Evaluation of Digital Alert Systems Associated With Emergency Response Vehicles and Compliance With Move Over Law

Talebpour, Alireza; Liu, Pengyuan; Yousefi, Mahdi; Hsiao, Chun-Chien · 2026 · ROSA P / Illinois Center for Transportation

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Summary

This study evaluates the effectiveness of digital alert systems in improving driver compliance with Move Over laws, which mandate that motorists change lanes and reduce speed when approaching stationary emergency vehicles. Motivated by persistent struck-by risks for first responders and inconsistent driver compliance, the research addresses a critical gap in existing literature, which has largely relied on driving simulators or failed to isolate the effects of digital alerts from traditional visual warnings. The primary objective was to assess whether GPS-based digital alerts, delivered via navigation apps and in-vehicle platforms, enhance safety beyond emergency lights in real-world freeway environments. The researchers conducted two major field experiments in Illinois during July 2024 and July 2025. Data were collected using high-resolution 8K aerial videography from a helicopter hovering at approximately 1,000 feet, capturing vehicle trajectories over 0.5-mile roadway segments. The 2024 experiment on Interstate 80 involved a stationary police vehicle under four scenarios: combined digital and emergency light alerts, emergency lights only, no alerts, and normal traffic. The 2025 campaign on Interstate 55 expanded the design to include high-demand traffic conditions, ramp merging/exiting behaviors, and the presence of both police vehicles and Illinois Department of Transportation maintenance trucks. Trajectories were extracted using a computer vision pipeline involving object detection, tracking, and image stabilization to analyze speed profiles and lane-changing behavior. The findings indicate that digital alert systems encourage earlier and smoother avoidance responses, particularly when visual cues are limited or obstructed. Drivers receiving digital alerts changed lanes farther upstream and began decelerating sooner than those relying solely on visual warnings. When a large maintenance truck with emergency lights was present, visual conspicuity remained the dominant trigger for avoidance, though digital alerts still provided a measurable incremental benefit. In ramp environments, digital alerts did not alter lane selection during mandatory maneuvers, as geometric constraints dominated driver decisions; however, they significantly increased early awareness of roadside hazards and prompted smoother speed adjustments. The study also noted limitations, including constrained digital alert coverage across navigation platforms and the need for more extensive trajectory refinement for microscopic modeling. The significance of this work lies in providing empirical evidence that integrated digital-visual warning strategies can enhance roadway safety by targeting the earlier perception-reaction window. The results support transportation agencies and technology developers in designing more effective alert systems to reduce struck-by incidents. By demonstrating that digital alerts improve compliance even when visual cues are present, the study validates the deployment of such technologies as a viable countermeasure for emergency vehicle safety. Future research is recommended to evaluate these systems across multiple platforms and incident types to further quantify their safety benefits.

Key finding

Digital alert systems encourage earlier and smoother avoidance responses, such as upstream lane changes and sooner deceleration, particularly when visual emergency cues are limited or obstructed.

Methodology

field_study

Provenance

The full processing record for this entry. Every stage of this paper's journey through the pipeline is logged — what ran, with which tool and model, how many attempts it took, and when it last completed. Discovered via bulk_ingest_rosap on 2026-05-23 (5 acquisition events logged).

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

Topics

Ranked by relevance to this paper. Hover a topic for its definition.

• emergency work zone conspicuity
• auditory warnings
• perceptual countermeasures
• work zones
• traffic density

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
• Empirical Findings: behavioral performance data, observational prevalence