More than 30% of all vehicle crashes in the US occur at intersections; these crashes result in nearly 9000 annual fatalities, or approximately 25% of all traffic fatalities. Moreover, these crashes lead to approximately 1.5 M injuries/year, accounting for approximately 50% of all traffic injuries. In rural Minnesota, approximately one-third of all crashes occur at intersections. AASHTO recognized the significance of rural intersection crashes in its 1998 Strategic Highway Safety Plan, and identified the development and use of new technologies as a key initiative to address the problem of intersection crashes. A study of 3,700 rural Minnesota intersections showed that right angle crashes account for 36 percent of all rural intersection crashes. Approximately 50 percent of the crashes at intersections having higher than expected crash rates are right angle crashes. Further investigation also found that poor gap selection is the predominant causal factor in these intersection crashes To address this problem of poor gap selection, the University of Minnesota and the Minnesota Department of Transportation (Mn/DOT) have, under development, a rural Intersection Decision Support (IDS) System which, when deployed, will provide a driver additional information needed to make correct decisions regarding the available gap. Described herein is the surveillance component of a rural IDS system. The surveillance system uses sensors, processors, and a communication system to determine the intersection "state" including location, speed, acceleration, lane of travel, and vehicle classification (where necessary) of each vehicle within the surveillance zone. This state information will determine when to activate alerts and warnings.
Cooperative Intersection Collision Avoidance System (CICAS) program uses roadside radar sensors, a computer processor and algorithms to determine unsafe conditions, and an active LED icon based sign to provide timely alerts and warnings which are designed to reduce the frequency of crashes at rural expressway intersections. The cooperative component of the CICAS system consists of roadside equipment (RSE), on-board equipment (OBE), geospatial information database (GID) and intersection sign state (ISS). Both the RSE and OBE use dedicated short range communication (DSRC) radios operating on the 5.9GHz band. For the tests described in this paper, the supplier of the DSRC radios is Arada. The tests documenting performance were done at the CICAS test intersection located at the intersection of U.S. 169 and County State Aid Highway 13 north of Milaca, MN. The goal of this test was to determine the efficacy with which information can be broadcast from the RSE and received by the OBE as a function of direction and distance of travel from the intersection. The result is it is sufficient to ensure that approaching vehicles will receive a complete GID in sufficient time for its intended use.
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