01080585

Component

U.S. Highway 191 in southwestern Montana has been identified as the location of a number of accident clusters. The accident rate is not significantly greater than that for similar highways with similar traffic densities but the accidents that do happen tend to receive great visibility. Because of the roadway geometry and the lack of practical alternative routes, crashes and incidents in this area have a disproportionate impact on transportation in this heavily traveled corridor. A rapid prototyping approach is being used in the driving simulation laboratory at the Western Transportation Institute (WTI) to simulate approximately 22 miles of U.S. 191 between the Big Sky Resort community and the northern mouth of the Gallatin Canyon. The simulations are used to help the Montana Department of Transportation (MDT) develop and refine safety countermeasures for that roadway. Custom roadway tiles for the simulation were designed and programmed from MDT’s “as built” plans for the highway, topographic maps, and video taken from a vehicle driving the route. Projected safety-related system deployments such as dynamic message signs and revised delineation can be electronically simulated on a geo-typical roadway. MDT engineers can “drive the roadway” to examine the impacts of prototype deployments. A sample of drivers can drive the scenarios to test the effectiveness of deployments. If changes in the systems are suggested, the simulation can be easily altered to represent the new specifications and the refinements. The primary benefit of the visualization and rapid prototyping approach using interactive, immersive simulators is that it provides an opportunity for formative evaluation, allowing engineers to refine the design at an early stage in the system development process before significant resources are invested in the deployment. The proposed system hardware and operations are all produced by computer graphics for a very small fraction of the cost of the actual deployment. Changes at this point may involve only a “click and drag” operation on a computer interface, changing one image for another, switching JPEG images of signs, or selecting alternative commands. By evaluating and refining the deployment early in the process, considerable time and money can be saved if changes need to be made to achieve the desired traffic objectives.

01080560

English

8p

2006

5th International Visualization in Transportation Symposium and Workshop

CD-ROM

Figures (9) ; References (5)

Computer graphics; Countermeasures; Crash avoidance systems; Driving simulators; High risk locations; Highway safety; Traffic crashes; Traffic incidents; Visualization

Formative evaluation; Rapid prototyping

Montana

Highways; Safety and Human Factors; I82: Accidents and Transport Infrastructure

TRIS, TRB

Nov 9 2007 11:00AM

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