ANNUAL REPORT 2019 FISCAL YEAR

Advancing Transportation Through Innovation ANNUAL REPORT 2019 FISCAL YEAR TABLE OF CONTENTS Mission & Vision 03

Message from the Director 05

Facilities & Institute Infrastructure 07

Project Highlights 13

Centers, Groups, & Initiatives 41

Sponsors, Clients, & Partners 51

Outreach & Community Engagement 59

Presentations, Honors, Awards, & Services 63

Publications 79

Stakeholders 91

01 02 The Transportation Institute (VTTI) conducts research to save lives, save time, save money, and protect the environment. Researchers and students from multiple fields are continuously developing the techniques and technologies to solve transportation challenges from vehicular, driver, infrastructure, and MISSION environmental perspectives.

As one of seven premier research institutes & VISION created by Virginia Tech to answer national challenges, VTTI has effected significant change in public policies for driver, passenger, and pedestrian safety and is advancing the design of vehicles and infrastructure to increase safety and reduce environmental impacts.

03 04 Enhancing Transportation Through Research For more than 30 years, VTTI has been at the critical juncture of the development and the deployment of transportation initiatives. Our researchers have evaluated the efficacy of pavement materials, lighting design, mobility alternatives, and vehicle design. At each opportunity, we endeavor to determine how these aspects interrelate to human use prior to their implementation in the broader transportation system. Essentially, our goal for more than three decades has been to help our sponsors, clients, and partners from the public and private sectors determine through objective, data-driven research how the transportation community can be made not only more efficient but, above all, safer.

To meet this goal, it is imperative for this institute to look ahead, to anticipate the evolutionary needs of the transportation system. And in no area has the transportation system so drastically changed than in the incorporation of advanced-vehicle technology. An increasing number of production-level vehicles are being rolled out with increasing levels of connectivity and such automated driving systems (ADSs) as lane-keep assist, automatic emergency braking, and adaptive cruise control. With such rapid advancement comes the inevitable question: “When will we all have self-driving cars?” It’s a logical question, and I have no doubt that, when widely deployed, such cars will positively affect safety, mobility, and efficiency. But, our goal at VTTI is to help those invested in the deployment of these advanced technologies ensure their development is performed thoughtfully and responsibly, that it meets the needs of users, and that no unintended consequences occur. Taking such an approach is absolutely necessary, because the MESSAGE FROM THE DIRECTOR technology will develop for some time, and premature deployment will lead to not only lives lost, but an unnecessary “retrenching” that could delay deployment for a number of years, resulting in even more lives lost. That is why we devote our professional lives to working across the public and private sectors to conduct studies and provide research data necessary to the safe development and deployment of advanced-vehicle technologies. TOM DINGUS Toward this end, we are working with members in our Automated Mobility Partnership (AMP) to promote the development of tools, techniques, and data resources—including ph.d., chfp our naturalistic driving studies—to support the development and evaluation of ADS. We are working with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to modify the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) relative to the proper design of vehicles that may not have manually operated driving controls, such as steering wheels or brakes, or even (in some cases) onboard occupants. We are working with nearly 40 other organizations under a NHTSA contract to consider electronics safe reliability, cybersecurity, vehicle automation, and related human factors. We are providing hands- on opportunities for next-generation engineers, researchers, and designers through our new InternHUB initiative, which fosters collaborations between industry partners, VTTI researchers, and leading students from Virginia Tech. Director of VTTI These are but a handful of examples of the work being conducted at VTTI by an industry- President of VTT, LLC leading team of research faculty, staff, and students. To learn more about what we have Endowed Professor of Engineering at Virginia Tech accomplished during Fiscal Year 2019, please continue reading.

05 06 SURFACE STREET HIGHWAY SECTION

VTTI has an infrastructure worth more than $120 million that includes multiple test beds used extensively for real-world, impactful transportation research across both broad and edge-and-corner scenarios; more than 120,000 square feet of building space in Blacksburg and FACILITIES Alton, Va.; and more than 100 owned and leased institute infrastructure instrumented vehicles, including connected- automated light and heavy vehicles. VTTI also recently purchased an autonomous micro-transit shuttle that has been instrumented and deployed for a variety of automation research projects.

