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Volpe Center Highlights - September/October 2002

Papers and Presentations

Director's Notes | Focus | Safety | Mobility and Economic Growth
Human and Natural Environment | Organizational Excellence | Homeland Security
Awards | Papers and Presentations

(Cover reproduction by permission of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, P.O. Box 1369, Santa Monica, CA 90406. http://hfes.org)

• Dr. Tom Sheridan of the Operator Performance and Safety Analysis Division has completed a new book, "Humans and Automation: System Design and Research Issues." The book introduces system designers and engineers to the relations between human operators or users and the ever-increasing automation in transportation (aviation, rail, and highway), communication, manufacturing and chemical process, health care, and other fields. It provides an historical context for human factors and automation and describes how the two domains interact to ensure a system in which the human and machine operate with efficiency and safety. The book was co-published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, and is available from either organization.

• Dr. Wassim Najm of the Accident Prevention Division gave a presentation on estimating the safety benefits of crash avoidance systems at the National Intelligent Vehicle Initiative (IVI) meeting held in Washington, D.C., on May 15 and 16, 2002. His talk covered the DOT's efforts to estimate the safety benefits of crash warning and advisory systems, including safety-benefit measures; the challenge in projecting these measures for non-deployed systems; and the DOT's approach to dealing with this challenge. He also summarized DOT's efforts, past and present, to develop safety-benefit estimates for selected systems, and described ongoing Volpe Center research to support the benefits-estimation effort. NHTSA's Office of Vehicle Safety Research sponsors Volpe's work.

• Dr. Eugene Gilbo of the Automation Applications Division participated in the O'Hare Delay Task Force (ODTF), which was created in June 2001 by the FAA and the City of Chicago. The purpose of the ODTF was to identify a comprehensive set of alternatives to reduce delays at Chicago O'Hare International Airport and to examine the merit of each alternative. The Task Force included a wide spectrum of local and national stakeholder representatives. Dr. Gilbo participated at the request of the FAA; his contribution is directly related to Volpe's work for the FAA Collaborative Decision Making program. On June 21, 2002, the Task Force issued a final technical report. The report describes 82 delay-reduction alternatives identified by the ODTF Working Groups, and summarizes the technical analysis and benefits of each delay-reduction alternative. Dr. Gilbo presented a delay-reduction alternative that was included in the report as "Improved Processing Rate Procedures" to increase the airfield efficiency by optimizing runway use.

• Ms. Suzanne Sloan of the Planning and Policy Analysis Division gave a presentation at the ITS New York Annual Meeting on June 7, 2002, to approximately 100 local practitioners of intelligent transportation systems (ITS). Ms. Sloan explained how the DOT's ITS Professional Capacity Building (PCB) Program can help them meet the new federal requirements for implementing a regional ITS architecture. Ms. Sloan made the presentation at the request of Mr. Ron Giguere, PCB Program Coordinator.

• On June 7, 2002, the Motor Carrier Safety Assessment Division delivered a final report titled "Intrastate Motor Carrier Safety Assessment System: Feasibility and Recommended Approach" to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA). The report was written by Acting Division Chief Donald Wright, Mr. Krishna Jain, and Mr. David Madsen. Over the past several years, Volpe has developed, maintained, and improved SafeStat, an automated analysis system that determines the safety status of individual interstate motor carriers for national FMCSA safety improvement programs. The FMCSA requested that the Division expand the safety assessment capability to intrastate carriers using a SafeStat-like approach. This study focused on three states, Connecticut, Kentucky, and Oregon, which have been supplying FMCSA with intrastate carrier safety data. The results of the study demonstrated that intrastate data could produce meaningful SafeStat assessments using data available at the federal level. Connecticut has already successfully integrated its "Intrastate SafeStat" results with state operations data, and Utah, Texas, and Arizona have inquired about obtaining the system.

SafeStat assesses motor carriers for safety and makes the results available online.

• Mr. William Lyons of the Planning and Policy Analysis Division participated in a workshop on "Benchmarking Transport Policy" at the invitation of the European Commission (EC) Directorate-General for Transport and Energy. The EC is the administrative body of the European Union. The workshop, held June 10-11, 2002, in Brussels, Belgium, was part of the EC's Benchmarking European Sustainable Transport project. Workshop participants assessed the use of benchmarking in the development, implementation, and evaluation of transportation policy and provided recommendations to the EC on the development of benchmarking to assist in the implementation of sustainable transport policies in Europe. Mr. Lyons presented "The U.S. Framework for Transportation Policy: The Role of Benchmarking."

GPS uses a minimum of 24 satellites and ground receivers to track movement for navigation. (Illustrated by Norris S. Padmore)

• On June 26, 2002, Dr. James Carroll of the Center for Navigation presented a paper at the Royal Institute of Navigation in London, UK, at a meeting titled "When GPS Fails -- What Happens?" Dr. Carroll's presentation discussed the Volpe Center's vulnerability assessment of the global positioning system (GPS). The issues raised by the Volpe vulnerability assessment have particular relevance to satellite navigation users in Europe.

Noise barriers reduce the sound that enters a community from a busy highway. (Photo courtesy of Environmental Measurement and Modeling Division)

• Mr. Gregg Fleming and Dr. Judith Rochat of the Environmental Measurement and Modeling Division participated in the Transportation Research Board's Summer Workshop on Transportation Related Noise and Vibration, held in Austin, Texas, July 7-10, 2002. Mr. Fleming chaired the Committee on Transportation Related Noise. Dr. Rochat chaired the Subcommittee on Highway Noise and presented the paper "FHWA's Traffic Noise Model Validation Study: Phase 1 Results." The Volpe Center supports the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), Office of Natural Environment, in the development of the FHWA's Traffic Noise Model, a computer model for the design of highway noise barriers.

• The Volpe Center supports the U.S. Coast Guard Research and Development Center by assessing onboard ballast water treatment systems, whose purpose is to prevent the discharge of aquatic nuisance species into coastal waters. On July 11, 2002, the project team, led by Mr. Michael Dyer of the Technology Applications and Deployment Division, delivered the draft report "Assessment of Matson M/V R.J. Pfeiffer Alternative Ballast Water Treatment System" to the sponsor. (The R.J. Pfeiffer is a container ship.) The report includes a full engineering assessment of the experimental onboard treatment system, its interface with the ship, and a review of the biological measurements of the system's effectiveness.

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