  With the advent of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), there is an
increasing need to evaluate driver behavior while using such technology. In
this unique study, a forward collision warning (FCW) system using connected
vehicle technology, was introduced in a driving simulator environment, to
evaluate driver braking behavior and then the results are validated using data
from field tests. A total of 93 participants were recruited for this study, for
which a virtual network of South Baltimore was created. A one sample t-test was
conducted, and it was found that the mean reduction in speed of 15.07 mph post
FCW, is statistically significant. A random forest, machine learning algorithm
was found to be the best fit for ranking the most important variables in the
dataset by order of importance. Field data obtained from the University of
Michigan Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI), substantiated the FCW
findings from this driving simulator study.
