U.S. Department of Transportation
Federal Highway Administration
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Federal Highway Administration Research and Technology
Coordinating, Developing, and Delivering Highway Transportation Innovations
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This report is an archived publication and may contain dated technical, contact, and link information |
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Publication Number: FHWA-HRT-08-019
Date: November 2007 |
Development of a Driver Vehicle Module (DVM) for the Interactive Highway Safety Design Model (IHSDM)PDF Version (839 KB)
PDF files can be viewed with the Acrobat® Reader® SECTION 1. INTRODUCTIONBackgroundThe Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) is currently developing an integrated set of software tools to improve highway design, the Interactive Highway Safety Design Model (IHSDM). The IHSDM is a suite of software analysis tools for evaluating safety and operational effects of geometric design decisions on two-lane rural highways. The IHSDM provides highway project planners, designers, and reviewers in State and local departments of transportation (DOTs) and engineering consulting firms with a suite of safety evaluation tools to support these assessments. As currently implemented in the latest public release version, the IHSDM includes the following five components: (1) Policy Review Module, (2) Design Consistency Module (DCM), (3) Crash Prediction Module, (4) Traffic Analysis Module, and (5) Intersection Review Module. A sixth module, the Driver Vehicle Module (DVM), is a candidate for future release. The objective of the DVM is to permit the user to evaluate how a driver would operate a vehicle (e.g., passenger car or tractor-trailer) through a geometric design and to identify whether conditions exist that could result in loss of vehicle control (e.g., skidding or rollover). To provide this capability, the module consists of a Driver Performance Model linked to a Vehicle Dynamics Model (VDM), along with other model components needed to provide the necessary information databases. The prototype DVM, which is a time-based simulation model, estimates the vehicle's speed and path along a two-lane rural highway in the absence of other traffic. During the course of the DVM development project, the DVM development team has engaged in a series of activities, including:
Purpose and Organization of this ReportThis report provides a complete technical description of the DVM. Specifically, it provides a description of the specification, verification, and calibration/validation of the DVM for the passenger vehicle and the heavy vehicle component, along with additional functionality enhancements. The report is organized as follows:
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