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The chapter discusses the rise of technology usage in cities, and how the recent COVID-19 crisis provided an opportunity for technologists to meaningfully consider how their technologies could be useful in cities. We also provide an overview of current technology trends such as AI and robotics, Internet of Things, Intelligent Transport Systems, Automated Vehicles, City Platforms, as well as their applications to smart cities. The chapter provides an integrative overview of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) related to making cities smarter. Against the backdrop of the technology trends, this chapter positions the concept of the Automated City within current conceptualisations of the Smart City, including smart city standards and participatory and data-centric views of the smart city.

The book outlines the concept of the Automated City, in the context of smart city research and development.

Background As road complexity increases the requirement for number of road signs also increases, although the amount of road side space does not. One practical strategy to address this is to present multiple road signs on the same gantry (sign co-location). However, there is very little research on the safety implications of this practice. Method 36 participants (mean age = 42.25 years, SD = 13.99, 18 females) completed three driving simulator scenarios, each scenario had a different sign co-location condition: no co-location, dual co-location and triple co-location. Each scenario presented similar information using direction signs, variable message signs and variable speed limit signs, under. Each drive included standard motorway driving (100 km/h speed zone) in free flow traffic and one emergency event where a lead vehicle suddenly braked. The scenario order was counterbalanced and the emergency event vehicle varied. Results Overall, there was no impact of co-locating signs on general driving performance. No significant difference was observed between conditions for reaction time and minimum headway in response to the emergency event. Participants were able to correctly choose their destination whether the signs were co-located or not. Discussion For the particular configuration of signs tested there is no evidence that co-location negatively impacts driving performance. However, there may be some implications for travel speed and the manner in which the emergency event is responded to. Future work should confirm the findings on real roads. These findings provided support for sign co-location as a practical and safe option for displaying multiple road signs in a confined area.

Collisions between trains and pedestrians continue to be the most likely accident to result in severe injuries and fatalities on the rail network. While a range of countermeasures have been utilised in an attempt to reduce the incidence of risky behaviours at level crossings, limited focus has been directed towards deterrence-based approaches to improve crossing safety. As a result, this study explored pedestrians’ perceptions of legal and non-legal sanctions at level crossings, with particular emphasis directed towards identifying factors that maximise perceptual deterrence and reduce the occurrence of rule violations. In total, 636 individuals volunteered to participate in the study that required completion of either an online or paper version of a questionnaire that focused on behaviours and perceptions. Participants were more likely to report intentionally violating level crossing rules (24.52%, n = 156) compared to making crossing errors (3.46%, n = 22). Knowledge of the possibility of sanctions (e.g., monetary fines) was low. The threat of being injured and feeling shame when breaching crossing rules were the highest reported perceptual deterrent factors, higher even than the certainty and severity of sanctions. Regression analysis revealed that males who had lower perceptions of certainty of apprehension and displayed a tendency to repeat the behaviour were most likely to deliberately break crossing rules. However, this group also recognised the physical risks of violating rules and that it breached social norms. In regards to identifying effective countermeasures, increasing police presence was considered the most effective approach to reduce violations, which is directly linked to deterrence processes such as increasing perceptual certainty. This paper will further outline the study findings in regards to perceptual deterrence-based research as well as provide direction for future research efforts to develop effective countermeasures designed to improve pedestrian safety.

Over the last decades, the development of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) has become a critical endeavor to attain different objectives: safety enhancement, mobility improvement, energy optimization and comfort. In order to tackle the first three objectives, a considerable amount of research focusing on autonomous driving have been carried out. Most of these works have been conducted within collaborative research programs involving car manufacturers, OEM and research laboratories around the world. Recent research and development on highly autonomous driving aim to ultimately replace the driver's actions with robotic functions. The first successful steps were dedicated to embedded assistance systems such as speed regulation (ACC), obstacle collision avoidance or mitigation (Automatic Emergency Braking), vehicle stability control (ESC), lane keeping or lane departure avoidance. Partially automated driving will require co-pilot applications (which replace the driver on his all driving tasks) involving a combination of the above methods, algorithms and architectures. Such a system is built with complex, distributed and cooperative architectures requiring strong properties such as reliability and robustness. Such properties must be maintained despite complex and degraded working conditions including adverse weather conditions, fog or dust as perceived by sensors. This paper is an overview on reliability and robustness issues related to sensors processing and perception. Indeed, prior to ensuring a high level of safety in the deployment of autonomous driving applications, it is necessary to guarantee a very high level of quality for the perception mechanisms. Therefore, we will detail these critical perception stages and provide a presentation of usable embedded sensors. Furthermore, in this study of state of the art of recent highly automated systems, some remarks and comments about limits of these systems and potential future research ways will be provided. Moreover, we will also give some advice on how to design a co-pilot application with driver modeling. Finally, we discuss a global architecture for the next generation of co-pilot applications. This architecture is based on the use of recent methods and technologies (AI, Quantify self, IoT ...) and takes into account the human factors and driver modeling.

Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) have the potential to substantially reduce the number of crashes caused by human errors at railway levels crossings. However, such systems could overwhelm drivers, generate different types of driver errors and have negative effects on safety at level crossing. The literature shows an increasing interest for new ITS for increasing driver situational awareness at level crossings, as well as evaluations of such new systems on compliance. To our knowledge, the potential negative effects of such technologies have not been comprehensively evaluated yet. This study aimed at assessing the effect of different ITS interventions, designed to enhance driver behaviour at railway crossings, on driver’s cognitive loads. Fifty eight participants took part in a driving simulator study in which three ITS devices were tested: an in-vehicle visual ITS, an in-vehicle audio ITS, and an on-road valet system. Driver cognitive load was objectively and subjectively assessed for each ITS intervention. Objective data were collected from a heart rate monitor and an eye tracker, while subjective data was collected with the NASA-TLX questionnaire. Overall, results indicated that the three trialled technologies did not result in significant changes in cognitive load while approaching crossings.

Growing research progress in Internet of Things (IoT), automated/connected cars, Artificial Intelligence and person's data acquisition (Quantified Self) will help to reduce behavioral uncertainties in transport and unequivocally influence future transport landscapes. This vision paper argues that by capitalizing advances in data collection and methodologies from emerging research disciplines, we could make the driver amenable to a knowable and monitorable entity, which will improve road safety. We present an interdisciplinary framework, inspired by the Safe system, to extract knowledge from the large amount of available data during driving. The limitation of our approach is discussed.

Driver training is one of the interventions aimed at mitigating the number of crashes that involve novice drivers. Our failure to understand what is really important for learners, in terms of risky driving, is one of the many drawbacks restraining us from building better training programs. Currently, there is a need to develop and evaluate advanced driving assistance systems that could comprehensively assess driving competencies. The aim of this paper is to present a novel intelligent driver training system that analyzes crash risks for a given driving situation, providing avenues for the improvement and personalization of driver training programs. The analysis takes into account numerous variables synchronously acquired from the driver, the vehicle, and the environment. The system then segments out the maneuvers within a drive. This paper further presents the fuzzy set theory to develop the safety inference rules for each maneuver executed during the drive, and presents a framework and its associated prototype that can be used to comprehensively view and assess complex driving maneuvers and then provides a comprehensive analysis of the drive used to give feedback to novice drivers.

Train pedestrian collisions are the most likely to result in severe injuries and fatalities when compared to other types of rail crossing accidents. However, there is currently scant research that has examined the origins of pedestrians’ rule breaking at level crossings. As a result, this study examined the origins of pedestrians’ rule breaking behaviour at crossings, with particular emphasis directed towards examining the factors associated with making errors versus deliberation violations. A total of 636 individuals volunteered to participate in the study and completed either an online or paper version of the questionnaire. Quantitative analysis of the data revealed that knowledge regarding crossing rules was high, although up to 18% of level crossing users were either unsure or did not know (in some circumstances) when it was legal to cross at a level crossing. Furthermore, 156 participants (24.52%) reported having intentionally violated the rules at level crossings and 3.46% (n = 22) of the sample had previously made a mistake at a crossing. In regards to rule violators, males (particularly minors) were more likely to report breaking rules, and the most frequent occurrence was after the train had passed rather than before it arrives. Regression analysis revealed that males who frequently use pedestrian crossings and report higher sensation seeking traits are most likely to break the rules. This research provides evidence that pedestrians are more likely to deliberately violate rules (rather than make errors) at crossings and it illuminates high risk groups. This paper will further outline the study findings in regards to the development of countermeasures as well as provide direction for future research efforts in this area.

Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) have the potential to substantially reduce the number of crashes caused by human errors at railway levels crossings. Such systems, however, will only exert an influence on driving behaviour if they are accepted by the driver. This study aimed at assessing driver acceptance of different ITS interventions designed to enhance driver behaviour at railway crossings. Fifty eight participants, divided into three groups, took part in a driving simulator study in which three ITS devices were tested: an in-vehicle visual ITS, an in-vehicle audio ITS, and an on-road valet system. Driver acceptance of each ITS intervention was assessed in a questionnaire guided by the Technology Acceptance Model and the Theory of Planned Behaviour. Overall, results indicated that the strongest intentions to use the ITS devices belonged to participants exposed to the road-based valet system at passive crossings. The utility of both models in explaining drivers’ intention to use the systems is discussed, with results showing greater support for the Theory of Planned Behaviour. Directions for future studies, along with strategies that target attitudes and subjective norms to increase drivers’ behavioural intentions, are also discussed.

Several intelligent transportation systems (ITS) were used with an advanced driving simulator to assess its influence on driving behavior. Three types of ITS interventions were tested: video in vehicle, audio in vehicle, and on-road flashing marker. The results from the driving simulator were inputs for a developed model that used traffic micro-simulation (VISSIM 5.4) to assess the safety interventions. Using a driving simulator, 58 participants were required to drive through active and passive crossings with and without an ITS device and in the presence or absence of an approaching train. The effect of changes in driver speed and compliance rate was greater at passive crossings than at active crossings. The slight difference in speed of drivers approaching ITS devices indicated that ITS helped drivers encounter crossings in a safer way. Since the traffic simulation was not able to replicate a dynamic speed change or a probability of stopping that varied depending on ITS safety devices, some modifications were made to the traffic simulation. The results showed that exposure to ITS devices at active crossings did not influence drivers' behavior significantly according to the traffic performance indicator, such as delay time, number of stops, speed, and stopped delay. However, the results of traffic simulation for passive crossings, where low traffic volumes and low train headway normally occur, showed that ITS devices improved overall traffic performance.

Road transport plays a significant role in various industries and mobility services around the globe and has a vital impact on our daily lives. However it also has serious impacts on both public health and the environment. In-vehicle feedback systems are a relatively new approach to encouraging driver behavior change for improving fuel efficiency and safety in automotive environments. While many studies claim that the adoption of eco-driving practices, such as eco-driving training programs and in-vehicle feedback to drivers, has the potential to improve fuel efficiency, limited research has integrated safety and eco-driving. Therefore, it is crucial to understand the human factors related theories and practices which will inform the design of an in-vehicle Human Machine Interface (HMI) that could provide real-time driver feedback and consequently improve both fuel efficiency and safety. This paper provides a comprehensive review of the current state of published literature on in-vehicle systems to identify and evaluate the impact of eco-driving and safety feedback systems. This paper also discusses how these factors may conflict with one another and have a negative effect on road safety, while also exploring possible eco-driving practices that could encourage more sustainable, environmentally-conscious and safe driving behavior. The review revealed a lack of comprehensive theoretical research integrating eco-driving and safe driving, and no current available HMI covering both aspects simultaneously. Furthermore, the review identified that some eco-driving in-vehicle systems may enhance fuel efficiency without compromising safety. The review has identified a range of concepts which can be developed to influence driver acceptance of safety and eco-driving systems within the area of HMI. This can promote new research aimed at enhancing our understanding of the relationship between eco-driving and safety from the human factors viewpoint. This provides a foundation for developing innovative, persuasive and acceptable in-vehicle HMI systems to improve fuel efficiency and road safety.

Following eco-driving instructions can reduce fuel consumption between 5 to 20% on urban roads with manual cars. The majority of Australian cars have an automatic transmission gear-box. It is therefore of interest to verify whether current eco-driving instructions are e cient for such vehicles. In this pilot study, participants (N=13) drove an instrumented vehicle (Toyota Camry 2007) with an automatic transmission. Fuel consumption of the participants was compared before and after they received simple eco-driving instructions. Participants drove the same vehicle on the same urban route under similar tra c conditions. We found that participants drove at similar speeds during their baseline and eco-friendly drives, and reduced the level of their accelerations and decelerations during eco-driving. Fuel consumption decreased for the complete drive by 7%, but not on the motorway and inclined sections of the study. Gas emissions were estimated with the VT-micro model, and emissions of the studied pollutants (CO2, CO, NOX and HC) were reduced, but no di erence was observed for CO2 on the motorway and inclined sections. The di erence for the complete lap is 3% for CO2. We have found evidence showing that simple eco-driving instructions are e cient in the case of automatic transmission in an urban environment, but towards the lowest values of the spectrum of fuel consumption reduction from the di erent eco-driving studies.

