SBIR Phase II: Safety and Mobility System

这个小型企业创新研究(SBIR)第二阶段项目应该会以实际的方式显著提高十字路口的安全性和机动性。安全是通过行人、自行车和车辆之间相撞的风险来衡量的；通过更好的信号定时、警告和可能的执法来提高安全性。机动性是通过车辆延误、停靠次数和吞吐量来衡量的；它通过更好的信号控制和对当前交通状况的适应来改善。如今，美国30万个十字路口收集的交通数据包括每隔几年进行一次的人工车辆清点；自行车或行人几乎从未被测量过。交通信号灯设置是基于这些不充分的测量。安全风险是通过计算撞车事故来衡量的；没有统计险些发生的撞车事故。很少尝试测量交叉口性能(服务水平、吞吐量和延误)，因为它需要对交通进行持续监控。尽管如此，主要的信号灯控制的十字路口确实会检测到车辆的存在，如果行人想过马路，也会收到行人的按钮信号。一些十字路口有自行车探测器。缺乏的是收集这些测量数据并对其进行智能融合以实时估计交通状态的手段。这项创新是唯一能够做到这一点的系统。这项创新的更广泛的商业影响是节省生命和损失生产力。交叉口的低效运行代价高昂。糟糕的十字路口控制导致2.95亿车辆小时的交通延误，每年给高峰期的出行者造成710美元的额外旅行时间和燃料损失。据估计，2008年在十字路口发生了230万起撞车事故，占580万起撞车事故的40%，7421起死亡(包括4092名行人)和73.3万起撞车受伤事故。除非城市道路得到精心管理，否则随着城市努力为所有市民提供便捷的多式联运选择，这些交通和安全成本只会增加，无论是开车、步行、骑自行车还是公共交通，导致不同类型的多式联运之间的互动更多。但谨慎的管理需要能够评估、预测和确定提高交叉口机动性和安全性的方法。如今，在任何地方都找不到进行此类常规研究所需的数据。这一创新是唯一能够实时提供此类数据的系统。这将是一个成本极低的系统，可以在几个小时内安装完毕，第二天就可以得到数据。这一创新将满足最近联邦MAP-21立法的新要求。

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project should dramatically improve intersection safety and mobility in a practical way. Safety is measured by the risk of collision between pedestrians, bicycles and vehicles; safety is improved by better signal timing, warnings, and possibly enforcement. Mobility is measured by vehicle delay, number of stops, and throughput; it is improved by better signal control, and adaptation to current traffic conditions. Today traffic data collected in 300,000 intersections in the US consists of manual vehicle counts conducted every couple of years; bicycles or pedestrians are almost never measured. Traffic signal settings are based on these inadequate measurements. Safety risk is measured by counting crashes; there is no account of near-crashes. Measurement of intersection performance (level of service, throughput, and delay) is rarely attempted since it requires continuous monitoring of traffic. Nevertheless major signalized intersections do detect the presence of vehicles, and do receive push button signals from pedestrians if they wish to cross. A few intersections have bicycle detectors. What is lacking is the means to collect these measurements and intelligently fuse them to estimate the traffic state in real-time. This innovation is the only system that can do this.The broader and commercial impact of this innovation is the savings in lives and lost productivity. Inefficient operation of intersections is costly. Poor intersection control causes 295 million vehicle-hours of traffic delay, and annually costs the peak-period traveler $710 in additional travel time and fuel. An estimated 2.3M crashes occurred at intersections in 2008, accounting for 40 percent of 5.8M crashes, 7,421 fatalities (including 4,092 pedestrians) and 733,000 crashes with injuries. Unless urban roads are carefully managed, these mobility and safety costs will only increase as cities try to provide convenient multimodal transportation choices to all citizens, whether it?s by driving, walking, bicycling, or transit, leading to greater interaction between the modal types. But careful management requires the ability to evaluate, predict and identify means to improve intersection mobility and safety. Today the data needed to conduct such studies on a routine basis are not available anywhere. This innovation is the only system that can provide such data in real time. It will be an exceptionally low-cost system that can be installed in a few hours, with data available the next day. This innovation will address the emerging requirements of the recent federal MAP-21 legislation.