Connected Vehicle Communications Safety Pilot Driver Clinics Supervisor

The United States Department of Transportation (USDOT) and its contractors have demonstrated that vehicle connectivity can have transformational impact on safety, mobility, and the environment. The Connected Vehicle Communications (CVC) Safety Pilot program was created to support the support of the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) 2013 regulatory decision. This regulatory decision will determine whether connected vehicle equipment will become a mandated or option vehicle system. A key component of this plan is gathering field data to prove feasibility of CVCs in the real world and driver acceptance. Under the Safety Pilot Roadmap, The Crash Avoidance Metrics Partnership (CAMP) Vehicle Safety Communications 3 (VSC3) Consortium will lead Light Vehicle Driver Clinics to gather such data. VTTI has been selected to serve as the Driver Clinics Supervisor (DCS) for the Driver Acceptance Clinics (DACs).

There will be six DACs held from July 2011 to May 2012 at various locations in the United States, with the objective of obtaining data on driver acceptance of communication-based safety systems. As the DCS, VTTI will direct and supervise the planning, protocol development, human subjects protections, and execution activities conducted by the Driver Clinics Conductor (DCC) with the assistance of the VSC3 original equipment manufacturer (OEM) personnel and the USDOT. In these DACs, volunteers will drive vehicles equipped with Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) safety applications on a closed test track under controlled conditions to experience the V2V safety applications. VTTI will develop subjective evaluation surveys/questionnaires, manage the Independent Review Board (IRB) process, conduct data analysis of the subjective data gathered from participant surveys and focus groups, and participate in dry-run driver clinics prior to execution of the DACs.

After each DAC has been completed, system performance testing will also be performed at each location to assess hardware and software performance and reliability in diverse geographic regions of the country (i.e. unique terrain, urban vs. rural locations) under real-world conditions. VTTI will develop the data acquisition system (DAS) necessary to record performance evaluation data, install the device on the vehicles, support VSC3 in establishing performance tests metrics, execute performance testing, and analyze the data acquired.