Impact of Connected-Vehicle Market Penetration on the Effectiveness of Blind Spot Warning Applications: A Driving Simulation Study

This study evaluates the safety benefits of a blind spot warning application at low, medium, and high market penetrations of connected vehicles using a high-fidelity driving simulator. Using vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication, connected vehicles can exchange information to alert drivers of vehicles in blind spots and reduce potential crashes during lane change maneuvers. A connected vehicle test bed in the driving simulator was developed to establish a network of connected vehicles that relay safety warnings to the driver. More specifically, visual and auditory blind spot warnings were presented to the driver, dependent on the level of urgency, when there was a connected vehicle approaching the simulator vehicle’s blind spot. To test the impact of market penetration on the effectiveness of a Blind Spot Warning Application, four simulation scenarios were developed with zero, 25%, 50%, and 75% market penetration rates. A total of 81 participants were recruited to participate in a 15-minute experiment within the driving simulator. Drivers were instructed to make lane change maneuvers within a four-lane roadway whenever they felt comfortable. For each lane change, the simulator vehicle and blind spot vehicle’s speeds and gaps were collected. Two non-parametric tests, along with a post-hoc pairwise test, were used to compare the significance each market penetration rate had on the minimum time to collision and the variance of the speed of the subject vehicle and blind spot vehicle. The results concluded that a medium level of market penetration (50%) is required to achieve significant safety improvement from blind spot warning applications.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee AND20 Standing Committee on User Information Systems.
• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Theriot, Matthew
  • Osman, Osama A
  • Ishak, Sherif
  • Alecsandru, Ciprian
  • Mousa, Saleh R
  • Bakhit, Peter R
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 96th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2017-1-8 to 2017-1-12
• Date: 2017

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; Photos; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 14p
• Monograph Title: TRB 96th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Audible warning devices in vehicles; Blind spots; Crash avoidance systems; Lane changing; Market share; Technological innovations; Vehicle fleets; Vehicle to vehicle communications; Warning signals
• Subject Areas: Highways; Safety and Human Factors; Vehicles and Equipment;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01626308
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 17-04930
• Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Feb 22 2017 9:55AM