SHRP 2 Naturalistic Driving Study

The objective of the SHRP 2 Naturalistic Driving study, sponsored by the National Academies of Science – Strategic Highway Research Program 2, is to address the role of driver performance and behavior in traffic safety. This includes developing an understanding of how the driver interacts with and adapts to the vehicle, traffic environment, roadway characteristics, traffic control devices, and the environment. It also includes assessing the changes in collision risk associated with each of these factors and interactions. This information will support the development of new and improved countermeasures with greater effectiveness. 

Design of the In-Vehicle Driving Behavior Field Study (Project S05)

As one component project of the SHRP 2 NDS, the objective of the SHRP 2 Project S05: Design of the In-Vehicle Driving Behavior and Crash Risk Study (Study Design) was to plan the SHRP 2 Naturalistic Driving Study (NDS) which is designed to collect naturalistic or “real world” driving behavior, including kinematics and video, for approximately 3,100 volunteer drivers over a 2-year period beginning in fall/winter 2010 and yielding approximately 3,900 data years.  In addition, demographics, vehicle inventory, driver assessment, and crash investigation data will also be collected.  Six regions will serve as data collection sites to provide as wide a range of geography, weather, state laws, road types, and road usage as feasible.  Quality, management, and security protocols will be applied in the SHRP 2 NDS.  Data that are collected during the study are expected to provide researchers with a wealth of information related to driver behavior and crash causation. 

Technical Coordination and Quality Control (Project S06)

The objective of the SHRP 2 Project S06:  Technical Coordination and Quality Control is to provide oversight to the data collection contractors as well as to gather and store the data for future analysis projects.  The study incorporates an unobtrusive data collection system and features the best combination of desirable data that can be obtained within the cost and engineering constraints of a large project.  It was designed to meet the highest priority research needs.  Further, the resulting data, expected to exceed 1 petabyte in size—about the size of a thousand 1-terabyte hard drives — will provide a wealth of information regarding driving behavior, lane departures, and intersection activities, which are anticipated to be of interest to transportation safety researchers and others for at least 20 years.