Soon, driving test on simulator

Newspaper: The Times of India
Date: 11th February 2016
Edition: New Delhi

CRRI Designs Customised Machines Incorporating Indian Road Conditions
For years now, regional transport offices in Delhi have been making do with a rudimentary “driving test“ for licence seekers on the nearest road to the RTO.Paucity of space has meant that RTOs don't have a test strip on their premises. All this could change with the customised car driving simulator that the Central Road Research Institute (CRRI) has designed.

CRRI, which is waiting to get a patent on the simulator, has already lined up a meeting with Delhi transport department officials next month. Said Dr Errampalli Madhu, principal scientist at CRRI, who is part of the team working on the simulator design, “The simulator may prove a catalyst for road safety in India. Many countries, including Japan, are already using such simulators to evaluate driving skills and award driver's licen ce accordingly .“ What makes the CRRI simulator unique is the customisation that has gone into it.

Unlike the usual simulators, which evaluate a driver's reactions only , the one developed by CRRI tests the driver's psychomotor skills--that is, reaction time taken, speed and distance judgement, visual acuity , etc.More importantly , the software also incorporates typical Indian road conditions like potholes and bad roads, vehicles on the wrong side of the road, varying traffic density or a dog suddenly wandering on to the driver's path.

The data for the simulator software is based on CRRI's years of research, says Dr Neelima Chakraborty , senior principal scientist, who introduced the psychomotor testing module in the software. “Over the years, we have been working with commercial drivers as well as those who are on SPG duty . Data from these projects was used to design the simulator's parameters for evaluation,“ said Chakraborty . The simulator, added the scien tist, has already been tested on over 150 drivers in the past two months as part of the patenting process.

The simulator, which has been fabricated by Faros Si mulators based on the design by CRRI, can be mounted in any vehicle body , though the one being used by CRRI was in a Maruti Alto. “The soft ware of the simulator can be tweaked to convert it into any vehicle, from an Alto to an SUV ,“ added Madhu. It can be done through changing the parameters of the simulator like the acceleration and de celeration characteristics as well as the RPM.

The three panels, which display the road conditions with background, cover 135 degrees of vision, much like a car's windscreen. The vehicle meanwhile, has all the usual fixtures like an accelerator brake pedal and clutch as well as gear shift, rear-view, side-vi ew mirrors and other display like a regular car.

The simulator, say CRRI scientists, can work towards ensuring better road safety “The ideal scenario is that the simulator can be used by driving schools for practice and then a test can be conduc ted on it to award the driver's licence,“ said Madhu.

The evaluation by the si mulator's software is presen ted as a driver report, which records not only how many ti mes speed limits were brea ched but also parameters like how many times the brake pe dal was pressed slow, over or under-revving of engine etc.