At the 99th annual meeting of the Transportation Research Board (TRB) this week, U.S. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao took the opportunity to announce new transportation initiatives, including data collection expansions, first responder technologies, and advanced driver assistance systems.
Initiatives will consist of an expansion of the Partnership for Analytics Research in Traffic Safety (PARTS) program, which serves as a voluntary data collection vehicle for advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) like adaptive cruise control and lane assistants; the First Responder Safety Technology Pilot Program; and a standardized listing of recommended ADAS terminology.
“These safety initiatives will make a difference in saving lives and help prevent injuries among first responders and all road users,” Chao said.
The standardization listing is called Clearing the Confusion and will be run by the National Safety Council, AAA, Consumer Reports and J.D. Power. Based on ADAS system functionality, the Department hopes to take the mash of manufacturer language currently peppering ADAS systems and present a standard language that will make it clear these systems are there to help drivers.
PARTS will keep rolling into PARTS II, which will come to include almost 70 percent of the U.S. automobile market. The program’s ADAS data collection efforts will help researchers assess and guarantee the safety efficacy of these assistive technologies. So far, six manufacturers have participated in PARTS, to collect data on Automatic Emergency Braking Systems. It was determined that vehicles with that technology onboard reported 53 percent fewer rear-end collisions than those without the onboard technology.
The First Responder Safety Technology Pilot Program is new. It would invest up to $38 million into equipping emergency response vehicles and infrastructure with vehicle-to-everything communication technology, capitalizing on the 5.9 gigahertz safety band reserved by the FCC for transportation system use.