Improvement of the visual warning system for various driving and road conditions in road transportation

Abstract

This study aims to identify the potential adverse driving conditions which result from driver behavior, road surfaces and weather conditions for vehicles during a cruise, and to inform the drivers of the other vehicles moving on the same route. Adverse driving condition scenarios were developed via acceleration data in lateral, longitudinal and vertical directions gathered by using an accelerometer sensor placed at the gravity center of the test vehicles. The drivers were warned through the symbols designed according to the developed scenarios in different shapes and colors, displayed on an information screen showing the position of the vehicle. Three different software programs were used for gathering and evaluating the accelerometer data, storing scenario-specific symbols on the internet and transferring these symbols to the other vehicle information displays. The road tests were performed in conditions present in Turkey. It was observed that the vehicle drivers were alerted with the warning symbols which were designed for dangerous road and driving conditions with a latency of approximately 6s on Google maps which appeared on the driver information screen.