According to an investigation in March 2008 by the Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Urban Affairs (BMVBS) about 14,000 truck parking spaces are missing in the near of motorways in Germany. Beside constructional enlargement of rest areas, intelligent traffic systems ought to be used to detect automatically the occupancy rate of rest areas and to provide better demand management and also to achieve an increase of capacity of truck parking spaces. The essay describes the newly developed control procedure "Compact parking", which is currently under development by German Federal Highway Research Institute (BASt). The method achieves that a number of trucks are parking in a compact way, side by side and without a driving lane between them. With the help of dynamic displays above the parking rows, the drivers receive the needful information to park their vehicle in a parking row, in which other trucks have the same or an earlier departure time. This system is able to increase the rest area capacity in short-term, more quickly than constructional enlargement of rest areas.
Annual report 2011/2012
(2013)
Traffic on German roads is increasing continuously. The research of the Federal Institute for Materials Research (BASt) is concerned with a road system that will be functioning well in the future, that is safe and economically and ecologically sustainable. Every two years, BASt reports on its tasks, research projects and selected administrative topics. The current report comprises the years of 2011 and 2012. On 151 pages, it provides an idea of current research about important topics of roads and traffic. The projects SKRIBT and SKRIBTPlus examined the behaviour of drivers in tunnels in hazardous situations. It was discovered that in situations like this many people often react inadequately and too late. The collected data were used to develop new concepts that improve behaviour in hazardous situations in tunnels. In recent years, new safety systems that improve braking behaviour in hazardous situations have been installed in vehicles. However, for end users it is difficult to compare different systems because they have no access to suitable assessments. The EU project ASSESS (Assessment of Integrated Vehicle Safety Systems for improved vehicle safety) in which BASt is involved as a key partner therefore developed a uniform procedure for assessment and legal questions. Many European countries agree: Alcohol, drugs and medication in road traffic constitute a safety risk on European roads. In order to gain new insights and to develop suitable countermeasures, the European Commission approved of the largest research project to improve road safety to date: DRUID (Driving Under the Influence of Drugs, Alcohol and Medicines). This BASt-coordinated project took five years and involved institutes from 18 European countries. The result is a comprehensive stock taking and concrete suggestions on measures to be taken. A mayor part of the work of BASt also comprises extension and maintenance of the entire road infrastructure. The report "How will we make constructions in the future: Road construction without oil?" for instance examines the question how we will maintain and extend our roads in the future with resources becoming scarcer and more expensive. Furthermore, the campaign "on" the road plays a major part at BASt. For years there has been a shortage of parking spaces for trucks on federal highways. To remedy this situation, BAST has developed a new control approach: The so-called compact parking system increases capacities and uses them more effectively by parking trucks in a line according to their planned departure time.
This report presents the results of a stakeholder analysis which has been performed by the EasyWay Cooperative Systems Task Force. The stakeholder analysis aims at identifying potential roles of the road operator in the operation process of selected cooperative services and describing expectations and aspirations related to the future roles and responsibilities from a European road operator- point of view. The following cooperative services have been considered in the stakeholder analysis: Hazardous location notification, Traffic jam ahead warning, Road works warning, Automatic access control and Parking management. The stakeholder analysis used findings from previous projects and performed own studies based on desk research and expert assessments which were carried out by the task partners. The approach includes the development of high-level descriptions showing functional schemes of the operational process chains and potential roles / responsibilities related to the road operator. A deepened analysis was performed by assessing the functional schemes / role profiles and collecting opportunities, concerns, and success factors from a road operator- perspective.