Automotive Engineering Commons^™

Enhancing Bridge Resilience And Overheight Vehicle Mitigation Through Innovative Sacrificial Cushion Systems, Aly Mousaad Aly, Marc Hoffmann

Faculty Publications

Transportation departments have made significant strides in addressing the challenges posed by the increasing weights of trucks on bridges. While there is a growing awareness of overheight vehicle collisions with bridges, implementing effective countermeasures remains limited. The susceptibility of bridges to damage from such collisions is on the rise, further exacerbated by unpredictable lateral impact forces. This study employs nonlinear impact analysis to assess the response of an unprotected vehicle-girder model, yielding realistic deformation outcomes comparable to observed impacts on the US-61 bridge. Predictions for a truck traveling at 112.65 km/h indicate deformations of 0.229 m, 0.161 m, and 0.271 …

Developing Takeover Request Warning System To Improve Takeover Time And Post-Takeover Performance In Level 3 Automated Drivin, Niloy Talukder

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The automotive industry is shifting towards partial (level 3) or fully automated vehicles. An important research question in level 3 automated driving is how quickly drivers can take over the vehicle control in response to a critical event. In this regard, this study develops an integrated takeover request (TOR) system which provides visual and auditorial TOR warning in both vehicle interface and personal portable device (e.g., tablet). The study also evaluated the effectiveness of the integrated TOR system in reducing the takeover time and improving post-takeover performance. For these purposes, 44 drivers participated in the driving simulator experiment where they …

Engineering Countermeasures For Left Turns At Signalized Intersections: A Review, Siby Samuel, Amandeep Singh, Yusuke Yamani

Psychology Faculty Publications

Left turn crashes can impact the safety of the drivers due to the speed and angle at which they occur. Left turns are specifically reported to affect older drivers more than the other types of crashes. This paper provides a review of the existing engineering countermeasures that have been evaluated to improve driver safety at left turns. Twenty- eight studies on left turn signal displays (protected left turns, flashing yellow arrow, and digital countdown timers), intersection geometry (offset left turn lanes, diverging diamond interchange, roundabouts, exit lanes for left turn, left turn bay extension, and contraflow left turn lanes), and …

Development Of An Improved Arterial Roadway Performance Reliability Methodology, Ernest Tufuor

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The need for reliable performance measures of urban arterial roadways is increasing because of the rise in traffic congestion and the high value of travel time. Consequently, travel time reliability (TTR), which combines components of measures of central tendency and measures of dispersion of travel times, has recently received considerable research interest.

The basis of all TTR metrics is the travel time distribution (TTD). Estimating and forecasting arterial TTDs for TTR analysis is the focus of this dissertation. This dissertation proposes a new TTR methodology that is a marked improvement on recent TTR estimation and forecasting methodologies including the current …

The Future State Of Mobility, Jerome Quandt

Purdue Road School

Formed in 2018, the Illinois Autonomous Vehicles Association (ILAVA) is a privately funded non-for-profit organization focused on establishing thought leadership in the state of Illinois, by identifying and addressing the current and emerging opportunities related to the inevitable growth of CAV technologies throughout the transportation network. Through the deployment of scalable and sustainable business solutions, facilitating industry education and establishing thought leadership, ILAVA is creating an ecosystem that defines Illinois as #TheFutureStateofMobility.

Development Of A Test Level 3 Transition Between Guardrail And Portable Concrete Barriers, Robert W. Bielenberg, David Gutierrez, Ronald K. Faller, John D. Reid, Phil Tenhulzen

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Faculty Publications

Road construction often requires that work zones be created and shielded by portable concrete barriers (PCBs) to protect workers and equipment from errant vehicles as well as to prevent motorists from striking other roadside hazards. For an existing W-beam guardrail system installed adjacent to the roadway and near the work zone, guardrail sections are removed so a PCB system can be placed. A study was done to develop a crashworthy transition between W-beam guardrail and PCB systems. Design concepts were developed and refined through computer simulation with LS-DYNA. Additionally, a study of critical impact points was conducted to determine impact …

