Normal and Hard Braking Behavior at Stop Signs and Traffic Signals

A testbed intersection violation warning system was developed to address the problem of intersection crashes. The effectiveness of such systems is fundamentally dependent on the driver-braking model used to decide if a warning should be issued to the driver. If the model is unrealistic, drivers can either be annoyed due to assumed braking levels that are too low, or can be warned too late if braking expectations are too high. Initial algorithm development relied on data from the Collision Avoidance Metrics Partnership (CAMP) Forward Collision Warning (FCW) project. However, it was unknown whether the CAMP data (collected in the presence of stopped lead vehicles) would be applicable to the intersection problem (e.g., will drivers respond similarly to red traffic signals and stopped lead vehicles). Braking profile and performance tests were thus conducted to determine the applicability of the CAMP FCW results to the intersection violation warning.