LIVE ROADWAY CONNECTOR RURAL ROADWAY EXPANSION 07 08 FACILITIES

01. Test Beds test tracks of the Smart Roads while bringing experience in on-road safety research to THE 15,000-SQUARE-FOOT AUTOMATION Headquartered at VTTI, the Virginia the total length of the highway section to provide efficient solutions to automated- Smart Road is a controlled-access facility 2.5 miles; 3) The Rural Roadway (Phase 1 HUB INCLUDES A FIVE-BAY GARAGE, A vehicle testing. The VAC was developed opening Fall 2019, Phase II opening Summer in answer to the Virginia governor’s 2015 managed by the institute and owned and MACHINE AND WELDING WORKSHOP, AND maintained by the Virginia Department 2020), which will be the first of its kind to proclamation declaring Virginia “open for of Transportation (VDOT). The road is facilitate advanced-vehicle testing on a AN EXTENSIVE TOOL SET business” in the realm of automated vehicles. built to Federal Highway Administration controlled rural roadway environment, with The proclamation allows the testing of any hilly, winding roads; short site distances; and automated vehicle on Virginia roads under the specifications and features seven roadside The Virginia Smart Roads are designed to equipment units and two mobile roadside infrastructure built to 1965 standards; and 4) guidance of VTTI. The Virginia Department The Automation Hub, located on-site at the complement the public testing capabilities of Motor Vehicles will support research equipment sites that facilitate connected- offered by the Virginia Connected and vehicle communications; an optical fiber Virginia Smart Roads and facilitating short efforts performed by VTTI in accordance turnaround projects focused on advanced- Automated Corridors. In 2014, VTTI partnered with the proclamation. With assistance communication system; Ethernet fiber with VDOT to unveil the Virginia Connected transceivers and Ethernet switches; a vehicle testing in collaboration with VTTI from the Commonwealth of Virginia, the researchers, industry leaders, and Virginia Corridors (VCC), which comprise the Smart VAC will advance the development, testing, connected-vehicle-compatible intersection Road and Interstates 66 and 495, as well controller model; varying pavement sections Tech students, among others. and deployment of automated-vehicle as U.S. 29 and U.S. 50 (i.e., one of the most technology, with the ultimate goal of helping and in-pavement sensors; 75 weather- congested corridors in the U.S.). The VCC making towers capable of producing snow, virginia smart roads stakeholders create robust automated and is facilitating the real-world development autonomous vehicles. rain, and fog; a differential GPS base station and deployment of connected-vehicle for precise vehicle locating; a signalized HIGHWAY (2.5 MILES LONG) technology via dedicated short-range Faculty and students associated with the intersection with complete signal phase ability to create rain, snow, fog, and ice communications and cellular technology. USDOT-awarded Safety through Disruption and timing control; a wireless mesh network Using more than 60 roadside equipment units National University Transportation Center variable control system; and variable pole (RSEs) located along the corridors, VDOT (Safe-D National UTC)—a consortium led by spacing designed to replicate more than 90% and researchers from multiple institutes VTTI with partners Texas A&M Transportation of national highway lighting systems. across the Commonwealth are implementing Institute and San Diego State University— SURFACE STREET SECTION connected applications that include traveler have access to the Virginia Smart Roads In 2017, the institute held a ribbon cutting/ reconfigurable urban test bed groundbreaking ceremony with partners information, lane closure alerts, and work and the VAC/VCC to perform research into VDOT and Virginia Tech to unveil four zone and incident management. disruptive technologies, such as automated unique expansion projects, each building and connected vehicles, big data analytics, VTTI partnered with VDOT, Transurban, the and transportation as a service. Current UTC upon the Smart Road testing capabilities Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles, and and now collectively known as the Virginia RURAL ROADWAY EXPANSION projects include assessing the impacts of first of its kind to test advanced vehicles HERE (a high-definition mapping business) Smart Roads: 1) The Surface Street, which connected-vehicle technology on automated- in a controlled rural environment to unveil the Virginia Automated Corridors vehicle safety, developing a connected smart features a residential/urban layout with real (VAC) in 2015. This initiative provides an and reconfigurable buildings, roundabout/ vest for improved roadside work zone safety, automation-friendly environment that auto using disruptive technologies to support stop-controlled intersections, automation- manufacturers, government agencies, and compatible pavement markings, and safety analyses, modeling driver responses LIVE ROADWAY CONNECTOR suppliers can use to test and certify their during automated-vehicle failures, and connectivity to the Smart Road; 2) The Live allows seamless transitions between live systems, providing a system migration path determining the safety perceptions of Roadway Connector, providing a seamless traffic and controlled test beds from test-track to real-world operating transition between live traffic and the closed transportation network companies by the environments. The VAC leverages extensive blind and visually impaired. 09 10 FACILITIES

