Evaluation of Work Crew and Highway Hazard Conspicuity

The work reported here quantitatively addresses conspicuity of highway features, and in Caltrans work zones -from the perspective of driver detection, and to some extent, driver decision making. It was initially focused on acquiring and operating on a computational visual signature analysis tool, but it evolved into evaluating the detection process, then selecting and exercising human perception-acquisition models suitable for relatively quick running and larger scale microsimulations to evaluate system effectiveness of Òpre-AHSÓ driver-assist systems. This process and especially the recommended Bailey-Rand Contrast Model is described, and an detection example of a driver-assist collision avoidance model is provided.