(graphic whooshes) (gentle pensive music)
- [Narrator] Engineers will sometimes design
two separate bridges for highways
that travel over rivers and creeks.
This results in a gap or opening
between the parallel structures.
The Texas Department of Transportation
and the Texas A&M Transportation Institute
developed a system to assist
if a vehicle goes off the road between these bridges.
- So running off the road is one of the leading causes
of fatalities and serious injuries across the country
in terms of vehicular crashes.
So this project really is improving roadside hardware
that we can install and help mitigate
when vehicles do run off the road
and ensure that they don't encounter any further obstacles
or hazards on the roadside.
- So I think, for this research, the key was finding a way
that's cost-effective and that is something
that will be sustainable long term
to keep vehicles from getting in between those two barriers.
This was an opportunity for the research team
to come with all the ideas that are available
and kind of bring together all the different opportunities
that over the years, solutions have arisen.
- This project was a great first step
in developing mitigating measures to try
to prevent these types of crashes.
We've developed a system
that can safely capture passenger vehicles
from encountering those hazards
that the bridges are spanning over.
- So the research was done at TTI
and where we had to figure out ways
to emulate real-world situations
and then figure out a way to make sure
that we had everything ready to go.
I know we had obstacles
that we encountered with this research.
Some of them were weather-related,
some of them were equipment-related,
and kind of just emulating and mirroring
that real-world situation was something
that I know the research team had to overcome.
- The next steps on this project is a combination
of implementation and further research.
As it stands, the system could be implemented
in slope ditches across the state
and safely decelerate passenger vehicles.
There's a desire to further improve the system
to be able to capture larger vehicles as well,
large commercial vehicles.
- The goal is to end the streak.
And any way we can do that, we have tools,
we have technology,
and then even now it's user error ourselves, right?
As we get older, we also don't see things
the way that we used to.
So bringing that awareness and visibility
to the problems will help one at a time to solve that.
- [Narrator] For more information
and to find the publication for this project,
please visit the TxDOT Research Library
at the link shown below.