Advanced Transportation Technologies Seminars

Visual accessibility—how effectively vision can be used to travel safely through or complete activities within a space—has an important impact on low-vision mobility. In this seminar, Gordon Legge will describe an empirical approach for studying the visual accessibility of indoor spaces, including experiments on the detection and recognition of steps and ramps. He will also outline the development of a new form of adaptive technology—the Digital Sign System—to assist visually impaired people with indoor navigation.

Visual accessibility—how effectively vision can be used to travel safely through or complete activities within a space—has an important impact on low-vision mobility. In this seminar, Gordon Legge will describe an empirical approach for studying the visual accessibility of indoor spaces, including experiments on the detection and recognition of steps and ramps. He will also outline the development of a new form of adaptive technology—the Digital Sign System—to assist visually impaired people with indoor navigation.

The consideration of vision loss is of growing importance in research, planning, and implementation of travel and transportation needs. There are approximately 12 million people with some form of visual impairment in the United States, and this number is estimated to double in the next 20 years as a consequence of our aging population. To meet the needs of this growing population, far more research is needed to better understand what information is used to support spatial behaviors for people with low (or no) vision. In this seminar, Nicholas Giudice will discuss some practical solutions that can improve information access, safety, and efficient travel for people with vision loss. He will also explain why the failure to consider human perceptual and cognitive factors often leads to poor design decisions—especially when incorporating auditory, haptic, and other non-visual information into traditional navigation systems and transportation networks.

Traffic safety comes in several shapes and sizes. Ask a maintenance worker what safety is and you might hear that it's plowing roads when it snows. A transportation designer might say that safety is designing signposts that break away without intruding into a vehicle. A local official might say that installing an interchange or converting a two-lane road to four lanes is safety. Safety has been ingrained in the transportation profession since the time of horse and buggy trails. In this presentation, Brad Estochen will discuss the Minnesota Department of Transportation's diverse approach to roadway safety. He will highlight traditional measures and prioritization processes as well as approaches for addressing safety on a systemic level and using data to help drive Minnesota toward its goal of zero deaths.

Cyclopath is a routing and mapping system for bicyclists in the Twin Cities metro area. The system, developed at the University of Minnesota, generates bicycling routes that can be personalized to meet individual cyclists' preferences. Cyclopath is also the world's first full-featured geographic wiki—all users can edit the system's maps of roads and trails. Much information about bike trails and cycling conditions is currently known only to individual cyclists, and Cyclopath allows them to share this key knowledge with each other. Cyclopath is a popular resource for the cycling community and a powerful research platform. In this seminar, Loren Terveen will describe the innovative aspects of the Cyclopath system design, summarize several research studies of Cyclopath users and usage, and describe a few new development and research directions.

To save lives and prevent injuries on U.S. highways, vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communication is essential. In this seminar, M. Imran Hayee reviewed the architecture, functionality, and field demonstration results of a newly developed V2I communication system that incorporates V2V assistance. The system, which relies on dedicated short-range communications technology, was developed to improve traffic efficiency and increase safety in congested work-zone areas. The system can automatically acquire important traffic information—such as travel time and the starting point of congestion—and relay it back to drivers approaching the work zone. It uses a single roadside unit to collect traffic data from vehicles traveling on the road that are also exchanging information with each other. Field demonstration results indicate that the system can adapt to dynamically changing work-zone traffic environments and can cover larger work-zone areas than a system using V2I communication without V2V assistance.

In this seminar, John Evans will discuss a practical sensor technology to improve public safety through the remote sensing of snow and ice on bridge and road surfaces. A system based on such technology can provide real-time information about the surface condition of a roadway. This information could then trigger signage to alert motorists of unsafe conditions and/or notify maintenance personnel that deicing is needed. Evans' approach uses time domain reflectometry (TDR) to acquire dielectric relaxation spectroscopy (DRS) data from low-cost passive sensors. TDR and DRS technology has been used in such disciplines as soil science and high-speed electronic data transfer and is a viable alternative for probing bridge or road surface conditions. Evans will outline the electronic hardware and software components necessary for this approach, as well as explain the integration of the components into an overall system that can be deployed in remote locations.

Many cities in the U.S. are installing roundabouts instead of traditional signalized intersections, largely due to evidence that roundabouts dramatically reduce fatal and severe injury crashes. However, the impact of roundabouts on pedestrian safety is not clear. In this seminar, John Hourdos will discuss a research project aimed at investigating pedestrian accessibility in Minnesota’s urban roundabouts and addressing complaints from pedestrians regarding intersection crossing and safety issues. The project involved the observation and analysis of interactions between pedestrians or bicycles and vehicles at two modern urban roundabouts in the Twin Cities area. The researchers examined factors such as who yielded, the location of the crossing, the number of subjects involved, and the conditions inside the roundabout before the interaction occurred. Hourdos will also discuss the study’s results, which highlight and categorize the existence of friction between pedestrians and drivers at roundabout crossings.

Driving is a significant part of independent living for people of all ages and abilities. Within the next decade, a quarter of all U.S. drivers are expected to be over the age of 65. To address the needs of the growing aging driving population, Clemson University researchers are partnering with two major hospital systems to develop objective training programs as well as develop and evaluate new products and services. In this seminar, Johnell Brooks discussed the research partnership and its initiatives, which include comprehensive studies of aging drivers. Through these studies, the research team aims to lengthen the duration of patients' independent living status by providing evidence-based preventative measures for senior drivers through medicine, rehabilitation, engineering, and research. Brooks also reviewed the driving simulators, mobility and physical functioning lab, and instrumented vehicle research used in the studies.

