The Rosco/Mobileye Shield+ system is a collision avoidance warning system (CAWS) specifically designed for transit buses. This project involved field testing and evaluation of the CAWS in revenue service over a three-month period. The system provides alerts and warnings to the bus driver for the following conditions that could lead to a collision: 1) changing lanes without activating a turn signal (lane departure warning was disabled for this pilot), 2) exceeding posted speed limit, 3) monitoring headway with the vehicle leading the bus, 4) forward vehicle collision warning, and 5) pedestrian or cyclist collision warning in front of, or alongside the bus. Alerts and warnings are displayed to the driver by visual indicators located on the windshield and front pillars. Audible warnings are issued when collisions are imminent. The project was conducted under the auspices of the Washington State Transit Insurance Pool (WSTIP). In addition to funding from TRB’s IDEA Program, funding was provided by WSTIP, Alliant Insurance Services, Inc., Government Entities Mutual, Inc., Pacific Northwest Transportation Consortium (PacTrans), and Munich Re America Inc. The contract was executed on January 19, 2016 with duration of eighteen months. Accomplishments documented in this report are based on our research objectives as stated in the IDEA contract. Create a robust Rosco/Mobileye demonstration pilot for active/collision avoidance within the State of Washington on a minimum of 35 transit buses at seven WSTIP members — Accomplishments: CAWS were installed on 35 buses at seven WSTIP member agencies including: Ben Franklin Transit, Richland, WA, C-Tran, Vancouver, WA, Community Transit, Everett, WA, InterCity Transit, Olympia, WA, Kitsap Transit, Bremerton, WA, Pierce Transit, Tacoma, WA, Spokane Transit, Spokane, WA, and on an additional 3 buses at King County Metro Transit in Seattle, WA. The official pilot data collection period ran from April 1, 2016 through June 30, 2016. Buses equipped with Shield+ systems logged 352,129 miles and 23,798 operating hours. No Shield+ equipped buses were involved in any collisions with bicyclists or pedestrians. During the data collection period, WSTIP’s seven members participating in the pilot reported 284 events on their other fixed route buses, including six collisions with bicycles, three collisions with pedestrians, and one collision with a motorcycle. Although the project data collection period ended on June 30, 2016, three transit agencies: Ben Franklin, King County Metro, and Pierce Transit, elected to retain the Shield+ pilot systems on their buses. Determine the ease of retrofit of the existing fleet. — Accomplishments: Our installations covered six different types of transit buses produced by three manufacturers, including high floor, low floor, Diesel, hybrid, and electric trolley buses. The target was to have a two-person team complete one bus installation in an eight-hour period. The target was met by the end of the installation phase. Develop a methodology for estimating the full costs savings of avoided collisions for each agency. — Accomplishments: In collaboration with Veritas Forensic Accounting & Economics (Veritas), University of Washington Smart Transportation Applications and Research Laboratory (STAR Lab) analyzed 13 years of claims data provided by WSTIP and developed an analysis framework to classify claims according to the magnitude of loss and the relevant explanatory factors. Individual claims were allocated to categories that identified each claim as one that could be impacted by: 1) vehicular collision avoidance warnings, 2) pedestrian/bicyclist collision avoidance warnings, or 3) for which the collision avoidance system would have no likely impact. Of a total $53.1 million in claims for fixed route buses, $18.3 million, 35% were attributable to preventable vehicular collisions, and $16.0 million, 30% were attributable to preventable pedestrian/bicyclist collisions. These numbers established an upper bound for the potential cost savings. To estimate a lower bound to cost-savings through use of CAWS, the total costs of collisions in categories one and two were multiplied by respective vehicular and pedestrian collision reduction factors derived from changes observed in the numbers of near-misses for buses equipped with CAWS. Acquisition and maintenance costs for the CAWS were subtracted from the total claims reductions to arrive at the net benefit. Develop a methodology and evaluation process for transit driver feedback and acceptance as well as bus passenger feedback. Accomplishments: We developed a bus driver survey and distributed it to 7 of the 8 agencies. The survey included 12 questions, was administered three times over the test period, and 277 questionnaires were submitted. Responses to two key questions are tabulated in this report: 1) was the system helpful, and 2) would they prefer to drive with it. Overall, 37 percent of the responses indicated that the system was helpful, and 63 percent indicated the system was distracting. Thirty three percent of the responses were affirmative when drivers were asked if they preferred to drive with it and 67 percent were negative. Drivers were encouraged to provide comments on the questionnaires. One hundred seventy eight (178) comments were received. The most frequent comment was the perception of false positive pedestrian indications. Warnings and alerts frequently sounded when buses were approaching stops with waiting passengers or pedestrians moving on the sidewalks. Provide detailed data and understanding on entrance barriers to this technology (i.e. operational acceptance and rejection issues). Accomplishments: The vendor equipped buses in the