MAN targets city safety, efficiency

MAN is exploring new ways of making city driving safer and more efficient for commercial vehicles via Europe's UR:BAN research project

MAN Truck & Bus in Germany is investigating new technologies to make driving a heavy commercial vehicle in congested, built-up areas both safer and more fuel efficient.

MAN is participating in the UR:BAN project – a joint German initiative comprising academics, researchers and engineers from 31 organisations that are collaborating to develop the next generation of driver assistance and traffic management systems.

The project will run until 2016, but participants recently presented the results of the first stage of the research in Braunschweig, near Hanover.

According to MAN Truck & Bus's Head of Research, Eberhard Hipp, there is a pressing need to simplify the increasingly demanding role of drivers of heavy commercial vehicles in congested areas.

"The traffic situation in cities is getting more complex all the time," he said.

"Road users are driving in very dense traffic conditions, which makes reaction times short. Our aims in this project are to analyse traffic driving strategies to optimise fuel consumption, identify dangerous situations and protect drivers from possible human error.

"In doing so, we hope to make a significant contribution towards increased efficiency and safety on the roads. All our research is centred around the driver."

In participating in the UR:BAN project, MAN researchers have turned their attention towards several sub-projects, including 'Human Factors in Traffic', 'Networked Traffic System', and 'Cognitive Assistance'.

The Human Factors in Traffic sub-project examines how the flow of information from driver assistance systems can best be enhanced to ensure the driver has the right information at the right time, allowing him or her to make the best decisions while operating the vehicle in what is often a rapidly changing environment.

MAN researchers are aiming to keep distractions, including the presentation of non-essential information, to a minimum. Using a professional driver simulator and professional drivers, researchers have been prioritising the flow of information with which a driver is presented.

Head of Research in Driver Assistance and Electronic Systems, Karlheinz Dorner, says the work will help shape both the driver assistance systems and the commercial vehicle cockpits of the future.

"This gives us a realistic picture of the information truck and bus drivers need and expect in order to be able to drive safely and understand vehicle systems," he said.

"For example, we can learn how to give drivers information from a Green Wave Assistant in a way that they can best make use of it. Then we can apply that in designing specific aspects of the human-machine interface. This includes both the hardware – in other words controls, displays, audible and sensory warnings – and the software, for example when information is displayed and in what level of detail.

"The result should provide the driver with a relaxed, efficient and safe driving experience in urban traffic."

The Green Wave Assistant falls under the banner of the Networked Traffic System sub-project. It accesses a city's traffic light phases and displays information about the next traffic light to be encountered, allowing a vehicle to automatically time its approach and so reduce the amount of time spent braking or accelerating, thereby reducing fuel consumption and driver fatigue.

The UR:BAN project is working with the German cities of Dusseldorf and Kassel to pioneer this technology.

In the Cognitive Assistance sub-project, MAN is working on an advanced camera system that provides complete coverage around a heavy commercial vehicle.

The aim of the system is to provide the driver with the right camera perspective to suit any given moment – for example, the front kerbside camera would be activated as soon as a bus pulls into a bus stop, to safely monitor the entry and exit of passengers.

Project manager Walter Schwertberger says the aim of the research here is simple.

"The camera system is designed to give the driver an easily comprehensible overview of the situation around the vehicle," he said.

For more information on the UR:BAN project visit www.urban-online.org.

MAN targets city safety, efficiency

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