In July 2005 the commercial vehicle safety and security program at the University of North Carolina (UNC) Highway Safety Research Center (HSRC) became the responsibility of the Institute for Transportation Research and Education (ITRE) at North Carolina State University (NCSU). This shift of program responsibility was the result of the transfer of Dr. Ron Hughes from UNC-HSRC to NCSU-ITRE. ITRE’s elevation of Commercial Vehicle Safety and Security to that of a major ITRE program is evidence of NCSU’s desire to sustain the same ‘core’ status afforded this work by UNC-HSRC. With the permission of HSRC, ITRE has brought over the commercial vehicle safety and security content of the HSRC Web site (in large part, the research conducted by Dr. Hughes while at HSRC) in order to ensure program continuity.
The group is presently organized into two project areas:
- Analysis and Program Evaluation
- Advanced Projects.
The work in the Analysis and Program Evaluation area represents a continuation of the HSRC support of North Carolina’s Commercial Vehicle Safety Plan (CVSP), an annual performance-based program funded by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) and administered in North Carolina by the Motor Carrier Safety Assistance Program (MCSAP) operated by the NC State Highway Program (NCSHP). It involves a range of analysis and program support/evaluation activities as seen by the breadth of topics/issues addressed by material on this website. ITRE’s continued development and maintenance of North Carolina’s GIS Truck Crash Database and the joint ITRE-HSRC On-line Commercial Motor Vehicle (CMV) Crash Tool are two efforts which draw upon the GIS assets of the Spatial Data group of VAMS.
View information on projects in the CVS Analysis and Program Evaluation Area.
 The Advanced Projects area represents efforts outside the current FMCSA funding domain. In the Advanced Projects area, ITRE will continue to work with Volvo Trucks North America and with Volvo Technology America, both in Greensboro, NC on topics of mutual interest and benefit. Presently, ITRE is working with Volvo, the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA) in Washington D.C., and the NCSHP on an I-95 Corridor Coalition grant to assess the feasibility of wireless inspection procedures from commercial motor vehicles. Visit the Coalition Connection Web site for more information.
In the Advanced Projects Area, ITRE has completed work jointly sponsored by FMCSA and the I-95 Corridor Coalition. The project addressed the feasibility of establishing a wireless inspection capability for commercial motor vehicles. The work is relevant to FMCSA and FHWA efforts in the areas of wireless communications and VII (i.e., Vehicle Infrastructure Integration). The present work was a team effort. Other members of the project team were the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA), the North Carolina State Highway Patrol, Volvo Trucks North America, and Volvo Technology America. The work resulted in a successful operational demonstration of the use of WiFi (802.11) to transmit information from a vehicle traveling at highway speeds to a roadside 'reader.' The data message set consisted of driver and carrier information stored on a smartcard (simulated TWIC).
An onboard biometric device was able to sample the driver's fingerprint and compare it to the fingerprint stored on the simulated TWIC. Evidence of a 'match' or 'non-match' was communicated to the roadside along with the photograph of the driver along with other driver and carrier data. The onboard system also transmitted real time information on brake status from the vehicle's databus. Prototype in-vehicle and roadside graphic displays were created to monitor the interrogation and data exchange process. The demonstration project was also used to effectively engage enforcement personnel (from NCSHP) for the purpose of familiarizing them with the potential for this technology as well as to solicit their inputs on the composition of an eventual safety and security data message set.
The final report (pdf, 2.3 MB) submitted to the I-95 Corridor Coalition is available here for review. The team is presently working on a TSA sponsored project to extend these findings and to develop/demonstrate an operational capability for a self-contained (onboard) geo-fencing capability as well as a capability for automatic vehicle shutdown and message notification. CVSA is the lead on the TSA effort.
NC Proposed Legislation to Allow Unrestricted Use of Roadways by 53ft Trailers and Twin Trailers (Doubles)
 Senate Bill 1456 and House Bill 1352 are currently under discussion in the North Carolina legislature. The intent of these bills is to remove current STAA restrictions on 53ft trailers and twin trailers (‘doubles’). The bills apply to trailer ‘length’ not to present weight limitations. The information provided here is not intended to argue for or against this legislation, but rather to simply provide a balanced ‘context’ in which the proposed legislation can be more objectively debated.
53 ft semitrailer bill (pdf, 650 KB)
Need for Strategic Thinking
Truck Safety and Security in 2020: The Context for Commercial Vehicle Enforcement.
Current trends strongly suggest that commercial motor vehicle enforcement practices will undergo significant change by 2020. The 'context' for these changes will be shaped by factors such as projected increases in freight tonnage, the continued dependence upon trucks for the transport of that tonnage, increasing congestion and limited infrastructure expansion, labor costs and availability, increased requirements for cargo tracking and security in a global, multi-modal environment, the increasing technical sophistication of commercial vehicle 'platforms,' and the growing role of telematics. Simply doing 'more of the same' will not be an effective enforcement strategy. Neither will it be possible for enforcement to continue to exist solely within a 'regulatory' and 'compliance-based' environment.
The future will clearly be about 'operations' global, multi-modal, seamless, and integrated. The responsibilities of 'modal' administrations within the USDOT will have to become more seamless and better integrated as the focus shifts from single mode to inter-modal in a global freight management environment. View a paper presented to TRB Truck and Bus Safety and Security: Research and Technology 'Futures' Conference (pdf, 1.7 MB), March 23-24, Washington, D.C.
