A framework for the evaluation of system safety benefits of Intelligent Cruise Control systems

This paper describes a framework for assessing the system safety impacts of an adaptive or intelligent Cruise Control (ICC) system. This framework inc orporates a time-to-collision model that is developed from vehicle headway, speed, and acceleration data that are typically gathered as part of field operational tests. Specifically, the framework combines car-following model s with vehicle deceleration and acceleration constraints to compute instant aneous rear-end time-to-collision estimates. These instantaneous time-to-co llision estimates are then translated into an accident risk estimate that i s accumulated over the entire trip. The proposed approach can be applied di rectly to field data that are typically gathered as part of field operation al tests. In addition, the proposed approach can be easily incorporated wit hin microscopic traffic simulation models.