test fleet with telematics monitoring and set up web access for the study team to real-time telematics data. The following events were time-stamped, geo-located, and logged by the system: 1) Exceeded Speed Limit, 2) Headway Monitoring (HMW), 3) Urban Forward Collision Warning (UFCW) - speed 0 to 19 mph, 4) Forward Collison Warning (FCW) - speed greater than 19 mph), 5) Pedestrian Collision Warning (PCW) - from each of four cameras, and 6) Pedestrian Detection Zone (PDZ) alert that triggered yellow indicator illumination but no audible warning. UFCW’s, FCW’s, PDZ’s, and PCW’s are defined as “near miss” events. Because Shield+ cameras do not record video, the vendor installed additional recording cameras on the buses. STAR Lab developed an independent video processor to identify the presence of near-miss incidents involving pedestrians and bicyclists and determine the presence of near-miss false positives and false negatives. More than 30 hours of onboard video data from 25 buses was used to test the performance of the proposed near-miss detection method. A false positive was defined as the presence of a pedestrian/bicyclist near-miss event in the telematics data that was not confirmed by the video. A sample of 6,070 events was examined of which 3.21% were found to be false positives. A false negative was defined as an incident in which a pedestrian with an estimated time to collision (TTC) less than a specified threshold is not detected by the CAWS. Based on the sample, the false negative rate was estimated to be 0.30%. This is likely on the lower end because there could be near-miss events missed by both the CAWS and the STAR Lab video processor. The most significant measure of acceptance of CAWS by the transit industry is expected to be the degree to which CAWS will reduce collisions and claims. We were able to run a controlled experiment to estimate potential reductions in collisions and claims. CAWS on Spokane Transit buses were set up to collect and transmit data via telematics only and did not issue warnings to drivers. This was called operating in “stealth mode.” Buses operating with systems in stealth mode served as a baseline, or control group, to help determine if CAWS resulted in changes in driver performance over time. It was hypothesized that as drivers gain experience with the Shield+ equipped buses, they may be better able to anticipate adverse driving conditions, which would be reflected in fewer events per miles logged. For each warning type, there were fewer warnings per 1000 miles for the active fleet compared with the control group. Although data was not linked to individual drivers, it appears that drivers of buses in the active fleet triggered fewer warnings than those who drove buses in “stealth mode.” Buses with active CAWS experienced 71.55% fewer forward collision warnings (UFCW’s plus FCW’s) per 1000 miles. The rates for PCW’s and PDZ’s were combined to yield 43.32% fewer pedestrian collision warnings. These rates were applied to the historic costs for claims described above. The net result was an estimated reduction in vehicular claims of $13.1 million and a reduction in pedestrian claims of $6.9 million. The total reduction of $20.0 million amounted to an estimated 58.5% potential reduction in claims due to collisions for all buses insured by WSTIP. The upper and lower bounds for annual claims reduction per bus were estimated at $2,514 and $1,471 respectively for an annual average of 1,058 buses insured by WSTIP. Annual benefits were estimated by subtracting the cost of the CAWS (estimated at $7,375) from the claims reductions for service periods ranging from 5 to 14 years. Upper bound annual net benefits from collision claims reduction for all WSTIP members were estimated to start at $1,099,262 in year 5 and increase to $2,102,473 in year 14. For the lower bound, benefits were estimated to be negative by $4,232 in year 5 but become positive in year six and increase to $998,979 by year 14. The pilot test showed that although driver acceptance was mixed, there were large reductions in near-miss events for CAWS-equipped buses. Consequently, achieving driver acceptance will be a key factor in continued development and deployment of CAWS. As a result of comments received from the drivers, the vendor has begun a program to incorporate desired modifications to the system including reducing false positives. The study also showed that supervisors, drivers and maintenance personnel should be involved in product development, trained in how to use CAWS, and educated in how CAWS can directly benefit them by reducing their risk of collisions. A second major factor in achieving industry acceptance is to demonstrate the business case for CAWS to both transit agencies and system developers. Transit is a niche market compared with autos and trucks. Consequently, it is necessary to demonstrate the profit potential within the transit market to attract developers and capital. Part of this effort should be to stimulate and support the necessary research and development. Although the pilot project produced encouraging results, collisions, injuries and fatalities can be considered “rare events.” A much larger in-service test will be needed to demonstrate actual cost-savings. Early findings from this pilot led Pierce Transit to obtain a $1.66 million research and development grant from the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) to equip all 176 of its 40-foot transit buses with CAWS and to run extended testing and data collection. Starting in mid-2017 Pierce plans to conduct a full-year of testing, data collection, analysis, and evaluation during an estimated 4.4 million miles of revenue service. (Author/publisher)
Samenvatting