The Use of Technology To Improve Commercial Motor Vehicle Safety

Commercial motor vehicles (CMVs) are a crucial part of the U.S. economy, moving 72 percent of freight by weight. Though only comprising 5 percent of vehicles on the road, CMVs represent 11 percent of vehicular miles driven. Due to the size of these vehicles, CMV-associated crashes are more likely to be fatal to the drivers of other vehicles on the road. The Transportation Research and Education for Driving Safety (TREDS) Center at UC San Diego is partnering with two companies to address CMV driving safety. One technology alerts drivers to upcoming work zones through their required electronic logging devices, which track and monitor driver and vehicle information in real time. The randomly selected intervention group receive alerts 500 meters before a work zone identified by the California Department of Transportation. The technology records changes to speed, speed at passing through work zones, and rates of deceleration. Preliminary data has shown that alerted vehicles begin their deceleration earlier. A second technology uses cameras supported by artificial intelligence (AI) to detect speeding, handheld phone use and seatbelt compliance. Highly accurate prevalence of these risk behaviors is being collected for all passing CMV vehicles across two lanes of traffic. The behaviors vary by time of day, day of week, and location. Both technologies have potential to save lives of CMV drivers, the motoring public and work zone employees.

Speaker: Linda Hill, UC San Diego

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