Visibility Research Laboratory

TTI’s Visibility Research Laboratory, located on the first floor of TTI’s State Headquarters Building, is the first of its kind in a university setting. The lab features a 140-foot-long by 15-foot-wide corridor for testing retroreflective materials as well as coatings, lights and other technologies designed to provide nighttime visibility. The lab also has ventilation systems to allow full-size vehicles to run in the lab while conducting human factors testing and evaluating installed headlamp illumination.

The room was built for future installation of rain-making equipment to allow assessment of visibility of devices under wet conditions. The 140-foot tunnel-shaped facility also allows researchers to run human-subject night simulation studies under controlled conditions at any time during the day. An adjacent conference room provides space for presentations, where sponsors and visitors can examine samples of reflective materials with microscopes.

For the last 50 years, TTI researchers have conducted full-scale, closed-course night-time driving studies at the Texas A&M-RELLIS Campus. This outdoor facility allows for static and dynamic visibility and human factors research at speeds of up to 70 mph. The Visibility Research Laboratory complements this full-scale testing facility.