VTTI in the News
Award for Larger Naturalistic Driving Study
The National Academy of Sciences' (NAS) Strategic Highway Research Program 2 (SHRP 2) has awarded the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute (VTTI) $3 million for the Design of the In-Vehicle Driving Behavior and Crash Risk Study, the first stage of a multi-phase project that will ultimately become the largest naturalistic driving study ever conducted.
Studies Determine Accidents Not More Likely to Occur Because of Digital Billboards
The combined results of two separate studies that examine crash causation and statistical data and driver performance in relation to digital billboards were released today. The research offers conclusive evidence that traffic accidents are no more likely to happen in the presence of digital billboards than in their absence.
Teen Driving Study
Teen drivers, particularly during the first few months of independent driving, are at much higher crash risk when compared to other drivers. This period of elevated risk is probably due to some combination of inexperience and risk taking, but there is a major gap in our knowledge of the relative contribution and specific factors associated with this problem.
Thus, VTTI is conducting an 18-month study to better understand these problems. The study will examine how newly licensed teenagers drive and what behaviors are potentially the riskiest. The study is currently in the data collection phase; we hope to release results in the next 18 months to 2 years.
The 100-Car Naturalistic Driving Study
With the primary purpose of collecting pre-crash naturalistic driving data, over 100 individuals volunteered to drive their own (or leased) vehicles with specialized instrumentation for 12 - 13 months in the Northern Virginia/metropolitan DC area. The project was started in 2000, with an original project award of approximately $3.7 million.
The 100-Car Study was the first instrumented vehicle study undertaken with the primary purpose of collecting pre-crash naturalistic driving data. Drivers used these vehicles in their normal daily routines, were given no special instructions, no experimenter was present and the data collection instrumentation was unobtrusive.
The 100-Car Study and its follow-on analysis were co-sponsored by NHTSA, the Virginia Transportation Research Council (VTRC) and Virginia Tech.
The 100-Car Naturalistic Driving Study Phase II - Results of the 100-Car Field Experiment and The Impact of Driver Inattention on Near-Crash/Crash Risk: An Analysis of 100-Car Naturalistic Driving Study Data reports can be found here.