ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, October 13, 1996 TAG: 9610140014
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG
SOURCE: MARK CLOTHIER STAFF WRITER
If you find it easier to hit your brights now that they're mounted on your car's instrument panel, you have someone like Tom Dingus to thank.
The idea to move the switch from the floor, or at least the study of where the switch should be, belongs to an increasingly less obscure realm of science known as human factors engineering.
Engineers like Dingus study how effectively people use new technology. They also study ergonomics, which looks at how best to design things like your car's instrument panel.
And, every so often, engineers like Dingus land jobs that tie all of this together.
A job, for example, such as director of the Virginia Tech Center for Transportation Research, which Dingus, 38, started Jan. 1.
Dingus oversees a $4 million annual budget and a full-time staff of 18. That staff is expected to double by the end of 1998, he said.
The 8-year-old center is the driving force behind the controversial "smart" road project, a planned six-mile highway that will lead from Blacksburg to Interstate 81, about two miles north of the main Christiansburg exit.
The road project cleared one of its last remaining hurdles Oct. 2 when a U.S. District Court judge ruled against three New River Valley environmental groups that had sued federal highway officials to question environmental reviews of the project.
Though the plaintiffs still may appeal, ground on the initial two-mile test bed portion of the road is expected to be broken in midsummer, officials say. Tech's research on that portion could begin by late 1998.
The road is designed for three purposes: to help relieve congestion between Christiansburg and Blacksburg; to create a more direct link between Roanoke and Tech; and to serve as a laboratory for new road and vehicle technology.
The last of the three is where Dingus factors in.
Dingus holds a bachelor's degree in human factors engineering from Wright State (Ohio) University and a master's and doctorate in industrial and systems engineering from Virginia Tech.
"I've always been fascinated with how to do things better and quicker," he said. "And I've been pretty lucky. I like what I do."
You may have seen some of what he's done if you rented a car that came with an on-board computer map. It's called TravTek and it details the best route from A to B.
You may also have seen it advertised on television this fall as a feature offered on the Oldsmobile Bravada.
Dingus worked on the TravTek project during a trial run in Orlando in 1992.
The TravTek project, he said, is similar to the research that will take place on the smart road once it is built.
TravTek tested things such as eye-reaction time, answering questions like whether it's more efficient to look at a paper map, a computer map or written directions.
And, if a computer map is used, the project studied how big the letters, numbers, graphics and icons should be.
That project was funded to develop government safety guidelines.
The burgeoning human-factors field is being heavily funded because federal transportation officials see it as one of the few remaining options to improve both the safety and efficiency of existing roads, said Ray Pethtel, the associate director of the Center for Transportation Research.
Highways are becoming more and more clogged and the trend is to move from expansion of existing highways and toward their more efficient use, said Tom Jennings, a transportation management engineer with the Federal Highway Administration's Richmond office.
"The whole focus is to make travel smarter, to get more information to motorists to make travel smoother," he said.
One way transportation officials are looking to do this is through automated highways.
To help, researchers at Tech have an Oldsmobile Aurora equipped with cameras to measure reaction times: one aimed out the front window, one aimed at the driver's eyes, one focused behind the driver's head and one aimed at the dash and steering wheel. Another camera is supposed to be added to keep an eye on the pedals.
Dingus said a second car is on the way. He said the center is working with Volvo GM Heavy Truck Corp. to get a semi-truck outfitted in a similar way.
In addition to reaction times, the smart road will be able to simulate blizzard conditions by using a machine that can generate up to 4 inches of snow in one hour.
If financial forecasts are accurate, the region's economy also will get a bump. The smart road has been billed as a multimillion dollar boon for Tech and the region. Critics call that a bunch of blarney, used to lure local governments into supporting the controversial project.
Pethtel has been one of the prime promoters of the rosy forecasts.
Pethtel, 59, is a former state transportation commissioner who was the first nonengineer to head the Virginia highway agency when then-Gov. Gerald Baliles appointed him in 1986. Pethtel has been Tech's chief spokesman on the project since mid-1994.
He spent a large part of those first two years shepherding the project through the approval stage with various local governing bodies. Pethtel also stepped in as interim director of the center when its founder, Antoine Hobeika, resigned in December 1994 amid a conflict with university officials over intellectual property rights and computer software developed at the center.
One of Pethtel's trump cards during the deliberation process was the potential economic boon to the area - at the time billed as $100 million in research grants to $300 million in work for spinoff companies over the next 20 years.
Pethtel now calls those early projections low.
His main job this fall is figuring out to which companies Tech's new resource should be marketed.
He's been identifying industries and organizations - such as firms in the electronics, automotive technologies, sensor and communications fields - to market the resource.
Pethtel said the center's workload has doubled since last year.
"A good portion of that is because of the kinds of expertise and resources we can now promise with the smart road," he said.
LENGTH: Long : 115 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ALAN KIM/Staff. As director of the Virginia Tech Centerby CNBfor Transportation Research, Tom Dingus oversees a $4 million annual
budget and a full-time staff of 18. color.