Kees Wevers

Technical feasibility of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) for road traffic safety

This paper explores the technical feasibility of five Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS) functions to contribute to road traffic safety, to reach stated European (EU) and national road traffic safety targets. These functions – enhanced navigation, speed assistance, collision avoidance, intersection support and lane keeping – were selected from previous research as adequate substitutes for infrastructure related measures. State-of-the-art enabling technologies (like positioning, radar, laser, vision and communication) and their potential are analysed from a technical perspective, and possible obstacles for large-scale dedicated ADAS implementation for road traffic safety are discussed.

Grey System Theory and Applications: A Way Forward

Grey system theory was initiated in the beginning of 1980s. Since then the research on theory development and applications is progressing. However, until today nearly all researchers of grey system theory are from Chinese speaking areas, and the theory is still hardly known nor accepted in the western world. The paper addresses the state-of-the-art development of grey system theory and its application. It aims to highlight and analyse relevant issues (i.e. obstacles, possible solutions and potential trends) for further research from the perspective both of grey system theory and of the grey system methods.

Modelling and Forecasting Traffic Safety Improvement:Infrastructure Redesign vs Driving Assistance Systems

Both large-scale physical infrastructure redesign and extensive use of in- vehicle driving assistance systems can contribute to improving road traffic safety. Limited availability of effect data (historical and estimated) for both alternatives is hampering long-term strategic analysis of their potential effects. This paper investigates the use of a first-order and one- variable grey model, denoted as GM (1,1), to forecast the trend of the reduction of traffic accident severity (in terms of fatalities and hospitalisations) through mentioned strategies and combinations thereof. Based on modelling the limited available data of the effects of the infrastructure redesign programme in The Netherlands for the period 1998-2002, we forecast the trend of fatalities and hospitalisations for the years 2003 until 2010. The result is compared with other traffic safety enhancement scenarios by using cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA). Error analysis shows that the applied model has a high degree of reliability. Therefore, the method (grey model and CEA) and the outcome of the analysis may contribute to planning and decision making concerning further appropriate steps to reach the ambitious Dutch road traffic safety goals for 2010.

AGORA-C Map-Based Location Referencing

This paper describes the AGORA-C method for map-based on-the-fly location referencing. Unlike the traffic message channel, location referencing based on precoding locations and location tables, the code is created when needed from a map database in the sending system, transmitted in a message, decoded with the map database in the receiving system, and then discarded. The presented method is a follow-up of earlier work in the AGORA project to improve code size and hit rate. The method now consists of a core profile for traffic information and hazard warning applications and an optional extended profile for destination locations that may not be present in the receiving map database. Extensive tests demonstrated a hit rate of about 98% and an average code size not larger than 34 bytes, which is well below the generally agreed number of 50 bytes for maximum acceptable average code size. The method is adopted for the Transport Protocol Expert Group automotive protocol, which is under development.

Implementation Road Map for In-Vehicle Safety Systems in China

A major side effect of the economic boom in China is a high number of traffic accidents. Besides traditional measures, such as legislation, regulation, education, and road infrastructure, road safety can be improved through the implementation of in-vehicle driving assistance systems as part of intelligent transportation systems. In this study, the traffic and transport situation and trends in China are analyzed, and the need for improving traffic safety through in-vehicle systems is addressed. Furthermore, potential solutions for enhancing road traffic safety by using in-vehicle driving assistance systems are investigated, and the implementation of such systems is priority-ranked by using a mathematical approach, gray relational analysis. In addition, a road map for the implementation of safety-oriented in-vehicle systems in China is proposed and discussed.