Evaluation Methodology of Leader-Follower Autonomous Vehicle System for Work Zone Maintenance

2021 ◽  
pp. 036119812098523
Author(s):  
Qing Tang ◽  
Yanqiu Cheng ◽  
Xianbiao Hu ◽  
Chenxi Chen ◽  
Yang Song ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Autonomous Vehicles ◽  
Autonomous Vehicle ◽  
Academic Research ◽  
Field Testing ◽  
Evaluation Methodology ◽  
The Public ◽  
Testing Procedures ◽  
Analysis Methodology ◽  
Highway Transportation ◽  
Promising Solution

Mobile and slow-moving operations, such as striping, sweeping, bridge flushing, and pothole patching, are critical for efficient and safe operation of a highway transportation system. However, reducing hazards for roadway workers and achieving a safer environment for both roadway maintenance operators and the public is a challenging problem. In 2017 alone, a total of 158,000 vehicle crashes occurred in work zones in the U.S.A., accounting for 61,000 injuries. The autonomous truck-mounted attenuator (ATMA) vehicle, sometimes referred to as an autonomous impact protection vehicle (AIPV), offers a promising solution to eliminate injuries to roadway maintenance workers and the public. This paper presents the evaluation methodology for the ATMA system, as well as the outcomes of field testing in Sedalia, Missouri. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first academic research to focus on ATMA. The ATMA system is first reviewed, followed by an introduction to the field testing procedures that includes descriptions of test cases and data collected, and their format. An analysis methodology is then proposed to quantitatively evaluate the system’s performance, and statistical models and hypothesis testing procedures are developed and presented. The numerical analysis results from real-world field testing under a controlled environment are presented, and the ATMA system’s performance is summarized. This paper can serve as a reference for transportation agencies that are interested in deploying similar technologies or for academic researchers to assess characteristics of autonomous vehicles and to apply knowledge gained in transportation modeling and simulation practices.

Development of Operation Guidelines for Leader–Follower Autonomous Maintenance Vehicles at Work Zone Locations

2021 ◽  
pp. 036119812110566
Author(s):  
Qing Tang ◽  
Xianbiao Hu ◽  
Ruwen Qin
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Autonomous Vehicle ◽  
Field Testing ◽  
Work Zone ◽  
Lane Changing ◽  
The Public ◽  
Car Following ◽  
Technical Requirements ◽  
Car Following Model ◽  
Niche Area

The rapid advancement of connected and autonomous vehicle (CAV) technologies, although possibly years away from wide application to the general public travel, are receiving attention from many state Departments of Transportation (DOT) in the niche area of using autonomous maintenance technology (AMT) to reduce fatalities of DOT workers in work zone locations. Although promising results are shown in testing and deployments in several states, current autonomous truck mounted attenuator (ATMA) system operators are not provided with much practical driving guidance on how to drive these new vehicle systems in a way that is safe to both the public and themselves. To this end, this manuscript aims to model and develop a set of rules and instructions for ATMA system operators, particularly when it comes to critical locations where essential decision making is needed. Specifically, three technical requirements are investigated: car-following distance, critical lane-changing gap distance, and intersection clearance time. Newell’s simplified car-following model, and the classic lane-changing behavior model are modified, with roll-ahead distance taken into account, to model the driving behaviors of the ATMA vehicles at those critical decision-making locations. Data are collected from real-world field testing to calibrate and validate the developed models. The modeling outputs suggest important thresholds for ATMA system operators to follow. For example, on a freeway with a speed limit of 70 mph and ATMA operating speed of 10 mph, car-following distance should be no less than 75 ft for the lead truck and 100 ft for the follower truck, the critical lane-changing gap distance is 912 ft, and a minimum intersection clearance is 15 s, which are all much higher than the requirements for a general vehicle.

scholarly journals The City-Wide Impacts of the Interactions between Shared Autonomous Vehicle-Based Mobility Services and the Public Transportation System

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (12) ◽  
pp. 6725
Author(s):  
Sehyun Tak ◽  
Soomin Woo ◽  
Sungjin Park ◽  
Sunghoon Kim
Keyword(s):  
Public Transportation ◽  
Autonomous Vehicles ◽  
Impact Analysis ◽  
Autonomous Vehicle ◽  
The Public ◽  
Private Vehicle ◽  
Simulation Based ◽  
Mode Share

