Connected Vehicles for Municipal Fleets: Applications and Testing Framework
Overview
The city operates a large and diverse fleet from sanitation trucks to light-duty vehicles. Each type of vehicle has it’s own safety needs. More than 50% of crashes involving city vehicles could have been avoided. 93% of vehicular crashes, in general, involve human errors according to NHTSA. Connected vehicle technology is being deployed in over 8,000 vehicles in NYC as a part of the CV pilot. About 500 of these vehicles belong to the city municipal fleet. CV safety apps have the potential to improve safety, operating and maintenance costs for the NYC fleet.
Research Objectives & Deliverables
The goal of this study is to explore aspects of connected vehicle technologies that can be implemented for municipal fleet in New York City. The CV benefits intended to be realized in the NYC CV pilots are vehicular and pedestrian safety. CV apps included in the NYC CV pilot will tested against the crash types involved by NYC fleet vehicles. These apps will be evaluated for their effectiveness using the NYC CV pilot simulation testbed built as a part of the previous study. Various benefits safety, environmental and financial for these apps. Potential alternatives and recommendations on the adoption of technologies will be made.
Deliverables for this project include:
- A report on unsafe scenarios experienced by NYC city fleet to be analyzed using NYC CV apps
- A report on the impacts of CV apps on NYC city fleet based on simulation analysis
- Recommendations of potential alternatives for improving NYC City fleet safety
- A final Report
Project Details
| Principal Investigator | Camille Kamga |
| Funding Source | USDOT $65,000 and CCNY $32,501 |
| USDOT Award # | 69A3551747124 |
| Total Project Cost | $97,501 |
| Project Dates | 3/1/2019 – 2/29/2020 |
| Impacts/Benefits of Implementation | CV technology has enormous potential to reduce the number of collisions and resulting traffic delays. There are significant energy and emission benefits from crash reduction and smoother acceleration/deceleration from early crash risk detection. Thus CV systems can benefit not only the owner but also society as a whole. Any reduction in crash incidence in municipal fleets will result in direct cost savings to the agency and the general taxpaying public. These cost savings can be in the form of (a) financial benefits from less serious vehicle damage, (b) financial benefits from lower liability costs, and (c) environmental and energy benefits to the operators due to smoother braking and acceleration. Other indirect benefits include lower disruption of traffic flow due to crash intensity and frequency reduction. The benefits quantification can help the NYC fleet in expanding their CV deployment and also other agencies in their adoption. |
