Safety

Teaching Pedestrian Safety in Virtual Reality: A Community-University Collaboration

Johnston, A
Sisiopiku, V
Rodriguez, DA
Combs, T
Emeira, M
Severson, J
Schwebel, DC
2015

In 2012 the US pedestrian fatality rate increased 6%, with 4,743 deaths occurring that year, equivalent to almost 13 fatalities per day and more than one every two hours. Children aged 5-9 years accounted for 22% of pedestrian fatalities (NHTSA, 2012). Studies suggest young children often negotiate dangerous street environments when travelling unsupervised by adults to and from school (Martin, Lee, & Lowry, 2007) so not surprisingly, community-based initiatives like Walking School Bus and Safe Routes to School are flourishing. A major limitation of such programs, however, is they...

The Influence of Self-efficacy and Perceived Safety in Neighborhood on Children’s Frequency of Walking to/from School

Shen
Sisiopiku, V
Rodriguez, DA
Combs, T
Godbole, M
Schwebel, DC
2015

Walking is among the common transportation methods utilized by children to commute between home and school. Previous research indicates children’s intrapsychic characteristics such as self-efficacy play an important role in their decision to walk to/from school. Few studies have addressed the role of parent self-efficacy in these decisions. Furthermore, environmental factors such as neighborhood safety have mixed effects on children’s decision to walk to/from school

Associations Between Self-Efficacy and Children's Pedestrian Safety Following Training

Wells, H
Rouse, J
Johnston, A
Sisiopiku, V
Rodriguez, D
Combs, T
Schwebel, DC
2015

Pedestrian injury is a leading cause of unintentional pediatric death. Hundreds of deaths related to pedestrian injuries occur every year in children under 18. Virtual reality interventions to teach children safe pedestrian behavior have shown success. Increasing self-efficacy is consistently related to the induction and maintenance of behavior change following a variety of interventions. In children, self-efficacy is associated with intervention-driven changes in health and academic behaviors. Self-efficacy is also linked to child and adolescent pedestrian engagement, with children...

Studies of Collisions and Control Strategies in Vehicle Following Operations by Two-Dimensional Impact Simulation

Chan, Ching-Yao
2000

The major accomplishments from this project can be categorized into the following areas: (1) Adoption of a vehicle-collision simulation tool with an interface that allows the implementation of feedback controller. (2) Thorough analysis and modeling of vehicle lateral dynamics in collision situations, which permits the selection and design of controllers for emergency conditions. (3) Validation of feasibility of applying steering control in vehicle-following conditions to stabilize vehicle trajectories, thus establishing an option of control strategies in safety-critical operations. To...

Development of Requirement Specifications for Transit Frontal Collision Warning System

Wang, Xiqin
Chang, Joanne
Chan, Ching-Yao
Johnston, Scott
Zhou, Kun
Steinfeld, Aaron
Hanson, Matt
Zhang, Wei-Bin
2004

This report documents the development of a preliminary specification for a transit bus frontal collision warning system, based on a system engineering approach. The research efforts included: 1) a literature review, 2) detailed analyses of the five-year safety records of a group of California transit properties to identify the causes of their safety problems, 3) an in-depth data collection and analysis from instrumented buses serving San Mateo County, CA, and 4) development and testing of three generations of transit bus frontal collision warning systems, incorporating enhancements to meet...

A Machine Vision Based System for Guiding Lane-change Maneuvers

Malik, Jitendra
Koller, Dieter
Luong, Tuan
1995

We propose a new approach for vision based longitudinal and lateral ve-hicle control which makes extensive use of binocular stereopsis. Longitudi-nal control - i.e. maintaining a safe, constant distance from the vehicle infront - is supported by detecting and measuring the distances to leadingvehicles using binocular stereo.A known camera geometry with respect tothe locally planar road is used to map the images of the road plane in thetwo camera views into alignment.Any significant residual image disparitythen indicates an object not lying in the road plane and hence a potentialobstacle....

Some Theoretical Aspects Of The Benefits Of En-route Vehicle Guidance (ervg)

Al-Deek, Haitham M.
Kanafani, Adib K.
1989

This paper concerns the benefits from vehicle route guidance in urban networks. We suppose that vehicle routes can be altered by En-Route Vehicle Guidance (ERVG) in such a way as to achieve system optimal assignment. Benefits are measured by the savings in total travel time for a given demand when comparing this assignment with the user equilibrium, which is assumed to occur in the absence of route guidance. A continuum approach is used to analyze some idealized corridors in which a freeway is superimposed over a dense grid of surface streets. Two cases are considered: in the first, the...

Integrated Roadway/Adaptive Cruise Control System: Safety, Performance, Environmental and Near Term Deployment Considerations

Ioannou, Petros
Wang, Yun
Chang, Hwan
2007

In this project, we present the design, analysis and performance evaluation of the Integrated Roadway/Adaptive Cruise Control System (IRAC) proposed in Task Order (TO) 4242 and studied further in the continuation of TO4242 under TO5501. The IRAC system is a highway traffic control system which integrates ramp metering strategies and a speed control strategy by taking into account highway to vehicle communication, and adaptive cruise control (ACC) system technologies on board of the vehicles. The IRAC system closes the loop of an almost open loop highway traffic system by controlling both...

Platoon Collision Dynamics And Emergency Maneuvering I: Reduced Order Modeling Of A Platoon For Dynamical Analysis

Tongue, Benson H.
Yang, Yean-tzong
White, Matthew T.
1991

The purpose of this three-year project is to develop an operational model of vehicle platoon dynamics under emergency conditions and to evaluate the platoon's dynamical behavior under non-nominal, or emergency, conditions. New platoon protocols and/or controller modifications will be formulated after analyzing the platoon response data in order to minimize damage to the platoon and the vehicles' occupants. This progress report discusses the results of the modeling phase of this work. A detailed literature review is included as Appendix B.

A Mobile Platform for Roadway Incident Documentation

Su, Ray J.
Chan, Ching-Yao
2004

This report is part of the final report and the deliverables for TR0002, Collision Recording and Documentation, sponsored by California Office of Traffic Safety, and contracted through California Department of Transportation. Roadway incidents, especially collisions, often result in traffic congestion and travel delays, in addition to the direct damage to the vehicles and the injuries to the people involved. The subsequent congestion is mainly caused by stopped vehicles or lane closure, but it is often intensified by slowing vehicles with drivers observing the accident scene. The effects...