CE361 Introduction to

Transportation Engineering
Spring 2024

Road Vehicle Performance

Prof. Yiheng Feng

Lyles School of Civil Engineering
HAMP G131
[email protected]

1
Principles of Braking
▪ Substituting Eqs. 2.26 and 2.27 gives:
𝜇𝑊
𝐹𝑏𝑓 max = 𝑙𝑟 + ℎ 𝜇 + 𝑓𝑟𝑙 Eq. 2.28
𝐿
𝜇𝑊
𝐹𝑏𝑟 max = 𝑙 − ℎ 𝜇 + 𝑓𝑟𝑙 Eq. 2.29
𝐿 𝑓
▪ Note: the maximum braking force happens at the point of impending
slide.
▪ If the tries begin to slide (i.e., the brakes lock), a significant reduction in
road adhesion will result.
Coefficient of Road Adhesion
Pavement Maximum Slide
Good, dry 1.00* 0.80
Good, wet 0.90 0.60
Poor, dry 0.80 0.55
Poor, wet 0.60 0.30
Packed snow or ice 0.25 0.10
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Braking Force Ratio and Efficiency
▪ Summation of Eq. 2.28 and 2.29, the maximum braking force of the
vehicle is:
𝐹𝑏𝑚𝑎𝑥 = 𝜇𝑊

▪ As a result, the maximum attainable vehicle deceleration is equal to 𝜇𝑔

(similar as the maximum acceleration)

▪ To approach this maximum vehicle deceleration, vehicle braking systems

must correctly distribute braking forces between the vehicle’s front and
rear brakes based on their maximum braking forces

▪ If we define the ratio of break forces between the front wheel and rear
wheel as:
𝐹𝑏𝑓 𝑚𝑎𝑥 𝑙𝑟 + ℎ(𝜇 + 𝑓𝑟𝑙 )
𝐵𝐹𝑅𝑓/𝑟 𝑚𝑎𝑥 = 𝐵𝐹𝑅𝑓/𝑟 𝑚𝑎𝑥 =
𝐹𝑏𝑟 𝑚𝑎𝑥 𝑙𝑓 − ℎ(𝜇 + 𝑓𝑟𝑙 ) Eq. 2.30

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Theoretical Stopping Distance
▪ Finally, vehicle deceleration can be calculated as:
𝐹𝑏 + ∑𝑅 = 𝛾𝑏 𝑎𝑚
𝛾𝑏 : mass factor accounting for moments of inertia during braking (1.04 for
automobiles)

▪ Then the stopping distance can be calculated as:

Eq. 2.36

▪ With some simplifications (see text book), and consider the braking
efficiency 𝜂𝑏 , the braking distance is:

Eq. 2.43

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Example – Theoretical Stopping Distance
Theoretical stopping distance:

Typical Values of Coefficient of Road Adhesion (Table 2.5)

Coefficient of road adhesion
Pavement Maximum Slide
Good, dry 1.00 0.8
Good, wet 0.9 0.6
Poor, dry 0.8 0.55
Poor, wet 0.6 0.3
Packed snow or ice 0.25 0.1

A car is traveling at 70mph on a level section of road with good, wet pavement. Its ABS
only starts to work after the brakes have been locked for 100 ft. If the driver holds the
brake pedal down completely, immediately locking the wheels, and keeps the pedal
down during the entire process, how many feet will it take the car to stop completely
from the point of initial brake application? (Assume that the braking efficiency is 80%
with the ABS not working and 100% with the ABS working. Ignore air resistance. Let
𝑓𝑟𝑙 = 0.02 when the brakes are locked and 𝑓𝑟𝑙 = 0.013 once the ABS become active.

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Example – Theoretical Stopping Distance

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Practical Braking Distance
▪ Further simplification with rectilinear motion equations
V22 = V12 + 2ad Eq. 2.44
▪ Assuming vehicle comes to a complete stop and an average deceleration
rate a and road grade G, the final braking distance is:

Eq. 2.47

▪ Notes:
• The average deceleration rate (11.2 ft/s2 or 3.4 m/s2) is an empirical value
recommended by AASHTO which considers different effects
𝑎
• If we consider maximum braking: 𝑔 = 𝜇 (coefficient of road adhesion)
• It is consistent with the theoretical braking distance equation
• This is the gap between theory and practice!

