Safety

On the Perceptibility of Safety Systems

Grembek, Offer
Daganzo, Carlos F.
2010

The perceptibility of a safety system is defined as the extent to which the system can be perceived by the senses or the mind. The objective here is to study which safety systems are more easily perceived by the user and to identify design attributes that affect this level of perception. A web-based, pairwise comparison survey was conducted to evaluate the perceptibility of fifteen safety systems ranging from traffic safety systems to consumer safety. The analytic hierarchy process was applied to estimate the perceptibility levels and rank the safety systems. The results show that...

iShake: Mobile Phones as Seismic Sensors -- User Study Findings

Ervasti, Mari
Dashti, Shideh
Reilly, Jack
Bray, Jonathan D.
Bayen, Alexandre
2011

The "iShake" system uses smartphones as seismic sensors to measure and deliver ground motion intensity parameters produced by earthquakes more rapidly and accurately than currently possible. Shaking table tests followed by field trial with approximately 30 iShake users were implemented to evaluate the reliability of the phones as seismic monitoring instruments and the functionality of the iShake system. In addition, user experiences were investigated with 59 iShake users, who provided feedback through a mobile questionnaire. Research included participative planning with a focus group to...

A Zoox and an e-bike collided in S.F. Here’s what it says about robotaxi safety

May 13, 2025

San Francisco Chronicle Scott Moura, Faculty Director of Partners for Advanced Transportation Technology (PATH) and Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, alongside Matt Raifman SafeTREC researcher, and Steven Shadover PATH researcher discuss A Zoox and an e-...

Anatomy of a Crash

Marzuoli, Aude
Boidot, Emmanuel
Feron, Eric
Erp, Paul B. C. van
Ucko, Alexis
Bayen, Alexandre M.
2014

Transportation networks constitute a critical infrastructure enabling the transfers of passengers and goods, with a significant impact on the economy at different scales. Transportation modes, whether air, road or rail, are coupled and interdependent. The frequent occurrence of perturbations on one or several modes disrupts passengers' entire journeys, directly and through ripple effects. The present paper provides a case report of the Asiana Crash in San Francisco International Airport on July 6th 2013 and its repercussions on the multimodal transportation network. It studies the...

Mobile Phones and Social Media Empower the Citizen Seismologist

Bray, J.
Dashti, S.
Reilly, J.
Bayen, A.M.
Glaser, S.D.
2014

Emergency responders must "see" the effects of an earthquake clearly and rapidly for effective response. Mobile phone and information technology can be used to measure ground motion intensity parameters and relay that information to emergency responders. However, the phone sensor is an imperfect device and has a limited operational range. Thus, shake table tests were performed to evaluate their reliability as seismic monitoring instruments. Representative handheld devices, either rigidly connected to the table or free to move, measured shaking intensity parameters well. Bias in 5%-damped...

Future Road Transportation Technology

Wang, Junhua
Iwasaki, Randy
Bayen, Alexandre M.
Harvey, John
2016

As road transportation brings us great life changes, it also brings safety and environment problems. Near one million people died in road accidents each year and road constructions consumed un-countable ...

Continual Learning of Microscopic Traffic Models Using Neural Networks

Farid, Yashar Zeinali
Kreidieh, Abdul Rahman
Khalighi, Farnoush
Lobel, Hans
Bayen, Alexandre M.
2021

In a mixed-autonomy traffic scenario, where human drivers and autonomous vehicles share the streets, self-driving cars need to be able to predict in a robust manner the behaviour of human-driven vehicles, in order to guarantee a safe and smooth driving experience. Although traffic theory provides several models of human drivers, these models are often parameterized by few parameters which can limit their performance in modeling complex behaviors. The lack of sufficient model capacity and the behavioral shifts in human driving reduces the usefulness of these methods in real-life...

Reachability Analysis for FollowerStopper: Safety Analysis and Experimental Results

Chou, Fang-Chieh
Gibson, Marsalis
Bhadani, Rahul
Bayen, Alexandre M.
Sprinkle, Jonathan M.
2021

Motivated by earlier work and the developer of a new algorithm, the FollowerStopper, this article uses reachability analysis to verify the safety of the FollowerStopper algorithm, which is a controller designed for dampening stop-and-go traffic waves. With more than 1100 miles of driving data collected by our physical platform, we validate our analysis results by comparing it to human driving behaviors. The FollowerStopper controller has been demonstrated to dampen stop-and-go traffic waves at low speed, but previous analysis on its relative safety has been limited to upper and lower...

Reduction of Time on the Ground Related to Real-Time Video Detection of Falls in Memory Care Facilities: Observational Study

Bayen, Eleonore
Nickels, Shirley
Xiong, Glen
Jacquemot, Julien
Subramaniam, Raghav
Bayen, Alexandre
2021

Background: Lying on the floor for a long period of time has been described as a critical determinant of prognosis following a fall. In addition to fall-related injuries due to the trauma itself, prolonged immobilization on the floor results in a wide range of comorbidities and may double the risk of death in elderly. Thus, reducing the length of Time On the Ground (TOG) in fallers seems crucial in vulnerable individuals with cognitive disorders who cannot get up independently.
Objective: This study aimed to examine the effect of a new technology called SafelyYou Guardian (SYG) on early...