Driving simulator participants equipped with heads-up display (HUD) forward collision warning systems experienced 35 percent fewer near-crash events under fog conditions.

Findings from a National Advanced Driving Simulator (NADS MiniSim) experiment.

Date Posted
08/17/2018
Identifier
2018-B01290
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Assessment of the safety benefits of vehicles' advanced driver assistance, connectivity and low level automation systems

Summary Information

This paper reviewed a framework of connected vehicle and driver assistance (CV&DA) technologies and examined the effectiveness of a forward collision warning (FCW) system concept under fog conditions.



METHODOLOGY



Fifty-four (54) drivers aged 18 to 75 years old were recruited to participate in a driver simulation study. Using the National Advanced Driving Simulator (NADS MiniSim) each driver was subject to a 30-minute simulation that emulated the performance of a light vehicle traveling in fog conditions on a straight one-way road with two lanes. The simulated lead vehicle was arranged to drive in front of the test vehicle at a speed of 50 mi/hr and then make an emergency stop at a high deceleration rate of 16 ft/s2 after about one mile of driving. Two fog levels (visibility 300 ft and visibility 100 ft) were emulated and the system was designed to display a text warning message through the heads-up display (HUD) interface at the bottom of the driving screen. Each fog level had 27 drivers and each driver performed the experiment under two scenarios (with and without FCW warning). Warning messages were delivered to each driver as the lead vehicle conducted an emergency stop but brake lights were not visible at headway distances of less than 400 ft. A near-crash event was defined as a situation when the time-to-collision (TTC) measure was less than 2 seconds (s).

FINDINGS

Drivers without the HUD FCW had a near-crash rate of 0.78 while drivers using the HUD FCW had a near-crash rate of 0.51. Thus, the effectiveness was estimated at 35 percent.

Goal Areas