(logo whooshing)
(droning music)
- [Narrator] As a leader in automated vehicle deployment
and several deployments underway, Texas has a keen interest
in saving advancing AV technology.
Texas Department of Transportation Research
is working to show conclusively
that AVs are performing safely
in their intended operational environment.
The University of Texas at Austin
Center for Transportation Research
and the Mobility Systems Lab
in the Department of Mechanical Engineering
recently completed a project that compared
automated vehicle performance and human driving behavior
in several virtual highway and urban environment scenarios.
- There's been over 4,000 traffic fatalities
on Texas roadways last year alone.
And connected and automated vehicle technology,
there are a lot of safety benefits.
And so TxDOT has partnered with UT Austin
Center for Transportation Research
to really understand what the capabilities
of the automated vehicles are.
- There are already a lot of connected automated vehicles
on our Texas roadways, and there are more to come.
And you know, TxDOT,
we wanted to embrace this technology safely.
We also wanted to, you know,
prepare our infrastructure.
- We had an opportunity to recruit
27 different test participants to come out
and test drive the simulator.
There were a couple different scenarios that we looked at.
One was a forced merge scenario,
and then the other scenario we looked at
was in an urban environment.
And so, we found that the automated vehicles
really did perform better than the human drivers.
They were able to respond more quickly,
and slow down as needed.
And then there's not really a common language
for automated vehicles,
in terms of their driving environments.
And so we helped to develop what's called
an operational design domain architecture
that catalogs different roadway environments,
traffic characteristics, as well as weather conditions.
- The automated vehicles, they tend to perform better.
So, you know, the findings allow us to, you know,
to better prepare our infrastructure,
and how we can make more informed decisions
about where to invest in infrastructure
to embrace this technology.
At the same time, you know, the research findings
allow us to educate our general public about, you know,
how to utilize these different levels of automated vehicles.
- [Narrator] For more information,
and to find the publication for this project,
please visit the TxDOT Research Library
at the link shown below.