FMCSA's Advanced System Testing Utilizing a Data Acquisition System on the Highway 2011-01-2293

The mission of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) is to reduce crashes, injuries, and fatalities involving commercial vehicles [1]. According to the FMCSA, the development, evaluation, and deployment of advanced safety technology will be a key to realizing this goal. Currently, there are many safety systems in development that have the potential to significantly reduce crashes on our nation's roadways. For a variety of reasons, the potential benefits that these systems may provide in reducing crashes may never be realized. The Virginia Tech Transportation Institute (VTTI), in cooperation with FMCSA, has developed a program to evaluate promising safety technologies aimed at commercial vehicle operations (CVO). The objective of FMCSA's Advanced System Testing Utilizing a Data Acquisition System on the Highway (FAST DASH) program is to perform quick turnaround and independent evaluations of promising CVO safety technologies. These evaluations will determine the operational efficacy of CVO safety systems using the following high-level metrics: safety benefits, unintended consequences, user acceptance, and system performance. This paper will provide an overview of the 5-year program and its intended methodology to evaluate CVO safety systems using both static and dynamic testing.