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Volpe Center Highlights - August 1999

Safety

Director's Notes | Focus | Safety | Mobility | Human and Natural Environment |
Economic Growth and Trade | National Security | Published and Presented

Promote public health and safety by working toward the elimination of transportation-related deaths, injuries, and property damage.

Railroad Safety Tests Conducted

The Volpe Center is supporting the Federal Railroad Administration's (FRA) Office of Research and Development in the area of track buckling prevention and track stability. Dr. Andrew Kish and Mr. Andrew Sluz, of the Structures and Dynamics Division; Mr. Harold Harrison, President, and Dr. Thomas McCanney, Senior Engineer, of Salient Systems, Inc.; and Mr. Larry Doll, of the Union Pacific Railroad (UP), recently visited the UP's railroad test site outside Omaha, NE. Part of the program has been to support development of a means of monitoring axial forces and neutral temperature changes in continuous welded rail through remote sensing modules (RSM) that measure force and temperature and can be accessed by cell phone. The tests are part of a cooperative research program between FRA, Volpe, and UP; they evaluate the performance of the RSMs in high tonnage service, to track neutral temperature changes, and to monitor thermal buckling safety, as well as to add to the Volpe Center's thermal buckling database. The Center downloads rail force and temperature data twice daily. To date, the neutral temperature has dropped only slightly through the section. Lateral track movements from the RSMs have been measured throughout the day as the temperature changes, but little or no evidence of "curve breathing" (stress relaxation caused by the rail moving out as the temperature rises) has been found.

Key Participation in European Conference on Transport Psychology

Dr. Mary D. Stearns, of the Operator Performance and Safety Analysis Division, gave a presentation entitled "Implementation of a Computer Aided Dispatch/Automatic Vehicle Locator System (CAD/AVL): Response of the Bus Drivers" at the European Conference on Transport Psychology in Angers, France. The presentation identified the human factors issues which arose when a bus operator installed new technology to upgrade communication, improve safety, and provide real-time vehicle surveillance. The technology changed some work procedures and the bus drivers had difficulty learning the new communication and alarm procedures. This research illustrated the importance of consulting with the eventual users of a new technology and to facilitate their understanding of new features. Dr. Stearns also chaired a workshop session.

Presentation at Society of Automotive Engineers Future Technology Conference (NHTSA)

Messrs. Wassim G. Najm, Marco P. DaSilva, and Christopher J. Wiacek, of the Accident Prevention Division, presented their paper, "Safety Benefits Estimation of an Intelligent Cruise Control System Using Field Operational Test Data," at the August 1999 Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) Future Technology Conference, held in Costa Mesa, CA. The technical paper was prepared as part of a collision avoidance research project being conducted by the Volpe Center for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). The paper provides an assessment of the potential safety benefits of an Intelligent Cruise Control system in terms of the number of rear-end crashes that might be avoided on U.S. freeways if all vehicles were equipped with such a system.

Volpe Center Supports FAA in Optimizing AMASS at 34 Airports

Recently, Messrs. Ian McWilliams, David Olster, and Brendan English, of the Airport Surface Division, performed the first optimization of the Airport Movement Area Safety System (AMASS), at Atlanta's Hartsfield International Airport. AMASS is one of a number of systems developed and evaluated under the Runway Incursion Reduction Program (RIRP); the Volpe Center's Airport Surface Division supports the FAA Integrated Product Team for Terminal Surveillance and Weather in efforts to prevent runway incursions. The Integrated Product Team, in its effort to provide safe and efficient management of air traffic, is particularly concerned with airport surface safety because of the concentration and mix of traffic. AMASS uses the Airport Surface Detection Equipment (ASDE-3) surveillance radar to provide surface (i.e., aircraft and ground vehicle) target information, which it processes to obtain and project target tracks and to alert controllers of potential conflicts. The Volpe Center has been assigned the role of optimizing the AMASS at each of the 34 airports that are scheduled to receive the system; the Atlanta effort represented the first part of the overall system optimization. The optimization process involves modifying system parameters in order to achieve a higher level of on-site adaptation and to reduce false alarms. The two-week Atlanta effort focused on optimizing the system for the follow-on Operational Test and Evaluation (OT&E). This was the first of a series of tests in order to ensure that the system is ready for operational use. This optimization effort was specific to OT&E; future system optimizations will require eight to ten weeks to complete.

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