It’s a dynamic time for transportation as vehicles become more automated every year. Micromobility services are taking our cities by storm. And more change is just around the next bend in the road.
A Pivotal Year: Transforming Transportation in 2021
In 2021, MITRE focused on maximizing the safety benefits that transportation technology advances can bring. And we didn’t do it alone. Our partnerships with government and the automotive industry expanded this year, providing data to give us insights into emerging safety opportunities—and unexpected challenges—that today’s advanced driver assistance systems offer.
These partnerships laid the groundwork for our research on highly autonomous vehicles of the future, including our proposal for a new paradigm in the design, development, and testing of highly automated vehicles. We also outlined a new safety management system (SMS) approach for organizations across the industry through workshops and in public resources.
From groundbreaking micromobility research to automated safety resources, MITRE has been advancing automated vehicle and highway safety—and we’re just getting started.
(light music)
- [Narrator] Every year,
about 37,000 people die in vehicle crashes
in the United States.
Advances in driver-assistance technologies however,
promise to make vehicles and our roads safer.
As adoption of these technologies accelerates,
we need more research on the safety benefits
and other opportunities
of advanced driver-assistance systems
and automated driving systems.
That's where PARTS comes in.
The Partnership for Analytics Research in Traffic Safety
is a unique public-private partnership.
The automotive industry and government agencies
have come together to share data for safety analysis.
Our goal, to gain advanced insights
to the pairing of real world crash data
with vehicle equipment data.
By leveraging the power of numbers,
both in the quantity of data
and the breadth of the participating partners,
insightful results are achieved,
which would not be possible
if each individual partner acted separately.
Analysis includes:
To what extent does automatic emergency braking prevent
or mitigate rear-end crashes
and under what conditions does it work best?
And do active lane-keeping systems
make people on the road safer?
PARTS has the power to transform
how we understand the effects
of new automotive technologies.
We work to keep pace with the development
of new automotive technologies,
laying a foundation for collaboration in emerging areas.
Future studies will answer increasingly complex
and nuanced research questions
as PARTS matures its capabilities.
PARTS is looking to a future
where data sharing can map out the route
to fewer traffic injuries and fatalities.
The scale of PARTS is unprecedented
with a major percentage of the market for passenger vehicles
and tens of millions of vehicle records with plans to grow.
We're built on trust,
equal representation and participation of all partners
and through appropriate data protections.
MITRE with its mission of working in the public interest
serves as the independent third party for the partnership
and provides individualized data results
to each auto manufacturing partner,
allowing them to benchmark their performance
against the aggregate.
By collaborating,
we can propel the next leap forward
in advanced driver systems technologies and save more lives.
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A Look Ahead: Emerging Transportation Trends for 2022
In the coming year we’re focusing on applying our SMS expertise to the transit industry, where a Federal Transit Administration mandate requires light passenger commuter rail, trolley, bus, and metrorail operators to implement these systems. As part of that effort, we’re collaborating with the industry to instill a safety mindset throughout transit organizations. And we’re looking for leaders with transit safety expertise to join our team.
As the federal government strives to ensure that all Americans—including people with disabilities and people in underserved communities—have access to transportation that supports quality of life, we’re applying our social justice tools and frameworks to meet that need.
To support the government’s goal of reducing transportation’s impact on climate change, we’re studying the electrification of passenger vehicles and buses, with a focus on battery safety.
And as the acceleration of vehicle automation introduces new cybersecurity risks, we’re studying how to better anticipate and thwart cyberattacks that could give a nefarious actor control of a vehicle—or even a fleet of them.
Innovation and technology are transforming transportation. We’re working hand-in-hand with government and industry to fulfill the promise of these revolutionary changes—quickly, safely, and equitably.
Work With Us
Join our team and help transform the future of transportation. Or, see an opportunity to partner? Contact Us!
