The National Highway Transportation Safety Research Administration (NHTSA) sponsors the Human Factors for Connected Vehicles (HFCV) research program, which seeks to understand, assess, plan for, and counteract the effects of signals or system-generated messages that take the driver’s eyes off the road (visual distraction), the driver’s mind off the driving task (cognitive distraction), and the driver’s hands off the steering wheel (manual distraction).

The goal of the overall HFCV program was aimed at controlling the ever-present and growing threat to safety represented by driver distraction, which is a factor in many crashes. The project evaluated driver distractions and other human factors issues related to ITS, leveraging the convergent findings of epidemiological studies, experimental studies, and analyses of crash data.

The primary objectives of the Connected Vehicle Integration Research and Design Guidelines Development project were are to (1) generate an “integration architecture” for integrating multiple safety and non-safety CV applications, and associated DVIs, into a cooperative system, (2) test protocols for such integrated systems, and (3) develop the Human Factors Design Guidelines product for the HFCV Program. The results of these activities, along with inputs from a variety of other sources, were integrated into the HFCV Human Factors Design Guidelines, which is the primary product of the overall HFCV Program.

The Virginia Tech Transportation Institute (VTTI) served as the prime contractor for the project. WTI provided support to Phase I HFCV efforts by assisting with the literature review, gap analysis, and research plan development for one of the components of the project, which aimed to develop effective evaluation methods for in-vehicle safety warning systems, with specific regard to developing DVI guidance to ensure proper integration of such technologies when several warning systems are installed.