Crashless Zone Pilot - A Field Operational Test Using Add-on DRSC Devices

This paper describes the Crashless Zone Pilot, a method of field testing of add-on, dedicated short range communication (DSRC) technology. The authors maintain that, as Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) based on DSRC continue to mature, it becomes increasingly important to establish the safety and other latent benefits of features that are enabled by DSRC. The goal of the Crashless Zone Pilot is to field test a number of ITS DSRC-based features and evaluate their effectiveness at varying levels of fleet penetration. Standalone communicating devices can be employed to enable vehicle to vehicle (V2V) as well as vehicle to infrastructure (V2I) communications and driver warning systems. The naturalistic driving data that is collected as part of such an experiment could be used to correlate quantifiable reductions in crashes and incidents directly to penetration rates of V2V equipped vehicles coexisting with unequipped vehicles within a controlled environment. Features that could be deployed as part of the Crashless Zone Pilot include a data logger, on/off queuing and congestion information, curve speed advisory, construction zone warning, lane closure warning, slow or stopped vehicle ahead, hard braking ahead, gateless tolling, and forward collision warning. Test participants would also receive immediate benefits in terms of roadway information, driving comfort and convenience from the V2V and V2I features that are deployed as part of the field test. The authors outline the parameters of the suggested field operational tests, but do not report on any tests conducted thus far.