Background The widespread reliance on motor vehicles has negative effects on both the environment and human health. The development of an innovative in-vehicle human-machine interface (HMI) has the potential to contribute to reducing traffic pollution and road trauma. Aim A qualitative study, using a driver-centred design approach, was carried out to test how best to provide ecological and safe (eco-safe) driving advice and feedback to drivers on their driving style via an in-vehicle HMI. Method A total of 34 drivers (52.9% males), aged 19-61 years, participated in focus groups which explored concepts from the Technology Acceptance Model (Davis, 1989) Findings Main themes emerging from the focus groups were: (i) perceived importance of eco-safe driving behaviour; (ii) perceived usefulness of eco-safe in-vehicle HMIs; (iii) intentions to use an eco-safe in-vehicle HMI; (iv) perceptions towards eco-safe in-vehicle HMI design characteristics; and (v) potential problems associated with using eco-safe in-vehicle HMIs. Implications This study provides the foundation to inform the design and development of an evidence-based in-vehicle eco-safe HMI with high levels of driver acceptance. Recommendations for future research are also discussed.

Curves are a common feature of road infrastructure; however, crashes on road curves are associated with increased risk of injury and fatality to vehicle occupants. Countermeasures require the identification of contributing factors. However, current approaches to identifying contributors use traditional statistical methods and have not used self-reported narrative claim to identify factors related to the driver, vehicle, and environment in a systemic way. Text mining of 3,434 road-curve crash claim records filed between 1 January 2003 and 31 December 2005 at a major insurer in Queensland, Australia, was undertaken to identify risk levels and contributing factors. Rough set analysis was used on insurance claim narratives to identify significant contributing factors to crashes and their associated severity. New contributing factors unique to curve crashes were identified (e.g., tree, phone, oversteer) in addition to those previously identified via traditional statistical analysis of police and licensing auth...

Driving is often nominated as problematic by individuals with chronic whiplash associated disorders (WAD), yet driving-related performance has not been evaluated objectively. The purpose of this study was to test driving-related performance in persons with chronic WAD against healthy controls of similar age, gender and driving experience to determine if driving-related performance in the WAD group was sufficiently impaired to recommend fitness to drive assessment. Driving-related performance was assessed using an advanced driving simulator during three driving scenarios; freeway, residential and a central business district (CBD). Total driving duration was approximately 15min. Five driving tasks which could cause a collision (critical events) were included in the scenarios. In addition, the effect of divided attention (identify red dots projected onto side or rear view mirrors) was assessed three times in each scenario. Driving performance was measured using the simulator performance index (SPI) which is calculated from 12 measures. z-Scores for all SPI measures were calculated for each WAD subject based on mean values of the control subjects. The z-scores were then averaged for the WAD group. A z-score of ≤-2 indicated a driving failing grade in the simulator. The number of collisions over the five critical events was compared between the WAD and control groups as was reaction time and missed response ratio in identifying the red dots. Seventeen WAD and 26 control subjects commenced the driving assessment. Demographic data were comparable between the groups. All subjects completed the freeway scenario but four withdrew during the residential and eight during the CBD scenario because of motion sickness. All scenarios were completed by 14 WAD and 17 control subjects. Mean z-scores for the SPI over the three scenarios was statistically lower in the WAD group (-0.3±0.3; P0.05) but the score was not below the cut-off point for safe driving. There were no differences in the reaction time and missed response ratio in divided attention tasks between the groups (All P0.05). Assessment of driving in an advanced driving simulator for approximately 15min revealed that driving-related performance in chronic WAD was not sufficiently impaired to recommend the need for fitness to drive assessment.

Collisions between pedestrians and vehicles continue to be a major problem throughout the world. Pedestrians trying to cross roads and railway tracks without any caution are often highly susceptible to collisions with vehicles and trains. Continuous financial, human and other losses have prompted transport related organizations to come up with various solutions addressing this issue. However, the quest for new and significant improvements in this area is still ongoing. This work addresses this issue by building a general framework using computer vision techniques to automatically monitor pedestrian movements in such high-risk areas to enable better analysis of activity, and the creation of future alerting strategies. As a result of rapid development in the electronics and semi-conductor industry there is extensive deployment of CCTV cameras in public places to capture video footage. This footage can then be used to analyse crowd activities in those particular places. This work seeks to identify the abnormal behaviour of individuals in video footage. In this work we propose using a Semi-2D Hidden Markov Model (HMM), Full-2D HMM and Spatial HMM to model the normal activities of people. The outliers of the model (i.e. those observations with insufficient likelihood) are identified as abnormal activities. Location features, flow features and optical flow textures are used as the features for the model. The proposed approaches are evaluated using the publicly available UCSD datasets, and we demonstrate improved performance using a Semi-2D Hidden Markov Model compared to other state of the art methods. Further we illustrate how our proposed methods can be applied to detect anomalous events at rail level crossings.

