Journal of Transportation Technologies, 2021, 11, 561-576
https://www.scirp.org/journal/jtts
ISSN Online: 2160-0481
ISSN Print: 2160-0473
DOI: 10.4236/jtts.2021.114035 Sep. 6, 2021 561 Journal of Transportation Technologies
Evaluation of the Impact of Queue Trucks with
Navigation Alerts Using Connected Vehicle Data
Rahul Suryakant Sakhare
1
, Jairaj C. Desai
1
, Justin Mahlberg
1
, Jijo K. Mathew
1
, Woosung Kim
1
,
Howell Li
1
, John D. McGregor
2
, Darcy M. Bullock
1
1
Purdue University, West Lafayette, USA
2
Indiana Department of Transportation, Indianapolis, USA
Abstract
Back of queue crashes on Interstates are a major concern for all state trans-
portation departments. In 2020, Indiana DOT begin deploying queue warn-
ing trucks with message boards, flashers and digital alerts that could be
transmitted to navigation systems such as Waze. This study reports on the
deployment and impact evaluation of digital alerts on motorist’s assistance
patrols and 19 Queue trucks in Indiana. The motorist assistance patrol evalu-
ation is provided qualitatively. A novel analysis of queue warning trucks
equipped with digital alerts was conducted during the months of May-July in
2021 using connected vehicle data. This new data set reports locations of
anonymous hard-braking events from connected vehicles on the Interstate.
Hard-braking events were tabulated for when queueing occurred with and
without the presence of a queue warning truck. Approximately 370 hours of
queueing with queue trucks present and 58 hours of queueing without queue
trucks present were evaluated. Hard-braking events were found to decrease
approximately 80% when queue warning trucks were used to alert motorists
of impending queues.
Keywords
Queue Trucks, Navigation Alerts, Connected Vehicle Data, Hard-Braking
Events, Motorists’ Safety
1. Motivation
Back of queue crashes are an emerging national problem and several states are
exploring or deploying queue warning trucks to increase the alertness of drivers
approaching stopped traffic on the interstate [1] [2]. The motivation of this pa-
How to cite this paper: Sakhare, R.S.,
Desai, J.C., Mahlberg, J., Mathew, J.K.,
Kim, W., Li, H., McGregor, J.D. and Bul-
lock, D.M. (2021) Evaluation of the Impact
of Queue Trucks with Navigation Alerts
Using Connected Vehicle Data. Journal of
Transportation Technologies, 11, 561-576.
https://doi.org/10.4236/jtts.2021.114035
Received: August 7, 2021
Accepted: September 3, 2021
Published: September 6, 2021
Copyright © 2021 by author(s) and
Scientific Research Publishing Inc.
This work is licensed under the Creative
Commons Attribution International
License (CC BY 4.0).
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Open Access