02. Blacksburg Facilities seven-bay, 12,600-square-foot garage. This and storage operations. Computational testing environment that includes both The traditional laboratories at VTTI are facility is used to store the VTTI instrumented systems in the Andrews facility can also be closed-course and open traffic conditions. housed in four buildings totaling more than vehicle fleet and the equipment necessary dynamically configured to virtually reside The raceway track can be configured to five 90,000 square feet. Building I is 30,000 for research and Smart Roads operations. within the VTTI secure network, creating different courses ranging from 1.1 miles to an “Algorithmic Enclave.” Additional data 6.8 miles and includes such topography as square feet and houses office, laboratory, and Information Technology at VTTI provides centers at Steger Hall on the Virginia Tech hairpin curves and blind passes. garage facilities. Low-service laboratories end-to-end systems development and campus and at the Fralin Biomedical Research include facilities dedicated to driver interface support that enable and enhance the Institute in Roanoke, Va., provide redundancy development, eye-glance data reduction, research mission and vision of the institute. 04. Accelerated Pavement Testing and operate to ensure data retention and lighting research, accident analysis, accident Services provided include support for daily resiliency. Continually growing capacities VDOT and VTTI launched an accelerated database analysis, pavement research, and information technologies, comprehensive include a 4.2 PB database and associated pavement testing program in 2015, which uses traffic simulation. The National Surface computational and data analytics systems storage, 10.2 PB Network Attached Storage a heavy-vehicle simulator that continuously Transportation Safety Center for Excellence engineering, information security expertise, (NAS), and 7 PB archive storage. Compute applies a weighted load to test pavements building comprises 22,000 square feet of advanced application development, processing is driven by 1,920 cores and 37 for several months. This testing simulates the office and laboratory space. VTTI expanded computational systems administration, and Graphical Processing Units (GPUs). natural wear and tear caused by heavy trucks its on-site capacity by 7,000 square feet of database administration. on road surfaces. The program is expected warehouse space and housing for a paint VTTI IT experts continually work with 03. Southern Virginia Facilities to result in cost savings in road maintenance booth facility and a lighting lab. An additional and will enable VDOT to determine how research groups to develop and optimize Affiliated with VTTI and Virginia Tech is the 24,400 square-foot annex was opened in 2013 different pavement designs and materials solutions that support ongoing projects and Global Center for Automotive Performance to support the continuing growth of VTTI. respond to load testing prior to integration research, establish data analysis pipelines for Simulation (GCAPS), located in Alton, Va. on the road. Since its inception in 2015, the To supplement and support the research production-level research, and create custom GCAPS is a world-class facility that provides program has resulted in nearly $2.16 million endeavors of the institute, facilities solutions for special projects. IT is the core of revolutionary services for both vehicle in expenditures. feature a fully staffed garage and machine the data-intensive research program at VTTI, and tire, including testing, simulation, and shop to instrument experimental vehicles. with “Big Data” computational and storage modeling. GCAPS comprises the National Technicians and engineers use full-scale infrastructure leveraging four data center Tire Research Center (NTRC), the Southern 05. VTTI Vehicle Fleet machine and welding shops, electronics facilities. The main VTTI facility houses Virginia Vehicle Motion Labs (SoVa Motion), The VTTI vehicle fleet is uniquely instrumented laboratories, and garage facilities to systems to support institute operations and the Virtual Design and Integration for specific experiments. Researchers use customize transportation hardware and and provides network segmentation to Laboratory (VDIL). Collectively, these the vehicle fleet for Smart Roads tests, software designed to collect large amounts secure data reduction labs and a secure initiatives provide the full range of services and experimental test vehicles are used to of data. These facilities are also used to data enclave. A second data center located essential for creating a more dynamic develop new instrumentation packages and support the maintenance and expansion of at the Virginia Tech Andrews Information product through both virtual and physical complement research endeavors. Several the Smart Roads systems and capabilities. Systems Building houses the bulk of the VTTI development. GCAPS also works closely with of the vehicles are long-term loaners from Additionally, VTTI occupies an adjacent high-performance computational, database, amateur, semi-pro, and pro race teams to vehicle manufacturers, VDOT, and other provide cutting-edge services that help race partnering organizations. All vehicles are cars perform at the top levels. maintained in-house when possible with fully functional garages and a machine Located adjacent to GCAPS is the Virginia shop. Loaned vehicles are maintained in International Raceway, to which VTTI has cooperation with the organization that access for the performance of connected provided the vehicle. and automated projects in a multi-use 11 CONTROL ROOM AUTOMATION HUB 12 PROJECT highlights

