TravTek Evaluation Plan: Final

NHTSA · 1991 · ROSA P / United States. Federal Highway Administration

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Summary

This document outlines the final evaluation plan for TravTek, an Intelligent Vehicle-Highway System (IVHS) demonstration project conducted in Orlando, Florida, in 1991. Prepared for the Federal Highway Administration by Farradyne Systems, Inc., and The Center for Applied Research, the plan defines the methodology for assessing the system’s impact on human factors, safety, marketing, traffic performance, and economic benefits. The evaluation was designed to integrate the objectives of multiple partners, including General Motors, the American Automobile Association, and the Florida Department of Transportation. The evaluation framework consists of ten distinct approaches. Field studies with rental car users and local residents form the core data collection, dividing participants into three groups: those with full TravTek access (navigation and real-time data), those with navigation only (no real-time data), and a control group with service functions only. This design allows for the isolation of benefits derived from autonomous navigation versus real-time traffic information. A "yoked driving study" involves paid drivers traversing specific origin-destination pairs simultaneously to measure trip time savings and congestion avoidance under controlled conditions. An Orlando Test Network Study evaluates driver preferences for different display types, such as moving maps versus voice guidance. To assess human factors and safety, a Camera Car Study utilizes an instrumented vehicle with video cameras and sensors to record driver eye movements, glance durations, steering behavior, and interactions with the system. This approach aims to determine if the display causes distraction or improves driving efficiency. Subjective data is gathered through debriefing interviews and questionnaires administered to participants, focusing on usability, learning curves, and willingness to pay. Finally, modeling and analysis studies project these findings to predict the effects of widespread market penetration on traffic network performance, environmental impacts, and community benefits. The plan also includes studies on Traffic Management Center operations and a global evaluation of the cooperative project structure. The significance of this plan lies in its comprehensive, multi-method approach to validating early IVHS technologies. By combining objective performance metrics (trip times, speed variance) with subjective user feedback and detailed human factors analysis, the study seeks to quantify the value-added benefits of real-time data and autonomous navigation. The results are intended to inform future transportation infrastructure, vehicle design, and market adoption strategies for intelligent transportation systems.

Key finding

The document is a prospective evaluation plan and does not contain completed results or empirical findings.

Methodology

mixed_methods

Provenance

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Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant on 2026-06-10; verification: verified.

Topics

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• exposure measurement
• dms validation
• induced exposure

Information type

What kind of knowledge this paper contributes, grouped by family — independent of topic (what it is about) and method (how it was studied).

• Applied Guidance: countermeasure evaluation
• Methodological Resource: validation psychometrics, tool software