Federal Highway Administration: Exploratory Advanced Research Program

2017Final report; Jan 2016-Jul 2016PDFTech ReportFHWA-HRT-16-075DTFH61-14-V-00025Driving simulatorsHighway safetyHighway transportationResearchSimulationConnected vehiclesUnited StatesUnited States. Federal Highway Administration. Office of Corporate Research, Technology, and InnovationFisher, DonaldDeshmukh Towery, NateWong, MelissaMachek, ElizabethMelnik, GinaLohrenz, MauraJohn A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center (U.S.)United States. Federal Highway Administration. Office of Corporate Research, Technology, and Innovation ManagementNTL-HIGHWAY/ROAD TRANSPORTATION-HIGHWAY/ROAD TRANSPORTATIONNTL-SAFETY AND SECURITY-Highway SafetyNTL-SAFETY AND SECURITY-Human FactorsVolpe National Transportation Systems Center, Technical Reference Center;Federal Highway AdministrationUnderstanding the choices that drivers, bicyclists, and pedestrians make is critical to improving the safety and efficiency of the Nation\u2019s roadways. The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) seeks to understand the technological challenges of advancing the use of federated simulation and modeling and the different uses that researchers and practitioners envision for this technology. This report examines the current state of the practice in connected simulators and related models and the challenges that remain. FHWA also looked at the potential uses for this technology\u2014connecting simulators with simulators, simulators with models, or models with models\u2014and the types of transportation research to which it can potentially be applied to advance research in the areas of safety, operations, planning, and policy. This could lead to decreases in crashes, congestion, and carbon emissions. An important research tool has been the use of driving simulators to observe and record traveler behavior under a variety of simulated situations. There have been rapid developments in the simulators and related models used that could be applied to highway transportation research. These developments have the potential to advance research in the areas of safety, operations, planning, and policy, which could lead to decreases in crashes, congestion, and carbon emissions. This report addresses these limitations and documents the developments in the simulators that would be beneficial to many in the highway transportation industry