13 14 PROJECT highlights

In September 2017, a VTTI-led team electronics safe reliability, vehicle and epochs. Data analytic techniques 01.was awarded $4.9 million to provide automation, cybersecurity, and related are then applied to inform decision the National Highway Traffic Safety human factors considerations. To date, making in different scenarios with rates Administration (NHTSA) with research VTTI has received awards of more than of occurrence (e.g., identify prevalence) findings relative to options regarding $16.4 million under this contract. and descriptive kinematic analysis (e.g., technical translations of Federal Motor parameter and measurement variances). VTTI continued to propose task Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS). These Additionally, virtual tools are being used orders released under a contract include performance requirements, test 03. to reconstruct the scenarios to support from the Transportation Research procedures, and related Office of Vehicle the development and evaluation of ADS Board (TRB) of the National Academy of Safety Compliance test procedures based performance. Sciences potentially worth an initial $2 on potential unnecessary/unintended million, with the possibility of additional VTTI and partners Texas A&M regulatory barriers identified for self- funds. The task orders are designed Transportation Institute and San certification and compliance verification 05. to: 1) Identify critical issues associated Diego State University — with support of innovative new vehicle designs that with connected and automated vehicles from VDOT — continued to conduct may appear in vehicles equipped with that state and local transportation cutting-edge research via the Safety automated driving systems (ADS). The agencies and the American Association through Disruption National University FMVSS Considerations for Vehicles with of State Highway and Transportation Transportation Center (Safe-D UTC). Automated Driving Systems project is Officials (AASHTO) will face, 2) Conduct The Safe-D UTC entails a planned $2.8 focused on vehicles that may not have research to address those issues, and million per year in federal funding for manually operated driving controls (e.g., 3) Conduct related technology transfer five years, funding the study of how steering wheels, brakes) and may or may and information exchange activities. best to maximize the safety benefits not have onboard occupants. The first VTTI is completing work on the National of integrating technologies such as phase of this project will finish during Cooperative Highway Research Program automation and connectivity into the FY20, with a second phase expected to (NCHRP) 20-102(07) Implications of transportation system. Motivated by an be awarded and research continuing Automation for Motor Vehicle Codes, overall desire to promote safety on U.S. through July 2021. More information which explored the impact of automated roadways, the Safe-D UTC focuses on about the project and related stakeholder driving systems on motor vehicle codes three key areas: meetings can be found at https://vtti. and other related domains. vt.edu/fmvss/. 1: Performing innovative research The VTTI Automated Mobility VTTI continued to collaborate with that is led by the largest consortium Partnership (AMP) program was 38 various organizations, including 04. of transportation safety researchers 02. officially launched in 2018. This program Booz Allen Hamilton, Bosch, Continental, in the nation and is largely focused brings together 13 industry leaders and GM, Google, Honda, Mercedes-Benz, on advanced-vehicle technologies, aims to promote the development of transportation as a service, and “big Nissan, Southwest Research Institute, tools, techniques, and data resources to data” analytics and Volkswagen/Audi. Together, they support the development and evaluation RESEARCH PROJECTS RESEARCH work under the NHTSA Vehicle 2: Education/workforce development of ADS. AMP is leveraging the naturalistic Electronic Systems Safety IDIQ contract. 