California Partners for Advanced Transportation Technology

Vehicle Assist and Automation (VAA) systems enable lane-keeping and precision docking of transit vehicles. They offer the opportunities of providing high-quality transit service within reduced lane widths. Sponsored by the United States Department of Transportation, this VAA project aimed to demonstrate the technical merits and feasibility of VAA applications in bus revenue service. The VAA Demonstration project was carried out through the four phases of design, development, deployment, and operational tests. In the design phase, the system architecture and requirements were finalized, and test plans were generated for four levels of testing. All hardware and software components were developed in the development phase, and a 60-ft articulated bus was instrumented. In the deployment phase, system performance and reliability testing were conducted first at a test track and then on an operational route in Eugene, Oregon. After operational testing without passengers, revenue service at Lane Transit District commenced. Data from revenue service operations showed that the VAA system met its performance goals, specifically that lateral deviation was substantially smaller under automated operations than it was under manual driving.