Coordination is essential to providing the highest possible quality of service on signalized arterials through movements, and travel time is its most accurate yet most expensive measure. In this seminar, Darcy Bullock will present a methodology for evaluating signal coordination that combines high-resolution signal data with travel time measurement using Bluetooth device MAC-address matching. The Purdue Coordination Diagram is used as a tool for visualizing and quantitatively evaluating signal performance and identifying opportunities for improvements. Bullock will discuss a study in which arterial travel times were measured using MAC-address matching. In the study, intersection and mid-block detecting stations were used to identify, calculate, and implement timing improvements. The presentation will also include a discussion of Bluetooth tracking applications in airport security lines and work-zone origin-destination research.

Despite a solid body of evidence about distraction and its risks, automobile manufacturers now allow you to update your Facebook page while driving. Positive Train Control systems have been mandated for implementation, yet there has been little if any attempt to understand the new roles of the human operator given the aggressive time frame in which the system must be in operation. There is a similar concern about the NextGen air transport system, which is supposed to revolutionize how flights are managed and flown. Developing the system architecture is the straightforward part. Understanding the myriad of human and policy implications is much more complex, but it is foundational and necessary if the system is to be safe and realize its intended potential. This presentation develops an approach to understanding the application of automation technology through three interdependent models: sociotechnical, human systems integration, and formative evaluation.

Computing is ubiquitous in nearly every household. Computers are becoming smaller, more portable, and embedded in many common appliances and devices. In addition, digital cameras are becoming pervasive in society. They are appearing in many varieties, and can be found in devices ranging from cars to telephones. This seminar focuses on the problem of camera networks for transportation and security applications. Nikolaos Papanikolopoulos will present the Hyperion framework, which involves the computation of an extensive set of video-analytics based on human and crowd activity monitoring, automatic camera placement, camera-to-camera tracking, semi-autonomous calibration, and video forensics analysis. An innovative user interface allows a single user to monitor thousands of cameras. Applications of this technology include the real-time identification of empty parking spots at truck stops and traffic data collection on freeway systems.

The next quantum leap in vehicle safety is represented by cooperative systems where vehicles exchange critical safety information among themselves and with the roadside infrastructure. The research community has already developed a set of new communication standards and built prototype systems demonstrating the feasibility and high potential introduced by cooperation among road users. However, key areas such as security and smart channel load control techniques still need to be addressed. In this seminar, Luca Delgrossi will discuss his team's contribution to the development of 5.9 GHz Dedicated Short Range Communications (DSRC) technology, including their participation in the first installation of the system at an intersection in Atherton, California. Delgrossi will also detail the technology's advantages and limitations, and discuss how 5.9 GHz DSRC can be used by automotive OEMs to enhance safety. Speaker Luca Delgrossi, Director, Driver Assistance and Chassis Systems, Mercedes-Benz Research and Development North America Delgrossi's team in Palo Alto, California, has contributed to the development of 5.9 GHz dedicated short-range communications (DSRC) technology since the early stages and helped install the first 5.9 GHz DSRC intersection at 5th and El Camino Real in Atherton, California. In 2008, the team publicly demonstrated a Mercedes-Benz S-550 coming to stop automatically upon detection of an imminent red light violation at an instrumented intersection at the ITS World Congress in New York, New York. Delgrossi, who holds a Ph.D. in computer science, also serves as chairman of the board of directors at the Vehicle Infrastructure Integration (VII) Consortium and is co-editor of the IEEE Communications Magazine Automotive Networking and Applications Series.

In this seminar, Gary Davis will report on the use of data collected in the Strategic Highway Research Program 2 to support microscopic modeling of crashes and near-crashes. In this project, several crashes between a following and leading vehicle were reconstructed using vehicle-based data from a 100-car study, site-based video data from the Minnesota Traffic Observatory, and site-based Doppler shift data from the Cooperative Intersection Collision Avoidance Systems (CICAS) project. In each case, estimates of acceleration histories, driver reaction time, and the situation at the start of the reaction phase were obtained. The project also demonstrated the potential of systems such as CICAS to provide data on near-crashes in intersections.

In this seminar, Hayes will describe a study examining the safety impact of three decision support systems (DSS) used at intersections where a highway crosses a minor road controlled by a stop sign. Many crashes occur at such intersections because even cautious drivers sometimes make poor judgments about when to enter high-speed highway traffic. The three DSS warning systems evaluated in this study were a dynamic highway sign placed in the intersection, a similar display placed on sideview mirrors, and a haptic warning system in the seat that vibrates when gaps are unsafe. All three were evaluated and compared to identify which has the greatest ability to reduce crashes and increase safe driving behaviors. Speaker: Caroline Hayes, Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Minnesota

This seminar presented procedures developed through research (NCHRP 3-87) for implementing ramp-management strategies at freeway sections that regularly experience breakdown and operate under congested conditions. For more information, see http://www.its.umn.edu/Events/SeminarSeries/2009/fall/october22/index.html