When attempts are made to incorporate shared autonomous vehicles (SAVs) into urban mobility services, public transportation (PT) systems are affected by the changes in mode share. In light of that, a simulation-based method is presented herein for analyzing the manner in which mode choices of local travelers change between PT and SAVs. The data used in this study were the modal split ratios measured based on trip generation in the major cities of South Korea. Subsequently, using the simulated results, a city-wide impact analysis method is proposed that can reflect the differences between the two mode types with different travel behaviors. As the supply–demand ratio of SAVs increased in type 1 cities, which rely heavily on PT, use of SAVs gradually increased, whereas use of PT and private vehicles decreased. Private vehicle numbers significantly reduced only when SAVs and PT systems were complementary. In type 2 cities, which rely relatively less on PT, use of SAVs gradually increased, and use of private vehicles decreased; however, no significant impact on PT was observed. Private vehicle numbers were observed to reduce when SAVs were operated, and the reduction was a minimum of thrice that in type 1 cities when SAVs and PT systems interacted. Our results can therefore aid in the development of strategies for future SAV–PT operations.

scholarly journals How virtue signalling makes us better: Moral preferences with respect to autonomous vehicle type choices

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robin Kopecky ◽  
Michaela Košová ◽  
Daniel D. Novotný ◽  
Jaroslav Flegr ◽  
David Černý
Keyword(s):  
Autonomous Vehicles ◽  
Autonomous Vehicle ◽  
Biological Species ◽  
Transportation Systems ◽  
Personal Choice ◽  
Moral Issues ◽  
Web Based ◽  
The Public ◽  
Vehicle Type ◽  
Research Questions

Autonomous vehicles (henceforth AVs) are expected to significantly benefit our transportation systems, their safety, efficiency, and impact on environment. However, many technical, social, legal, and moral questions and challenges concerning AVs and their introduction to the mass market still remain. One of the pressing moral issues has to do with the choice between AV types that differ in their built-in algorithms for dealing with situations of unavoidable lethal collision. In this paper we present the results of our study of moral preferences with respect to three types of AVs: (1) selfish AVs that protect the lives of passenger(s) over any number of bystanders; (2) altruistic AVs that minimize the number of casualties, even if this leads to death of passenger(s); and (3) conservative AVs that abstain from interfering in such situations even if it leads to the death of a higher number of subjects or death of passenger(s). We furthermore differentiate between scenarios in which participants are to make their decisions privately or publicly, and for themselves or for their offspring. We disregard gender, age, health, biological species and other characteristics of (potential) casualties that can affect the preferences and decisions of respondents in our scenarios. Our study is based on a sample of 2769 mostly Czech volunteers (1799 women, 970 men; age IQR: 25-32). The data come from our web-based questionnaire which was accessible from May 2017 to December 2017. We aim to answer the following two research questions: (1) Whether the public visibility of an AV type choice makes this choice more altruistic and (2) which type of situation is more problematic with regard to the altruistic choice: opting for society as a whole, for oneself, or for one’s offspring.Our results show that respondents exhibit a clear preference for an altruistic utilitarian strategy for AVs. This preference is reinforced if the AV signals its strategy to others. The altruistic preference is strongest when people choose software for everybody else, weaker in personal choice, and weakest when choosing for one’s own child. Based on the results we conclude that, in contrast to a private choice, a public choice is considerably more likely to pressure consumers in their personal choice to accept a non-selfish solution, making it a reasonable and relatively cheap way to shift car owners and users towards higher altruism. Also, a hypothetical voting in Parliament about a single available program is less selfish when the voting does not take place in secret.

