VTTI25

VTTI Profile: Myra Blanco, Automated Vehicle Systems Group Leader

What changes have you seen in transportation research?

Five years ago, there was a lot of improvement in technology and crash mitigation systems. Now, with the potential for automated vehicles, I think the next five years are going to be very exciting in terms of vehicle safety. Sensor fusion and other evolving technolo gies present vehicle automation as a reality.

Myra Blanco started at VTTI in April 1998 cleaning cars, making copies, and preparing literature reviews. A master’s student in hu man factors engineering at Virginia Tech, she had volunteered to work at VTTI. By the end of the summer, she had a project for her M.S. thesis and support as a graduate research assistant. Her first research project was to help develop guidelines for commercial driver-vehicle interface navigation systems. “We determined what type of information should be included and how it should be pre sented,” she explains. In 1999, she went to work at Ford as an intern. She returned to VTTI with a project related to meeting Society of Automotive Engi neers requirements. The work provided funding for her and several other students. Blanco completed her master’s degree, and in March 2000, Tom Dingus offered her a full-time position at VTTI. When she received her Ph.D. in 2002, she became the youngest research scientist at the Institute. Blanco initially performed proprietary work on light vehicles for industry until 2005. Then she returned to heavy-truck research and became the leader of the Safety and Human Factors Engineering Group within the VTTI Center for Truck and Bus Safety. “We worked for the U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Motor Car rier Safety Administration and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on technologies that might serve commercial drivers, studies to determine hours of service, and development of simula tor-based training for commercial vehicle drivers.” In 2013, Blanco became group leader of the newly formed Auto mated Vehicle Systems initiative, working with both light and heavy vehicles.

What do you like best about your work? Two things: the work environment and the objective.

VTTI has been my family since 1998. It is a better place to work than many places I have seen.

The objective, to save lives, is very pragmatic. We know what we are trying to accomplish – reduce fatalities and injuries. The goal for the new wave of automated vehicles is zero fatalities and zero injuries. It is a really big goal that the transportation industry is trying to achieve.

photo by Steven Mackay

VTTI 25

• 35