National Automated Highway System Research Program A Review

National Automated Highway System Research Program: A Review

Assesses the appropriateness of the original vision and mission of the National Automated Highway System Research Program, the National Automated Highway System Consortium's (NAHSC's) results and the effectiveness of the approach taken by NAHSC in carrying out its charge, and the role of the consortium in future research on intelligent vehicles.

National Automated Highway System Research Program

The Safety Promise and Challenge of Automotive Electronics

"TRB has released the final version of TRB Special Report 308: The Safety Promise and Challenge of Automotive Electronics: Insights from Unintended Acceleration, which examines how the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) regulatory, research, and defect investigation programs can be strengthened to meet the safety assurance and oversight challenges arising from the expanding functionality and use of automotive electronics. The report gives particular attention to the NHTSA response to consumer complaints of vehicles accelerating unintentionally and to concerns that faulty electronic systems may have been to blame. The committee that produced the report found that the increasingly capable and complex electronics systems being added to automobiles present many opportunities for making driving safer but also present new demands for ensuring their safe performance. These safety assurance demands pertain both to the automotive industry development and deployment of electronics systems and to the safety oversight role of NHTSA. With regard to the latter, the committee recommends that NHTSA give explicit consideration to the oversight challenges arising from automotive electronics and that the agency develop and articulate a long term strategy for meeting these challenges."--Provided by publisher.