.; Blanco, Myra; Bocanegra, Joseph L.; Fitch, Gregory M.; Flintsch, Alejandra Medina (United States. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 2008)
    Drowsiness has a globally negative impact on performance, slowing reaction time, decreasing situational awareness, and impairing judgment. A field operational test of an early prototype Drowsy Driver Warning System was conducted as a result of 12 years of field and laboratory studies by the National Highway Traffic Administration and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. This project included Control and Test groups. The final data set for the analysis consisted of 102 drivers from 3 for-hire trucking fleets using 46 instrumented trucks. Fifty-seven drivers were line-haul and 45 were long-haul operators. The data set contained nearly 12.4 terabytes of truck instrumentation data, kinematic data, and video recordings for 2.4 million miles of driving and 48,000 driving-data hours recorded, resulting in the largest data set ever collected by the U.S. Department of Transportation. In this study, 53 research questions were addressed related to safety benefits, acceptance, and deployment. Novel data reduction procedures and data analyses were used. Results showed that drivers in the Test Group were less drowsy. Drivers with favoring opinions of the system tended to have an increase in safety benefits. Results of the assessment revealed that the early prototype device had an overall positive impact on driver safety.
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    Enhanced Rear Signaling (ERS) for Heavy Trucks: Phase III – Development of Field Operational Test
    Schaudt, William A.; Bowman, Darrell Scott; Trimble, Tammy E.; Medina, Alejandra; Bocanegra, Joseph L.; Baker, Stephanie Ann; Marinik, Andrew; Wierwille, Walter W.; Hanowski, Richard J. (Virginia Tech Transportation Institute, 2010-09)
    The Enhanced Rear Signaling (ERS) for Heavy Trucks project was directed at investigating methods to reduce or mitigate those crashes where a heavy truck has been struck in the rear by another vehicle. Prior to the current effort, two phases of work had been completed on this project. The purpose of the current effort, Phase III, focused on exploring the benefits of the countermeasures developed in previous phases, and to develop a plan for a large scale Field Operational Test (FOT). During crash database analyses in the current project it was found that, in 2006, there were approximately 23,500 rear-end crashes involving heavy trucks which resulted in 135 fatalities and 1603 incapacitating injuries. Many different types of ERSs were investigated in this study across both the auditory and visual modalities. Visual warning signals were found to be the most beneficial at signaling following-vehicle drivers (more specifically rear warning-light configurations). The research team recommended that one specific configuration be selected for real-world data collection based on its high performance and the potential success of future design implementation. Overall, the final radar-based cautionary ERS system was robust in real-world driving conditions and is recommended for an FOT.