On Japanese high-ways, sharp turn and merging areas are the critical points where the majority of accidents occur. A number of studies have therefore taken place to date on supporting safer driving in merge areas within a framework of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS). Most of these studies, however, have assumed that drivers merge into the right main lane from the left lane because it i...

This work presents ARGO, the autonomous experimental vehicle developed at the Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell’Informazione of the University of Parma, Italy. ARGO integrates the main results that have been extensively tested on the MOB-LAB mobile laboratory, namely the GOLD (Generic Obstacle and Lane Detection) system: a stereo vision-based hardware and software architecture that allows to dete...

As safety and efficiency issues of transportation hand-in-hand with the intelligent vehicle concept – have gathered ground in the last few years in the automotive research community and have penetrated into the automotive industry, vision-based applications have become increasingly important in driver assistance systems (Kastrinaki et al., 2003; Bertozzi et al., 2002). The primary targets of th...

Lane estimation for autonomous driving can be formulated as a curve estimation problem, where local sensor data provides partial and noisy observations of spatial curves forming lane boundaries. The number of lanes to estimate are initially unknown and many observations may be outliers or false detections (due e.g. to shadows or nonboundary road paint). The challenges lie in detecting lanes whe...

Operational speed is an index that represents drivers’ speeding behaviors and shows the comfort and safety levels they experience. Many models had been proposed to predict operational speed in tangent and curve segments of highways. Most of these works had used geometric, with few of them conducted using roadside variables to predict operational speed. Also, the operational speed study in multi...

Automated road lane detection is the crucial part of vision-based driver assistance system of intelligent vehicles. This driver assistance system reduces the road accidents, enhances safety and improves the traffic conditions. In this paper, we present an algorithm for detecting marks of road lane and road boundary with a view to the smart navigation of intelligent vehicles. Initially, it conve...

The objectives of this study were to evaluate pavement lane markings in a metropolitan road network and develop maintenance strategy for safe daytime night-time driving. To achieve this, data on the retroreflectivity physical defect ratio collected remotely using vehicle-mounted retroreflectometer high-resolution camera. was measured analyzed by type (city freeways, arterial roads, collector ro...

Transportation agencies across the nation are continuously evaluating the safety and operation of their rural two-lane highways. The three most common countermeasures are to do nothing, add passing lanes to target sections, or to upgrade to four-lane. The goal of this article is to update the current body of knowledge available to agencies on the process of implementing countermeasures and real...

There is an old fable about a stag that was very proud of his antlers. He used to stand at the edge of a pool and look down in the water to admire his image. As he indulged in admiration of their reflected glory, he was repeatedly distraught as his gaze also took in the reflection of his forelegs, which he considered spindly and ugly. One day, a mountain lion crept to the water’s edge and the s...

Mainland China accounted for about 7% of the global road fatalities in 2008. Road crashes happening on Chinese roads were deadly. On average, one person died in every four reported traffic crashes. Despite the scarcity of data, substantial rural-urban differences were found. In the rural areas, higher-order Highways, roads with no lighting and some heavy vehicles warrant particular attention fr...