North Carolina is considered to be a ‘lead’ state in efforts by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) to develop a ‘model program’ for truck safety in the United States. The TACT program (Ticketing Aggressive Cars and Trucks) is characterized by three major components: (a) education/outreach, (b) enhanced enforcement, and (c) evaluation. North Carolina is now in its second iteration of TACT. Efforts to evaluate the effectiveness of the TACT program have been hindered to this point by the absence of measures able to provide an accurate and reliable assessment of the impacts of TACT on operational driver behavior. It is recognized that the level of enforcement effort (and the resulting number of citations) alone is not a sufficient measure of program success.Funding provided to ITRE under TACT II has provided improved measures of effectiveness (MOE’s) – measures that reliably detect aggressive vehicle speeds, “following too close” events, and restricted lane compliance – using quantitative analysis methods developed using video image processing (VIP). The use of VIP via the Econolite Autoscope software suite has allowed the team to employ equipment in an unobtrusive manner to collect the various MOE’s. The team further identified supplemental detection that will be procured and utilized for future research efforts.
Based upon the results of the current study, ITRE and the NCSHP TACT Program Office recommend the selective implementation of video image processing capabilities to augment the planned evaluation of TACT III efforts in CY2010.

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