Starting and Implementing a Field Operational Test

On October 23rd and 24th, the first two FOT-Net seminars were held in hotel Bloom in Brussels. This resulted in two very successful days with about 30 participants, interesting lectures by various speakers, and interactive working sessions. The participants were able to obtain a lot of information and to exchange experiences with each other. Under here you can find the program and links to the presentations that were given.

Seminar 1:

Download the full report  .pdf (108 KB)

Introduction

The chairwoman of the day, Yvonne Barnard of the University of Leeds, welcomed everyone, and presented the agenda of the day. FOT-Net was introduced; the project sees itself as a “one-stop shop” for all FOTs, European and national ones. The FOT-Net seminars are based on the methodology developed in the FESTA project on performing FOTs. The methodology is described in the FESTA handbook; more detailed information can be found in the FESTA deliverables.

Presentation Yvonne Barnard: .pdf (403 KB)
Download FESTA materials, click here

Morning session: Starting a FOT

Rino Brouwer from TNO introduced EuroFOT, being one of the large European FOTs. Next Oliver Carsten from the University of Leeds explained the FESTA methodology on formulating research questions, hypotheses and use cases. Two main methods may be used, which are complementary: the top-down approach, starting with the main impacts of system use on safety, efficiency and  environmental impacts, and the bottom-up approach starting with use-case, situations, scenarios and events.

Presentation Rino Brouwer on euroFOT:  .pdf (747 KB)

Hand-out Oliver Carsten:  .pdf (453 KB)

euroFOT website: http://www.eurofot-ip.eu/

Afternoon session: hypotheses and legal and ethical issues

In the afternoon the participants worked in three groups on formulating hypotheses for performing a FOT with three (imaginary) systems: an ADA system, a nomadic device and a cooperative system. The groups used both the top-down and the bottom-up approach.

Next a panel discussion was held on ethical and legal issues with Oliver Carsten from the University of Leeds, Rino Brouwer from TNO and  Maxime Flament from ERTICO, chaired by Yvonne Barnard. Four topics on ethical and legal issues taken from the FESTA handbook were discussed: briefing of participants, administrative fines, data privacy and ethical principles. The discussion continues on the FOT-Net web forum.

Results from the groups in the working session:  .pdf (126 KB)

Slides ethical and legal panel discussion:  .pdf (358 KB)

Seminar 2:

Donwload the full report:  .pdf (49 KB)

Introduction

The chairwoman of the day, Kerry Malone from TNO, welcomed everyone, gave an overview of the conclusions from the previous day and presented the agenda of the day.

Presentation Kerry Malone: introduction:  .pdf (511 KB)

Morning session: how to implement a FOT

Mike Regan from INRETS and SAFER-Chalmers explained the purposes of the FOT Implementation Plan and how to use this Plan. After this two examples of FOTs were given: the Australian “TAC SafeCar” FOT by Mike Regan and the SeMiFOT (Sweden Michigan) Naturalistic FOT by Helena Gellerman from SAFER-Chalmers.

After these presentations, a working session was held in which the participants applied the Implementation Plan to the FOTs that were introduced the previous day. The morning session was ended by feedback from the groups and a plenary discussion.

Presentation Mike Regan on FOT Implementation Plan:  .pdf (108 KB)

Presentation Mike Regan on the TAC SafeCar FOT:  .pdf (995 KB)

Presentation Helena Gellerman on SeMiFOT:  .pdf (1258 KB)

Afternoon session: study design

Rino Brouwer from TNO started the afternoon session by giving a short introduction on study design. After this he gave presentations on two aspects of the study design: the selection of participants and the study environment. In a working session the information on study design was applied to the cases used earlier and one of the groups reported back to the whole group.

The second speaker of the afternoon was Tom Alkim from Rijkswaterstaat. He has experience in putting together a vehicle fleet when he was involved in the Dutch pilot “the Assisted Driver”.

Presentation Rino Brouwer: introduction study design:  .pdf (125 KB)

Presentation Rino Brouwer on selection of participants:  .pdf (213 KB)

Presentation Rino Brouwer on study environment:  .pdf (548 KB)

Presentation Tom Alkim on vehicle fleet:  .pdf (3492 KB)

Book on “the Assisted Driver”:  .pdf (3712 KB)

Conclusions

At the end of the afternoon Kerry Malone presented the conclusions and thanked everyone for his or her active participation.

Presentation conclusions by Kerry Malone:  .pdf (330 KB)