Measurement Automation & Measurement System Research Endowment
- Authors
- Publication Date
- Oct 01, 2024
- Source
- DigitalCommons@CalPoly
- Keywords
- License
- Unknown
- External links
Abstract
Road travel safety is always the most important issue in transportation systems. In general, several factors cause road accidents, such as human error, vehicle mechanical failure, roadway limitations (e.g. pavement, lane geometry, etc.), and inclement weather conditions. The major focus of today’s transportation developments is related to making highway transportation safer, smarter, and greener to enhance livability. Many accidents are caused when drivers lack a better understanding of the surrounding traffic conditions because the driver not only needs to control his/her vehicle but also needs to be aware of the movements of the vehicles around him/her. A driver cannot be fully focused on the road continuously due to many factors, such as distractions or fatigue. A mobile wireless sensor network (MWSN) of interconnected vehicles and infrastructure has the potential to both improve traffic flow and increase safety for the traveling public. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) Joint Office, interconnected vehicle applications provide connectivity between and among vehicles, infrastructure, and wireless devices to prevent crashes, provide safety, mobility, and environmental benefits, and provide continuous real-time connectivity to all users. These systems enable drivers to have 360-degree awareness through vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) connectivity. Collectively V2V and V2I connectivity can be called V2X communication. In addition to providing information to drivers, this connectivity generates an enormous amount of new data about traffic patterns and road usage. ITS can apply this data for both short-term routing decisions and long-term planning for improved safety and reduced congestion. These short- and long-term optimizations at both the vehicle and infrastructure levels will enable vehicles to reach optimal fuel efficiency. Travel safety can be improved if vehicles can be designed to form groups for mutual interaction with each other to form a MWSN through V2X communications for intelligent transportation systems (ITS). With an increasing capacity of sensors available on vehicles, a need has arisen to make collaborative measurements of the information collected by individual vehicles to form an enhanced data set to improve the inter-vehicle safety features. Vehicles of the future will communicate both with each other and with the infrastructure to better serve drivers with autonomous maneuvering, traffic data for improved navigation and route optimization, analytics for increased traffic flow and safety, and automatic accident reporting for reduced emergency response times.