A new hesitant fuzzy KEMIRA approach: An application to adoption of autonomous vehicles

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Sezi Çevik Onar ◽  
Cengiz Kahraman ◽  
Başar Öztayşi
Keyword(s):  
Autonomous Vehicles ◽  
Selection Process ◽  
New Technology ◽  
Autonomous Vehicle ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Evaluation Methodology ◽  
Adoption Process ◽  
Human Judgment ◽  
Linguistic Term ◽  
Fuzzy Linguistic

Autonomous vehicles are one of the emergent advances of the new technology era that has the prospective to redesign transportation structures. Understanding and measuring the limitations of adopting autonomous vehicles and selecting the best autonomous vehicle based on different aspects is crucial for enhancing the adoption process. Defining the criteria and the appropriate evaluation methodology is very important for selecting the best autonomous vehicles. However, this selection process is a human judgment-based process where both benefit and cost criteria with imprecise linguistic assessments should be considered. The KEmeny Median Indicator Ranks Accordance (KEMIRA) method is a method that enables ranking the benefit and cost criteria independently. In this paper, a new KEMIRA method based on hesitant fuzzy linguistic term sets is defined. Hesitant Fuzzy Linguistic Term Sets (HFLTS) are newly utilized to represent the hesitancy of the decision-makers. The proposed new KEMIRA is approach the first study that defines the alternative scores and weights of the criteria via HFLTS. The computational steps of the new model are applied to autonomous vehicle selection. A real application is employed to show the applicability of the new KEMIRA method.

scholarly journals How Connected Autonomous Vehicles Would Affect Our World? —— A Literature Review on the Impacts of CAV on Road Capacity, Environment and Public Attitude

2019 ◽  
Vol 296 ◽  
pp. 01007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shuya Zong
Keyword(s):  
Stochastic Models ◽  
Autonomous Vehicles ◽  
Penetration Rate ◽  
Rapid Development ◽  
Autonomous Vehicle ◽  
Public Attitude ◽  
Gas Emission ◽  
The Public ◽  
Road Capacity ◽  
Future Condition

With the rapid development of technology, connected autonomous vehicle (CAV) is getting close to the reality. The application of CAV causes changes to road capacity, gas emission, public attitude and other realms. Lots of efforts have been spent in quantifying the potential changes and this paper is an attempt to review the relevant researches. There will be three sections, presenting review of the impacts on road capacity, environment and public attitude respectively. There is a large amount of papers making models to predict future road capacity with various penetration rate of CAV and they obtain quite different interesting results. To predict the future condition more properly, more stochastic models should be proposed. In terms of influence on environment, it may be hard to conclude whether CAV will exacerbate or relieve global warming by looking at current researches. It would be valuable to conduct a quantitative analysis on this issue. For the public attitude, this paper mainly focus on whether people are willing to use CAV and future efforts that may help with the promotion of CAV.

scholarly journals Self-driving cars and liability in traffic - reality or fiction?

2018 ◽  
pp. 769-776
Author(s):  
Natasa Tomic-Petrovic
Keyword(s):  
Autonomous Vehicles ◽  
Technological Development ◽  
Autonomous Vehicle ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
The Self ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
The Public ◽  
Private Transportation ◽  
Self Driving Cars ◽  
The City

Self-driving vehicles are considered to be the technology that will change the city, public and private transportation, as well as the concept of mobility in general. The great obstacle to self-driving vehicles are legal conditions, although the situation in this area is slowly changing. It is indeed true that producers need to gain more experience in testing vehicles without a driver on public roads before this technology is offered to the general public. The expansion of autonomous vehicles will depend on the public belief that the self-driving cars are considerably safer than those manually-controlled. Lawmakers intercede in favor of a balance between security and technological development. There should not be place for unsafe technologies on the roads, but the solution is not to prevent the easier way for vehicles that improve safety to reach consumers. If a man is not driving the vehicle, that appoints responsibility to the manufacturer of the self-driving operating system of the car in the event of a collision. Clarification of the blame for the accident will sometimes entail complex issues of allocating responsibility of man as the driver and those who provide technology of autonomous vehicle. The issue of privacy of the owner is also one of the current ones, because these data could be misused. Protection of privacy of the passenger should be in balance with the gain that the utilization of data brings. Self-driving cars may have to wait if the existing legal framework does not offer sufficient legal certainty.

scholarly journals From Trolleys to Risk: Models for Ethical Autonomous Driving

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Noah J. Goodall
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Autonomous Vehicles ◽  
Autonomous Vehicle ◽  
Autonomous Driving ◽  
Public Health Issue ◽  
Ethical Challenges ◽  
Risk Models ◽  
Health Implications ◽  
The Public ◽  
Crash Rates