This paper examines the effects of an eco-driving message on driver distraction. Two in-vehicle distracter tasks were compared with an eco-driving task and a baseline task in an advanced driving simulator. N=22 subjects were asked to perform an eco-driving, CD changing, and a navigation task while engaged in critical manoeuvres during which they were expected to respond to a peripheral detection task (PDT) with total duration of 3.5h. The study involved two sessions over two consecutive days. The results show that drivers' mental workloads are significantly higher during navigation and CD changing tasks in comparison to the two other scenarios. However, eco-driving mental workload is still marginally significant (p∼.05) across different manoeuvres. Similarly, event detection tasks show that drivers miss significantly more events in the navigation and CD changing scenarios in comparison to both the baseline and eco-driving scenario. Analysis of the practice effect shows that drivers' baseline scenario and navigation scenario exhibit significantly less demand on the second day. Drivers also can detect significantly more events on the second day for all scenarios. The authors conclude that even reading a simple message while driving could potentially lead to missing an important event, especially when executing critical manoeuvres. However, there is some evidence of a practice effect which suggests that future research should focus on performance with habitual rather than novel tasks. It is recommended that sending text as an eco-driving message analogous to the study circumstances should not be delivered to drivers on-line when vehicle is in motion. Keywords: Driver distraction; Language: en

China is motorizing rapidly, with associated urban road development and extensive construction of motorways. Speeding accounts for about 10% of fatalities, which represents a large decrease from a peak of 17.2% in 2004. Speeding has been addressed at a national level through the introduction of laws and procedural requirements in 2004, in provinces either across all road types or on motorways, and at city level. Typically, documentation of speed enforcement programmes has taken place when new technology (i.e. speed cameras) is introduced, and it is likely that many programmes have not been documented or widely reported. In particular, the national legislation of 2004 and its implementation was associated with a large reduction in fatalities attributed to speeding. In Guangdong Province, after using speed detection equipment, motorway fatalities due to speeding in 2005 decreased by 32.5% comparing with 2004. In Beijing, the number of traffic monitoring units which were used to photograph illegal traffic activities such as traffic light violations, speeding and using bus lanes illegally increased to 1958 by April 1, 2009, and in the future such automated enforcement will become the main means of enforcement, expected to account for 60% of all traffic enforcement in Beijing. This paper provides a brief overview of the speeding enforcement programmes in China which have been documented and their successes.

Background: Younger and older pedestrians are both overrepresented in train-pedestrian injury and fatality collision databases. However, scant research has attempted to determine the factors that influence level crossing behaviours for these high risk groups. Method: Five focus groups were undertaken with a total of 27 younger and 17 older pedestrian level crossing users (N = 44). Due to the lack of research in the area, a focus group methodology was implemented to gain a deeper exploratory understanding into the sample’s decision making processes through a pilot study. The three main areas of enquiry were identifying the: (a) primary reasons for unsafe behaviour, (b) factors that deter this behaviour and (c) proposed interventions to improve pedestrian safety at level crossings in the future. Results: Common themes to emerge from both groups regarding the origins of unsafe behaviours were: running late and a fatalistic perspective that some accidents are inevitable. However, younger pedestrians were more likely to report motivators to be: (a) non-perception of danger, (b) impulsive risk taking, and (c) inattention. In contrast, older pedestrians reported their decisions to cross are influenced by mobility issues and sensory salience. Conclusion: The findings indicate that a range of factors influence pedestrian crossing behaviours. This paper will further outline the major findings of the research in regards to intervention development and future research direction.

Crashes at level crossings are a major issue worldwide. In Australia, as well as in other countries, the number of crashes with vehicles has declined in the past years, while the number of crashes involving pedestrians seems to have remained unchanged. A systematic review of research related to pedestrian behaviour highlighted a number of important scientific gaps in current knowledge. The complexity of such intersections imposes particular constraints to the understanding of pedestrians' crossing behaviour. A new systems-based framework, called Pedestrian Unsafe Level Crossing framework (PULC) was developed. The PULC organises contributing factors to crossing behaviour on different system levels as per the hierarchical classification of Jens Rasmussen's Framework for Risk Management. In addition, the framework adapts James Reason's classification to distinguish between different types of unsafe behaviour. The framework was developed as a tool for collection of generalizable data that could be used to predict current or future system failures or to identify aspects of the system that require further safety improvement. To give it an initial support, the PULC was applied to the analysis of qualitative data from focus groups discussions. A total number of 12 pedestrians who regularly crossed the same level crossing were asked about their daily experience and their observations of others' behaviour which allowed the extraction and classification of factors associated with errors and violations. Two case studies using Rasmussen's AcciMap technique are presented as an example of potential application of the framework. A discussion on the identified multiple risk contributing factors and their interactions is provided, in light of the benefits of applying a systems approach to the understanding of the origins of individual's behaviour. Potential actions towards safety improvement are discussed.

