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Located on the campus of the Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center, the FHWA Human Factors
Simulation Lab seeks to further the understanding of highway user needs so that those needs
can be incorporated into enhanced safety, roadway design, construction, repair, and improvement.
"So within the Human Factors Lab, the focus is on understanding how drivers within their
vehicles are perceiving how to react and see the world outside of them."
The research applies what we know about people, their physical and perceptual abilities,
characteristics, and limitations in order to better design the environments in which
they function.
The work performed in the lab informs new roadway and traffic control designs, signage,
connected and automated vehicle technologies, and approaches to improving pedestrian and
bicyclist safety
The primarily tools in the Human Factors lab are driving simulators.
The simulators at the Human Factors lab use top-end graphics and immersive theater technology
to recreate real world driving conditions.
In the early 2000's, the Simulation lab assessed the human factors involved in the
deployment of Alternate Intersections such as the Diverging Diamond Interchange and the
Restricted Crossing U-Turn or RCUT.
These alternate intersection designs eliminate dangerous left turns against oncoming traffic
and dramatically increase roadway throughput.
The human factors concern was that drivers might become confused and make a dangerous
maneuver.
To evaluate this concern, the FHWA researchers created visualizations in the simulator of
various driving scenarios.
"Our researchers worked with the Missouri engineers and tweaked that design, had them
run through the simulation so they could understand it.
We made some adjustments: how you entered the design, how you actually sign the DDI
for better understanding, and when they were confident with it, they also had us do some
simulations that were used for public outreach."
In 2003, the FHWA Minnesota Division and MNDOT were at the beginning stage of promoting rural
RCUT design and were met with significant resistance from local communities who insisted
on grade separations which would have cost 15 times more per site.
The driving simulator was used to illustrate the signing and navigation of the RCUT design
to a skeptical public.
Today, over 21 RCUTs have been constructed Throughout Minnesota.
More recently, the Simulation Lab has been working on assessing the human factors involved
in the deployment of Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control, or CACC, a vehicle automation
technology on the near horizon.
CACC aims to increase traffic throughput by safely permitting shorter following distances
between vehicles.
Using vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communications, CACC uses adaptive cruise
control technologies to create platoons of connected vehicles.
While the technology of CACC is specific and repeatable, what is lesser known is how drivers
will interact with the technology.
Testing in the Human Factors Lab studies merging and exiting behavior within the platoon, gap
analysis, specific braking ability, and general driver comfort level with the CACC technology.
"Since you're automating part of the driving task, does that cause any safety
concerns and by doing a series of experiments here in that driving
simulator, we investigated that and found that actually it's a very safe
technology that can be implemented."
"Well, the human factors lab is fundamentally about understanding driver behavior. If you
can understand how the driver interprets the roadway, how the driver makes decisions, and
based on that knowledge, influence their behavior so that they act safer, you can make tremendous
headways in safety.
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