Vehicle-Infrastructure Integration (VII) is one of the most important new national programs within the field of ITS, but until now it has been treated at the federal level as a deployment-oriented activity, without significant research elements. This report identifies some key research issues that need to be investigated in support of VII, in order to ensure that the VII concept and designs are as efficient and effective as possible and in order to produce the essential knowledge base that public agencies throughout the country can rely upon to make well-informed decisions about participating in the deployment of VII.

Although the performance advantages of cooperative ITS systems are generally appreciated, the deployment challenges that they pose represent a significant impediment. This report begins with a summary of the types of deployment challenges faced by cooperative information systems and cooperative vehicle-highway automation systems (CVHAS), both of which require coordination of deployment of vehicle and infrastructure-based elements. The institutional challenges are discussed first, followed by the technological challenges. In each case, current progress in overcoming these challenges is reviewed and the additional needed steps are suggested. Considerable attention is devoted to showing the range of enabling technologies that are already available on passenger cars in the U.S.

Connected Vehicles (CV), Automated Vehicles (AV) and their combination as Connected Automated Vehicles (CAVs) have beenamong the most important developments in surface transportation within the past few years. California has been a nationalleader in the development of these technologies and their predecessors for several decades, but that leadership position is injeopardy as other states court CAV development and testing outside of California. The paper suggests Californiaactively engages in CAV through a number of different outlets; encouraging the development of state-of- the-art testing facilities where a wider range of vehicles can be tested, building on existing DMV regulatory frameworks, and convening open public discussions about the safety for CAV systems. Public sector engagement and action on this topic are needed in order for California to capitalize on the potential safety, efficiency and productivity benefits for connected and automated vehicles.

Intersection collisions are difficult to mitigate or eliminate by use of ITS technologies for a variety of reasons. These include the complexity of the driving environment and of the driver decision making process at intersections, but also the difficulty of accurately detecting the movements of all potentially conflicting vehicles.  Prior research by Calspan-Veridian Engineering (now part of General Dynamics) (1) showed the near impossibility of detecting the relevant information using vehicle-mounted sensor systems.  Current research under the IDS program is revealing the challenges associated with detection using infrastructure-based sensor systems. As our understanding of intersection crashes and the performance needs of intersection collision avoidance systems have been improving, so has the interest in cooperative system implementations. In these Cooperative Intersection Collision Avoidance Systems (CICAS), information detected by both vehicle- based and infrastructure-based sensors can be combined to produce better real-time knowledge of the dynamic “state map” of an intersection. Wireless communications between the vehicles and the infrastructure and among the vehicles makes it possible for each entity (every vehicle, as well as the intersection’s traffic controller) to have complete intersection state map information, so that it can then use its own intelligence and threat assessment logic to determine whether to alert a driver to an impending hazardous condition. In this report, Section 2 identifies the contents of the intersection state map, Section 3 sketches out the general architecture for information sharing among vehicles and the intersection infrastructure, and Section 4 defines the “worst case” traffic scenarios in which this information needs to be exchanged. This information is important in specifying the capacity of the wireless communication system that supports the information exchange. Although most operations will take place under much less demanding conditions, it is still important to ensure that the communication system can support operations under “worst case” conditions, so that intersection safety is not compromised then.

This report shows a successful application of 5.9 GHz DSRC with 100 ms update intervals to coordinate the automatic longitudinal control of a platoon of three Class 8 tractor-trailer trucks. The trucks were tested not only in constant-speed cruising conditions, but also through acceleration and deceleration profiles, up and down grades, and in platoon join and split maneuvers using the DSRC coordination. These tests showed acceptable vehicle following accuracy, ride quality and platoon stability. The gaps between the trucks were varied between 10 m and 4 m to evaluate the effects of aerodynamic drag reductions on fuel savings. The most complete set of drag data, at the 6 m gap, showed fuel savings of about 4-5% for the lead truck and in the range of 10% to 14% for the following trucks. The effects of platoon gap variations between 10 m and 4 m were more difficult to determine with certainty because strong ambient winds during those tests led to large differences in the results depending on the truck direction of travel, but the results imply a significant potential for larger savings at the shorter gaps.