The conservation and restoration of archaeological objects is based on a 5 step procedure which has the main objectives on one hand to (re)-discover the original surface of the object and on the other hand to preserve its details of fabrication. These protocols are well known when applied on waterlogged woods or iron objects separately, but they are incompatible when applied on waterlogged wood / iron composite artefacts. French Arc'Antique, ARC-Nucleart and CRCDG laboratories are involved in a 3 years research program which deals with the testing of a new conservation and restoration protocol based on the concomitant use of a corrosion inhibitor for the iron protection and polyethylene glycol for the consolidation of wood. This paper present the first stage of this protocol applied on an important collection of 29 rifles of the seventeen century discovered in the Mediterranean Sea. We point out the apparition in the storage tanks of each laboratory of an important microbial and fungi contamination. Before choosing the appropriate biocide, we describe and count all this biomass and wonder if they do not influence the electrochemical properties of the electrolytes.

Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) resembles the infrastructure for ubiquitous computing in the car. It encompasses a) all kinds of sensing technologies within vehicles as well as road infrastructure, b) wireless communication protocols for the sensed information to be exchanged between vehicles (V2V) and between vehicles and infrastructure (V2I), and c) appropriate intelligent algorithms and computational technologies that process these real-time streams of information. As such, ITS can be considered a game changer. It provides the fundamental basis of new, innovative concepts and applications, similar to the Internet itself. The information sensed or gathered within or around the vehicle has led to a variety of context-aware in-vehicular technologies within the car. A simple example is the Anti-lock Breaking System (ABS), which releases the breaks when sensors detect that the wheels are locked. We refer to this type of context awareness as vehicle/technology awareness. V2V and V2I communication, often summarized as V2X, enables the exchange and sharing of sensed information amongst cars. As a result, the vehicle/technology awareness horizon of each individual car is expanded beyond its observable surrounding, paving the way to technologically enhance such already advanced systems. In this chapter, we draw attention to those application areas of sensing and V2X technologies, where the human (driver), the human’s behavior and hence the psychological perspective plays a more pivotal role. The focal points of our project are illustrated in Figure 1: In all areas, the vehicle first (1) gathers or senses information about the driver. Rather than to limit the use of such information towards vehicle/technology awareness, we see great potential for applications in which this sensed information is then (2) fed back to the driver for an increased self-awareness. In addition, by using V2V technologies, it can also be (3) passed to surrounding drivers for an increased social awareness, or (4), pushed even further, into the cloud, where it is collected and visualized for an increased, collective urban awareness within the urban community at large, which includes all city dwellers.

Zein films plasticized with oleic acid have been considered potentially useful for biodegradable packaging applications. However, moisture was found to affect their tensile and gas barrier properties. We investigated the effects of two converting processes, fusion lamination and coating with drying oils, on tensile properties and gas permeability of zein films. Zein films were laminated to 4-ply sheets in a Carver press and coated with tung oil, linseed oil, or a mixture of tung and soybean oils. Tensile properties and permeability to water vapor, oxygen, and carbon dioxide were measured according to ASTM methods. Laminated films were clearer, tougher, and more flexible, and had a smoother finish than nontreated sheets. Lamination decreased O(2) and CO(2) permeability by filling in voids and pinholes in the film structure. Coating increased tensile strength and elongation and decreased water vapor permeability. Coatings acted as a composite layer preventing crack propagation and increasing film strength. They also formed a highly hydrophobic surface that prevented film wetting.

IEEE 802.11p is the new standard for Inter-Vehicular Communications (IVC) using the 5.9 GHz frequency band, as part of the wide DSRC framework; it will enable applications based on Cooperative Systems. Simulation is widely used to estimate or verify the potential benefits of such cooperative applications, notably in terms of safety for the drivers. We have developed a performance model for 802.11p that can be used by simulations of cooperative applications (e.g. collision avoidance) without requiring intricate models of the whole IVC stack. Instead, it provide a a straightforward yet realistic modelisation of IVC performance. Our model uses data from extensive field trials to infer the correlation between speed, distance and performance metrics such as maximum range, latency and frame loss. It is based on the concept of frame loss profiles. Then, we improve this model by including the spatio-temporal correlation between neighbouring vehicles in order to limit the number of profiles that must be generated when there are more than a few couples of emitter-receptor in a given location. Our model generates realistic performance for rural or suburban environments among small groups of IVC-equipped vehicles and road side units.

