Catalysts for the future of mobility innovation

By:

Francine Romine

April 22, 2024

For decades UMTRI has led the research and deployment of CAV’s around the country.  From our early work with “driverless vehicles” to deployments across southeast Michigan, UMTRI has pioneered technology, and implemented large scale deployments.  Our work has impacted millions around the world, and we will continue to lead into the future. 

• UMTRI was one of the first to conduct “driverless” vehicle testing. (video is available)

• In the late 1990’s-early 2000’s UMTRI conducted the largest integrated vehicle basic safety system (IVBSS) deployment ($25M USDOT) with was wildly successful and led to UMTRI being award Safety Pilot Model Deployment – the largest connect vehicle deployment ON THE PLANET at that time. The success of SPMD let to future deployments including the ideation, creating, funding and in some case actual painting and building the test facility known as Mcity.  

• 2001 UMTRI conducts one of the first road departure crash warning (RDCW) field operations test.  RDCW succeeded in field-testing an advanced set of crash-warning system in vehicles. The project collected data from 78 drivers who traveled over 83,000 miles, confirming the technology’s potential for reducing the number of road-departure crashes in the U.S. 

• UMTRI was award the U.S. DOT’s Region 5 University Transportation Center – the Center for Connected and Automated Transportation or CCAT.  And received two additional renewals. 

• Our experience also led to receiving the recently announced work ATTAIN Grant.  Also – a UMTRI project. 

• All told – UMTRI has led any other transportation center in this space with funding of nearly $100m over the past 20 years.  

• UMTRI experts have amasses the largest set of connected vehicle data in the world:

• 70+TB data collected
  • 2.5M hours recorded
  • 71.8M miles driven
  • 138.5B safety records collected
  • 10.7M trips completed