The first large-scale naturalistic driving study off the starting blocks
On 4 October the UDRIVE project – the first large-scale European Naturalistic Driving Study on cars trucks and powered-two wheelers – kicked off with a two-day meeting. The 19 partners who represent a good balance between different EU regions and stakeholders (industry national organisations research institutes etc.) got together to plan and define their work and objectives for the next 48 months.
Road transport is indispensable for the exchange of goods and persons but at the same time has severe negative consequences among others related to road safety and the environment. In order to meet EU targets both the number of road crashes and vehicle emission levels need to be reduced substantially. In order to identify the next generation of measures that will enable us to actually reach these targets a far more in-depth understanding of road user behaviour is needed.
The UDRIVE project builds on the experiences of the PROLOGUE feasibility study and various Field Operational Tests (FOTs) and aims to contribute to developing this in-depth knowledge by conducting the first large-scale European Naturalistic Driving (ND) study.
Over a period of two years UDRIVE will collect information on a total of 470 vehicles each for one year: 240 passenger cars 150 trucks and 80 powered two-wheelers. All data – including video data showing the forward view and the view of the driver as well as GIS data – will be collected continuously to bring knowledge in the various research areas well beyond the current state-of-the-art.
With this in mind UDRIVE has gotten off the starting blocks and will kick-start its activities with a technical workshop on research questions to be held in Brussels in December 2012. Further information on the workshop and other UDRIVE activities will soon be available on www.udrive.eu (website under construction).
Link to original Article
http://www.ertico.com/udrive-kick-off-meeting/
Original Publication Date: Fri 05 Oct 2012