3: Sharing research findings with the driving data housed at VTTI to develop a This team was organized to respond to all broader transportation community scenario library of crashes, near-crashes, aspects of the NHTSA project, including through a robust technical transfer 15 16 PROJECT highlights RESEARCH PROJECTS process. The Virginia Smart Roads also automation change how drivers interact will fulfill the requirements for VDOT includes the Automation Hub, and use partial vehicle automation with work zone management. The proof-of- The Safe-D UTC award is representative 07. located adjacent to the Surface Street different capabilities. This unique project concept WZB is being used to provide of the hard work and dedication VTTI expansion. The Automation Hub houses uses a vehicle customized by VTTI that specifics for a fully featured version 1.0 researchers have collectively put into advanced-vehicle initiatives to facilitate operates at different capability levels to of the application. studying the future of transportation. cutting-edge collaborations focused on manipulate capability independently of It provides a continued opportunity VTTI procured and installed a real- advanced-vehicle research and ongoing driver expectation. to work toward the safe and efficient time kinematic GPS correction development. The Automation Hub also 12. development and deployment of In conjunction with VDOT, VTTI system on the VCC in Northern Virginia serves as home to the InternHUB program, the next generation of vehicles and continued to expand the capability to support higher accuracy GPS data. which was initiated with soft-start 10. technologies, inform national discourse and utility of the Virginia Connected The system provides additional partner Continental Automotive. The about how best to mitigate rapidly and Automated Corridors (VCC/VAC), GPS information to GPS receivers, InternHUB fosters collaboration between growing transportation challenges, offer with expenditures during FY19 of enabling greater accuracy in location industry partners, VTTI researchers, students unique hands-on experience more than $738,000, which includes coordinates. The GPS real-time and leading students from Virginia in the field of transportation research, VTTI’s contribution ($4.86 million from kinematic system will be used by Tech. Student interns work for industry and provide more opportunities in the inception to date). VTTI extended VTTI to support demonstrations and partners while in Blacksburg through workforce. the VCC architecture to support the research activities that require greater collaborative sponsored research with broadcast of signal phasing and timing accuracy, such as lane-level connected- VTTI continued to serve an integral VTTI faculty. Each summer, the interns data for 30 intersections on the Route 7, vehicle applications and pedestrian role in the Virginia Tech Intelligent leave Blacksburg for positions at their 06. US 29, and US 50 corridors in Arlington applications. Infrastructure initiative, particularly in respective industry employer for a direct County, Va. VTTI also added a real-time the area of advanced-vehicle research and integration into the company’s business Following successful completion process that makes VCC data available development. In partnership with VDOT, and engineering processes. of the Advanced Message Concept to the VDOT smarterroads.org public 13. the institute is expanding its Smart Road Development project conducted with VTTI continued to develop data-sharing website. testing capabilities. The Surface Street the Crash Avoidance Metrics Partnership relationships with both