ANN ARBOR, Mich. (Aug. 21, 2012)—The U.S. Department of Transportation will deploy nearly 3,000 cars, trucks and buses equipped with Wi-Fi technology as part of a year-long safety pilot project to road-test connected vehicle crash avoidance technology, DOT said.
Conducted for DOT by the University of Michigan's Transportation Research Institute, the first-of-its-kind test will measure the ability of connected vehicles to “talk” to each other in real-world situations to avoid crashes and improve traffic flow, the agency said. The model vehicles will be deployed in Ann Arbor for the duration of the project. They will send electronic data messages, receive messages from other equipped vehicles and translate the data into driver warnings.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said that vehicle-to-vehicle safety technology could prevent or reduce the severity of up to 80 percent of vehicle crashes in which driver impairment is not a factor. NHTSA will use the information collected in the project to determine whether it should proceed with additional activities involving connected vehicle technology, including possible rulemaking.