The need for 'strategic' thinking in the area of commercial motor vehicle operations in North Carolina is outlined. This information was the basis of a discussion on April 10, 2002 between Dr. Hughes of the UNC Highway Safety Research Center (HSRC), Major Charlie Carden of the NC DMV-Enforcement Section (representing the MCSAP program in NC), and the personnel of the FMCSA State Office in North Carolina.
Increased availability and use of occupant protection in passenger vehicles indicated as a possible contributor to improved safety in CMV-involved collisions. Over the past several years, the number of fatal CMV-involved crashes has been on the decline in North Carolina. While this is likely to be, in part, due to increased levels of motor carrier enforcement, the present data suggest that one additional underlying factor may be the increased availability and utilization of improved occupant protection measures (lap/shoulder belts, airbags, etc.) in the passenger vehicles involved in these crashes. The present analysis represents a very preliminary view of crashes betwen CMVs and passenger car vehicles and focuses on crashes between a single commercial motor vehicle and a single passenger car vehicle and the likelihood of serious injuries or fatalities as a function of whether lap/shoulder belts and/or airbags were used/deployed in the crash. The Complimentary Role of Occupant Protection In Reducing CMV-Involved Fatalities in North Carolina (pdf, 88 KB)
Highway Safety: Who's Responsible? (pdf, 25, KB) The following was prompted by a discussion with a senior member of NC State Highway Patrol who was expressing some degree of frustration over the Patrol's own perceived lack of effectiveness in reducing fatalities on the State's roadways. The remarks in the document are consistent with previous ITRE positions expressed to the CMV Working Group of the NC Governor's Executive Committee on Highway Safety, i.e., that highway safety needs to be a 'shared' responsibility on the part of a number of different agencies and that the strategic goals of each agency need to bear a direct and logical relationship to strategic crash and injury reduction goals adopted at the State level (see also www.itre.ncsu.edu/VAMS/CVS/CVSanalysisProj.html).
Crash Data Analysis Sources
2006 CMV-Involved Crashes in North Carolina.
 ITRE’s commercial vehicle safety and security research area (a component of the Visualization, Analysis, Modeling and Simulation (VAMS) provides crash data analysis and program evaluation support to the NC State Highway Patrol’s Motor Carrier Safety Assistance Program (MCSAP) which is funded by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA). Data on CMV-involved crashes are reviewed quarterly and constitute an important part of the Patrol’s Quality Management Program. Due to the inherent delay in incorporating crash data into the state’s official crash data system (TEAAS), quarterly reviews are conducted using data from the NCSHP Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) system which includes only those CMV crashes reported by NCSHP. The data reported below are from the NCDOT Traffic Engineering Accident Analysis System (TEAAS) and thus represents ‘ground truth’ for CMV safety performance in the state. The data provided below are TEAAS data for CY2006. The ‘statewide’ file provides data for the entire state. The individual ‘troop’ files provide 2006 annual data for each individual NCSHP troop (A thru H). Two other on-line sources of CMV crash data for North Carolina are the CMV Crash Tool Web site at http://cf.unc.edu/cmv/ and the interactive, on-line Geographic Information System (GIS) CMV crash data Web site at http://vams.itre.ncsu.edu/truckcrash. Both sites are based upon data from TEAAS. These are currently being updated to include 2006 data.
CY2006 CMV crash data summary statistics are found in the following files:
Statewide CMV Crash Data for CY2006 (pdf, 17 KB)
Troop A (pdf, 17 KB)
Troop B (pdf, 17 KB)
Troop C (pdf, 17 KB)
Troop D (pdf, 16 KB)
Troop E (pdf, 16 KB)
Troop F (pdf, 17 KB)
Troop G (pdf, 16 KB)
Troop H (pdf, 17 KB)
Truck Crash GIS Data Now Available Online: Truck Crash GIS Data.
 The online capability, created by ITRE using ArcIMS, allows you to display the locations of fatal and/or non-fatal truck-involved crashes, by year. The location of NC truck weigh stations can also be displayed for reference as can roadways included in the 'truck network' as well as those included in the National Highway System (NHS).
Summary (table-based) crash statistics are available at the level of individual NCSHP troop districts and at the level of individual troops. Summary displays provide frequency data on number of crashes, by type of crash, by type of vehicle, by class of roadway, by whether the crash was speed-involved, alcohol-involved, or occurred in a work zone, level of injury severity, driver and weather conditions.
'Detailed' crash data (i.e., data for individual crashes) are available at the county level. Where crashes involve an interstate carrier with an assigned DOT number, a link is provided to SafeStat. SafeStat is an FMCSA on-line system that provides current information on the carrier in a number of different areas (accident, driver, vehicle, safety, etc.).
You an also display 'density' plots of fatal and/or non-fatal crash locations, by year. A simple query function is also provided for more refined searches. (Note: Each time you change 'layers' you must hit the 'refresh' button first). Using the tool bar displayed above the map, you can zoom in/out as well as pan up/down, left/right. The web-based application replaces the use of CD-ROMs as a means of providing users access to data.
The site is still in a developmental stage at this point. Preliminary instructions (pdf, 24 KB) on how to use the site are provided in lieu of an embedded Help function. Work is currently underway to include data on all 2003 truck-involved crashes in NC. The GIS on-line site will continue to be supplemented by the Online Commercial Motor Vehicle Crash Tool.
|