Investigating The Relationship Between Latent Driving Patterns And Traffic Safety Using Smartphone-Based Mobile Sensor Data, Kenneth Wynne

Civil & Environmental Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Crash frequency modelling has been used in the past as an attempt to quantify the expected number of crashes occurring on a certain segment of roadway given a set of variables and factors describing the roadway segment and the traffic along that segment. These models are referred to as the Safety Performance Functions (SPFs) in the Highway Safety Manual (HSM). In past studies, these SPFs have focused primarily on roadway geometric information along with limited traffic exposure data such as traffic volume. Alternate data sources for probe vehicle data are increasingly available and this research sought to exploit this new …

3d Infrastructure Condition Assessment For Rail Highway Applications, Teng Wang

Theses and Dissertations--Civil Engineering

Highway roughness is a concern for both the motoring public and highway authorities. Roughness may even increase the risk of crashes. Rail-highway grade crossings are particularly problematic. Roughness may be due to deterioration or simply due to the way the crossing was built to accommodate grade change, local utilities, or rail elevation. With over 216,000 crossings in the US, maintenance is a vast undertaking. While methods are available to quantify highway roughness, no method exists to quantitatively assess the condition of rail crossings. Conventional inspection relies on a labor-intensive process of qualitative judgment. A quantifiable, objective and extensible procedure for …

A Simplified Method For Analyzing Factors Contributing To Motorcyclists’ Fatal Injuries In Ohio, Deogratias Eustace, Vamsi Krishna Indupuru

Deogratias Eustace

The aim of this paper was to analyze traffic crash data by using a simplified method in determining significant factors that increase the risk of a motorcyclist being fatally injured once involved in a motorcycle crash in Ohio. The concept of overrepresentation, which is similar to relative risk, was used in identifying significant variables associated with the elevated risk of a motorcycle crash resulting into a fatality. The overrepresentation factor (ORF) was calculated for each variable of interest. The ORF offers a simple but powerful procedure of determining whether a certain factor significantly occurs more or less frequently in one …

Virtual Analysis And Evaluation Of Roundabout Safety And Operational Features, Elisha Jackson Wankogere

Masters Theses

Roundabouts can be a solution to safety concerns present at other types of intersections. Recently in the United States, there has been an increase in conversion of problematic intersections to roundabouts to improve their safety. However, it is difficult to make these roundabouts, especially multi-lane roundabouts, safe to all ranges of users. Roundabout features such as advance warning and signage play an important role in determining driver performance as they navigate the roundabout.

This research is an effort to evaluate new and existing roundabout safety and operational features such as signs and pavement markings and how they influence performance of …

Exploring Factors Contributing To Injury Severity At Freeway Merging And Diverging Locations In Ohio, Worku Y. Mergia, Deogratias Eustace, Deo Chimba, Maher Butros Qumsiyeh

Civil and Environmental Engineering and Engineering Mechanics Faculty Publications

Identifying factors that affect crash injury severity and understanding how these factors affect injury severity is critical in planning and implementing highway safety improvement programs. Factors such as driver-related, traffic-related, environment-related and geometric design-related were considered when developing statistical models to predict the effects of these factors on the severity of injuries sustained from motor vehicle crashes at merging and diverging locations. Police-reported crash data at selected freeway merging and diverging areas in the state of Ohio were used for the development of the models. A generalized ordinal logit model also known as partial proportional odds model was applied to …

The Role Of Driver Age And Gender In Motor Vehicle Fatal Crashes, Heng Wei, Deogratias Eustace

Civil and Environmental Engineering and Engineering Mechanics Faculty Publications

This study compares the age and gender of at-fault drivers who were involved in fatal crashes and the corresponding driving errors that contributed to these crashes. This comparison provides insights that may help traffic engineers devise countermeasures to lessen the number of these unnecessary deaths. Data from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) for the years 2001 through 2003 were used in this study. The analysis included passenger vehicles (automobiles, utility vehicles, minivans, and pickup trucks) involved in either single or two vehicle crashes. The driver responsible in each crash was identified through the driver error variable codes as listed …