Cooperative Systems provide, through the multiplication of information sources over the road, a lot of potential to improve the assessment of the road risk describing a particular driving situation. In this paper, we compare the performance of a cooperative risk assessment approach against a non-cooperative approach; we used an advanced simulation framework, allowing for accurate and detailed, close-to-reality simulations. Risk is estimated, in both cases, with combinations of indicators based on the TTC. For the noncooperative approach, vehicles are equipped only with an AAC-like forward-facing ranging sensor. On the other hand, for the cooperative approach, vehicles share information through 802.11p IVC and create an augmented map representing their environment; risk indicators are then extracted from this map. Our system shows that the cooperative risk assessment provides a systematic increase of forward warning to most of the vehicles involved in a freeway emergency braking scenario, compared to a non-cooperative system.

Background Typologies have been defined previously for pedestrian-vehicle interactions and are primarily based on retrospective analysis of crash data. The naturalistic driving study currently underway in Australia makes it possible to study pedestrian-vehicle interaction events that would not otherwise be identified in the crash data. This work evaluates the feasibility of using automated, manual, and semi-automated methods to identify pedestrian-vehicle interaction events. Methods Sensors and cameras were installed on the vehicles of volunteers in and around two major Australian cities which recorded their natural driving behaviour for 4 months. Forward video from select vehicles was reviewed independently by two reviewers to identify potential pedestrian-vehicle interaction events from which a typology of behaviours was formulated. These events served as the gold standard against which select automated and semi-automated methods of identification were assessed. Results A prototype typology of pedestrian-vehicle interaction events was formulated using naturalistic driving data and categorised in terms of risk of being struck. Some case scenarios will be discussed. The feasibility of using select automated, semi-automated, and manual methods to identify these events was also evaluated. Conclusions This work provides a first look at using Australian naturalistic driving data to study the interactions between vehicles and pedestrians. These findings will assist in the development of methods that can be used to most effectively answer research questions pertaining to interactions between vehicles and pedestrians as well as other vulnerable road users in the future.

Background To reduce road trauma we must better understand the factors contributing to crashes. In Queensland, Australia, rear end crashes are the 3rd leading crash type, with mild to serious injuries a likely outcome and whiplash a common injury occurrence. Road design, traffic congestion, and weather/road conditions have been implicated in rear end crashes. Human factors also play a key role, with the act of ‘following too closely’ being a major issue. Queensland legislation requires motorists to maintain a safe following distance between their vehicle and the one in front, although no specific information about this distance is prescribed by law for cars. Methods To better understand perceptions of safe following distance, 495 licensed Queensland drivers (42% male; mean age 46.2 yrs; range 16–81 yrs) completed an online questionnaire. Results Overall, there was wide variation in descriptions of safe following distance including time between vehicles (2 seconds = 21%; 3 seconds = 11%), distance between vehicles (metres = 11%; car lengths = 32%); and combinations of time and distance (1%). No one reported having received an infringement for not keeping a safe following distance, although 29% reported being involved in a crash where their vehicle hit the one in front. The majority (86%) reported that it was somewhat-extremely unlikely they would be caught by police if following too closely, indicating a perceived lack of enforcement for this offence. Reasons for this included perceptions of difficulty for police to enforce this offence (5%), not having heard of anyone being caught for this offence (17%), and other police priorities (30%). Conclusions This study is part of a larger research project that aims to improve knowledge about driving conditions, patterns and locations, and driver behaviours that lead to driving at unsafe headways (i.e. following too closely). Recommendations for use of these findings to inform driver education and awareness campaigns are discussed.