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Human Factors – Perception/Reaction Time
▪ Driver Perception/Reaction time is time to perceive and react to a
hazard in vehicle’s path
▪ Assume vehicle is traveling in constant speed during the perception and
reaction time
▪ Total breaking distance is:
𝑉12
𝑑𝑠 = 𝑑𝑟 + 𝑑 = 𝑉1 𝑡 + 𝑎
2𝑔( ± 𝐺)
𝑔
𝑑𝑟 = 𝑉1 ∗ 𝑡

t = driver’s perception reaction time in s,

ds = total stopping distance (including perception/reaction) in ft,
d = distance traveled during braking in ft, and
dr = distance traveled during perception/reaction in ft (m).

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Human Factors – Perception/Reaction Time

Source: Gates, Dilemma Zone Driver Behavior as a Function of Vehicle Type, Time of Day and
Platooning, Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No.
2149, Transportation Research Board of the National Academies, Washington, D.C., 2010, .p. 87.

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Example – Autonomous Vehicle Braking Distance

Two vehicles, one operated by a human and one autonomous vehicle, are
travelling on a level highway. If the autonomous vehicle is traveling at 70
mph, and its perception reaction time is considered negligible, what is the
maximum speed the human driven vehicle can travel and have a stopping
distance that does not exceed that of the autonomous vehicle? Assuming
they both decelerate at 11.2 ft/s2 and the human driver’s perception
reaction time is 2.5s.

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Example – Autonomous Vehicle Braking Distance

▪ Stop distance for the autonomous vehicle:

5280 2
70 ×
3600
𝑑= = 470.56 𝑓𝑡
2 × 11.2

▪ Stop distance for the human driver:

𝑉2 𝑉2
𝑑𝑠 = +𝑉×𝑡 = + 2.5𝑉 = 470.56
2𝑎 2 × 11.2

▪ Solve for V:
𝑉 = 78.4𝑓𝑡/𝑠 (53.5 𝑚𝑝ℎ)

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Challenge for Autonomous Vehicle - Occlusion

Palffy, Andras & Kooij, Julian & Gavrila, Dariu. (2019). Occlusion aware sensor fusion
for early crossing pedestrian detection. 1768-1774. 10.1109/IVS.2019.8814065.
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Cooperative Perception Concept

Source: Zhang, R., Meng, D., Shen, S., Zou, Z., Li, H., & Liu, H. X. (2023). MSight: An Edge-Cloud Infrastructure-
based Perception System for Connected Automated Vehicles. arXiv preprint arXiv:2310.05290.

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Cooperative Perception System

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Scenario Design

• A case study was conducted at the

parking lot of Purdue Research Park
• TScan was placed at the “T-Intersection”
• CAV traveled from south to north
• VRU traveled from west to east
• CAV was not able to see the VRU due to
occlusion
• TScan was able to detect both the VRU
and CAV

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Experiment 1: Human Driver

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Experiment 2: Autonomous Vehicle

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Experiment 2: Autonomous Vehicle
First Detection in LiDAR First Detection in Camera

• VRU was first detected

only 1.3s before passing
the conflict point
• CAV applied a hard
brake (max -5.12 m/s2)
to avoid crash

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Experiment 3: CAV with Cooperative Perception
VRU and CAV Speed Profiles

• VRU was first detected by TScan and

sent to CAV 5.79s before passing the
conflict point
• CAV applied a moderate brake (max -
2.21 m/s2) and avoided a complete
stop
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Safety Metric Comparison
Post Encroachment Time (PET) Profiles

VRU was first detected

by onboard Lidar at 31.7s
VRU info was first received
from TScan at 16.7s

Experiment 2: CAV without Experiment 3: CAV with

Cooperative Perception Cooperative Perception

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Recap – Topics Covered
▪ Resistance: three types of resistance forces
▪ Tractive efforts: two types of tractive efforts
▪ Vehicle acceleration
▪ Braking forces: maximum braking force, and braking force
distribution
▪ Stopping distance: theoretical stopping and practical
stopping distances
▪ Fuel Efficiency: CACC and eco-driving
▪ Human factor: driver’s perception and reaction time

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