The article by Fleetwood in this issue of AJPH provides an overview of the public health implications of highly automated vehicles, with a focus on the ethics of a vehicle’s behavior when a crash is unavoidable, that is, its “ethical crashing algorithms.” Although autonomous vehicles are widely expected to reduce crash rates, those benefits may not be distributed equitably, and some users may receive more benefit than others. Just as airbags save many, they also kill a few that would otherwise not have died. This creates a smaller but persistent public health issue, and the authors provide a helpful exploration of the unique ethical challenges created by the (hopefully) rare autonomous vehicle crashes.

scholarly journals ROV Navigation in a Fish Cage with Laser-Camera Triangulation

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 79
Author(s):  
Magnus Bjerkeng ◽  
Trine Kirkhus ◽  
Walter Caharija ◽  
Jens T. Thielemann ◽  
Herman B. Amundsen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Autonomous Vehicles ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Autonomous Vehicle ◽  
Autonomous Underwater Vehicles ◽  
Fish Farming ◽  
Doppler Velocity ◽  
Laser Triangulation ◽  
3D Data ◽  
Promising Solution ◽  
Active Fish

Aquaculture net cage inspection and maintenance is a central issue in fish farming. Inspection using autonomous underwater vehicles is a promising solution. This paper proposes laser-camera triangulation for pose estimation to enable autonomous net following for an autonomous vehicle. The laser triangulation 3D data is experimentally compared to a doppler velocity log (DVL) in an active fish farm. We show that our system is comparable in performance to a DVL for distance and angular pose measurements. Laser triangulation is promising as a short distance ranging sensor for autonomous vehicles at a low cost compared to acoustic sensors.

Measuring academic research performance through audit at the expense of trust: Exploring the 21st Century University

2011 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Holligan ◽  
Ibrahim Sirkeci
Keyword(s):  
Research Performance ◽  
Academic Research ◽  
Reputation Management ◽  
Intellectual Life ◽  
Budget Cuts ◽  
University Culture ◽  
The Public ◽  
Audit Culture ◽  
Management Quality ◽  
Fiscal Austerity

British universities are experiencing a climate of fiscal austerity including severe budget cuts coupled with intensifying competition for markets have seen the emergence of audit culture which afflicts the public sector in general. This entails the risk to the integrity of university culture disappearing. This paper seeks to explore the interconnections between developing trends in universities which cause processes likely to undermine the objectivity and independence of research. We question that universities’ alignment with the capitalist business sector and the dominant market economy culture. Despite arguably positive aspects, there is a danger that universities may be dominated by hegemonic sectional interest rather than narratives of openness and democratically oriented critique. We also argue that audit culture embedded in reputation management, quality control and ranking hierarchies may necessarily promote deception while diminishing a collegiate culture of trust and pursuit of truth which is replaced by destructive impersonal accountability procedures. Such transitions inevitably contain insidious implications for the nature of the academy and undermine the values of academic-intellectual life.

Does Recent Academic Research Support Changes to Audit Reporting Standards?

2016 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 255-275 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean Bédard ◽  
Paul Coram ◽  
Reza Espahbodi ◽  
Theodore J. Mock
Keyword(s):  
Financial Reporting ◽  
Academic Research ◽  
Financial Statements ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Research Support ◽  
The Public ◽  
Market Participants ◽  
Information Gap ◽  
Public Company ◽  
Reporting Process

SYNOPSIS The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), the International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (IAASB), and the U.K. Financial Reporting Council (FRC) have proposed or approved standards that significantly change the independent auditor's report. These initiatives require the auditor to make additional disclosures intended to close the information gap; that is, the gap between the information users desire and the information available through the audited financial statements, other corporate disclosures, and the auditor's report. They are also intended to improve the relevancy of the auditor's report. We augment prior academic research by providing standard setters with an updated synthesis of relevant research. More importantly, we provide an assessment of whether the changes are likely to close the information gap, which is important to financial market participants and other stakeholders in the audit reporting process. Also, we identify areas where there seems to be a lack of sufficient research. These results are of interest to all stakeholders in the audit reporting process, as the changes to the auditor's report are fundamental. Additionally, our summaries of research on the auditor's report highlight where there is limited research or inconsistent results, which will help academics identify important opportunities for future research.

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