U.S. Department of Transportation
Federal Highway Administration
400 Seventh St., S.W.
Washington, D.C. 20590

Refer to: HOTO-1

Mr. Thomas E. Bryer
Director
Bureau of Highway Safety and Traffic Engineering
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
Department of Transportation
555 Walnut Street, 7th Floor - Forum Place
Harrisburg, PA 17105-2047

Dear Mr. Bryer:

Thank you for your letter of June 26 to Division Administrator James A. Cheatham, Pennsylvania Department of Transportation. Your letter was forwarded to the Office of Transportation Operations (HOTO-1) for a reply. In your letter, you requested approval to experiment with the "Keep Minimum Two Dots Apart" tailgating initiative.

We have reviewed your documents "Guidelines for Installation of Pennsylvania DOT Tailgating Treatment" and "Evaluation of Pennsylvania 'DOT' Tailgating Treatment" in support of your Request to Experimentation. We will approve your request subject to the following comments. This information may be provided by fax to Mr. Harold Lunenfeld at 202-366-3225:

1. The Detailed Research Plan is approved.
2. Note that the research plan should provide for close monitoring of the experimentation, especially in the early stages of the field implementation. The 2-year evaluation of the experiment is approved.
3. Please provide the milepost locations of the experimental installations on I-78 in Monroe County, I-80 in Berks, Lehigh, and/or Northhampton counties, and I-81 in Cumberland and/or Dauphin counties.
   1. Your agreement to forward semiannual progress reports for the duration of the experimentation, and to provide a copy of the final results to HOTO-1 within 3 months following completion of the experiment is acknowledged.
   5. We request that you indicate when you plan to install the devices and when you plan to complete the project. We will begin the experimental schedule on the dates you specify.

For reference purposes, we have assigned your request the following official experimentation number and title: "III-102(E) - Keep Minimum Two Dots Apart tailgating initiative." Please refer to this number in future correspondence.

If you have any question while preparing your revised request to experiment, please call Mr. Harold Lunenfeld at 202-366-6598.

Sincerely yours,

Shelley J. Row, P.E.
Director, Office of Transportation
Operations

FHWA:HOTO-1:HLunenfeld:ds:66598:9-14-00
Revised:HLunenfeld:9-26-00
cc: HOTO-1 HOST-1 HOTO-1(HLunenfeld/EHuckaby/KPoindexter) HOTO-1(GSchoene) HOTM (D Shierer) All Resources Centers HDA-PA(2) Mr. Bob Garrett, NCUTCD Chron 3408 Reader 3408

DF(III-102(E)"Keep Minimum Two Dots Apart tailgating initiative.") M:\HOTO\TCD\WPDATA\EXPERIME\TWODOT.WPD