The TRAVL driving simulator virtual worlds (Part V): Straight Road Scenarios
By CSEE Staff
Published May 4, 2026
The Transportation Research and Visualization Laboratory (TRAVL) is home to two world-class driving simulators. These include the high-fidelity, full-motion simRING, which has been outfitted with a full Mustang passenger cabin, as well as the smaller-scale miniSIM for co-simulation applications, prototype driver testing and validation.
Within these simulators, a series of virtual environments have been constructed where driving participants can engage with diverse driving applications.
Among these virtual worlds are a series of Straight Road Scenarios (SRS), which enable targeted driving excursions upon a simple roadway geometry, ranging in length from “brief” to “extended.”
Within the SRS, a basic traffic model can be implemented if necessary; likewise, adverse weather cues can be induced to observevehicle handling across widely varying road surfaces and environmental conditions for human factors comparison studies.
All these virtual environments have been constructed using the C/C++ programming language with the aid of embedded tools such as OpenGL for graphics, OpenAL for audio, DirectX for driver controls and and Posix multithreads and UDP sockets to communicate with our accompanying motion systems.
The SRS includes 3 primary driving worlds:
- Speedbump Alley: Features four lanes of travel, each with varying frequencies of speedbumps in each lane, the geometric parameters of which can be varied. Such a configuration is ideal for examining and optimizing vehicle suspension parameterssuch as mass, spring stiffness and damping coefficient.
- Extended Road Segment: Features between two and four lanes of travel, both incoming and outgoing, that can be parameterized per user specification. These include the overall excursion length in miles, lane markings like solid, broken or “mixed” condition, traffic configuration like vehicle density, both inbound and outbound, road and weather conditions, vegetation density, roadway sign density and other simulation assignments.
- “Moose Test”: A replication of a standardized ISO 3888-2 vehicle handling test that commonly conducted on closed-course test tracks. The test forces a rapid double-swerve movement to ensure the vehicle does not have an over propensity to rollover during a collision avoidance maneuver. Both configurations of the Moose Test, “original” and “modified,” can be simulated within our virtual environments.
The SRS environments typically have been used in pilot studies to analyze vehicle dynamics and vehicle handling, as well as tostudy human factors such as driver attentivity and cognition. Extended, simulation environments can also be used to driving fatigue, which often leads to task-unrelated thought like mind wandering, a documented leading cause of negative distracted driving outcomes.
TRAVL staff and students continue to develop, expand and maintain these virtual environments, as they have ongoing potential to support prospective pilot studies and future grant applications for training, education and research. TRAVL is a marquee research facility affiliated with the Stephen Still Institute for Sustainable Transportation and Logistics (SSISTL). Through its interdisciplinary graduate program and research, SSISTL fosters collaboration and advances transportation research.
