Preliminary Study on Road Slipperiness Detection using Real-Time Digital Tachograph Data

Faced with the high rate of commercial vehicle-related traffic accidents, digital tachographs (DTGs) are mandatorily installed in commercial vehicles in Korea. However, the current DTGs do not seem to be effective for reducing accidents. One reason for this can be attributed to the absence of useful information for drivers under dangerous road conditions such as black ice. In this study, an innovative technique to identify slippery spots on the road using DTG data is proposed. The DTG can collect two types of vehicle speed: one is wheel rotational speed and the other is vehicle transitional speed. The difference between the two speeds is referred to as wheel slip, which can be exploited as a surrogate measure for detecting road slipperiness. A confidence interval of wheel slip was established using data collected in dry road conditions; if any data point that exceeds the predefined confidence interval is observed, a slippery road spot can be identified. The proposed method was preliminarily tested in four types of winter road conditions and showed satisfactory results.