Background Driverless cars are no longer a science fiction and is clearly looming in the transport horizon. Software and wireless networks are increasingly controlling all aspects of transport’s landscape. Advances in technology have outpaced research in human factors and policy therefore serious questions must be asked about the legal protections of the integrity of these new systems to guarantee community’s safety. Furthermore the research knowledge to understand and define the key safety issues that the community required to advance a policy action plan is still in its infancy. Specifically we do not know how effective are the deterrence and penalties within Australia’s criminal law in respect to the unauthorised and malicious interference with in-vehicle computer systems? Method We discuss existing and near-future scenarios where there might be unauthorised and malicious interference with in-vehicle computer systems. Examples range from a malcontent hacking a vehicle’s system to cause it to crash, to a third-party installing spyware on a vehicle to gather private data about the vehicle’s movements. We then articulate the range of criminal provisions, at a state and federal level that cover the unauthorised and malicious interference with in-vehicle computer systems. The lack of detailed case law (reflecting a very low level of prosecutions) suggests that overarching difficulties might lie with the forensics of investigation and known problems with the policing of cybercrimes. Results We show how Australian criminal law could cover future scenarios. We demonstrate a lack of case law suggesting that overarching difficulties might lie with the forensics of investigation and known problems with the policing of cybercrimes. Conclusion This paper will help policy makers to build up a clear understanding of the adequacies of Australian state and federal criminal law successfully support transitioning into future of cooperative and autonomous transport systems.

Safety at Railway Level Crossings (RLXs) is an important issue within the Australian transport system. Crashes at RLXs involving road vehicles in Australia are estimated to cost $10 million each year. Such crashes are mainly due to human factors; unintentional errors contribute to 46% of all fatal collisions and are far more common than deliberate violations. This suggests that innovative intervention targeting drivers are particularly promising to improve RLX safety. In recent years there has been a rapid development of a variety of affordable technologies which can be used to increase driver’s risk awareness around crossings. To date, no research has evaluated the potential effects of such technologies at RLXs in terms of safety, traffic and acceptance of the technology. Integrating driving and traffic simulations is a safe and affordable approach for evaluating these effects. This methodology will be implemented in a driving simulator, where we recreated realistic driving scenario with typical road environments and realistic traffic. This paper presents a methodology for evaluating comprehensively potential benefits and negative effects of such interventions: this methodology evaluates driver awareness at RLXs , driver distraction and workload when using the technology . Subjective assessment on perceived usefulness and ease of use of the technology is obtained from standard questionnaires. Driving simulation will provide a model of driving behaviour at RLXs which will be used to estimate the effects of such new technology on a road network featuring RLX for different market penetrations using a traffic simulation. This methodology can assist in evaluating future safety interventions at RLXs.

Simulation has been widely used to estimate the benefits of Cooperative Systems (CS) based on Inter-Vehicular Communications (IVC). This paper presents a new architecture built with the SiVIC simulator and the RTMaps™ multisensors prototyping platform. We introduce several improvements from a previous similar architecture, regarding IVC modelisation and vehicles' control. It has been tuned with on-road measurements to improve fidelity. We discuss the results of a freeway emergency braking scenario (EEBL) implemented to validate our architecture's capabilities.

IEEE 802.11p is the new standard for inter-vehicular communications (IVC) using the 5.9 GHz frequency band; it is planned to be widely deployed to enable cooperative systems. 802.11p uses and performance have been studied theoretically and in simulations over the past years. Unfortunately, many of these results have not been confirmed by on-tracks experimentation. In this paper, we describe field trials of 802.11p technology with our test vehicles. Metrics such as maximum range, latency and frame loss are examined.

Background: The growing proportion of older adults in Australia is predicted to comprise 23% of the population by 2030. Accordingly, an increasing number of older drivers and fatal crashes of these drivers could also be expected. While the cognitive and physiological limitations of ageing and their road safety implications have been widely documented, research has generally considered older drivers as a homogeneous group. Knowledge of age-related crash trends within the older driver group itself is currently limited. Objective: The aim of this research was to identify age-related differences in serious road crashes of older drivers. This was achieved by comparing crash characteristics between older and younger drivers and between sub-groups of older drivers. Particular attention was paid to serious crashes (crashes resulting in hospitalisation and fatalities) as they place the greatest burden on the Australian health system. Method: Using Queensland Crash data, a total of 191,709 crashes of all-aged drivers (17–80+) over a 9-year period were analysed. Crash patterns of drivers’ aged 17–24, 25–39, 40–49, 50–59, 60–69, 70–79 and 80+ were compared in terms of crash severity (e.g., fatal), at fault levels, traffic control measures (e.g., stop signs) and road features (e.g., intersections). Crashes of older driver sub-groups (60–69, 70–79, 80+) were also compared to those of middle-aged drivers (40–49 and 50–59 combined, who were identified as the safest driving cohort) with respect to crash-related traffic control features and other factors (e.g., speed). Confounding factors including speed and crash nature (e.g., sideswipe) were controlled for. Results and discussion: Results indicated that patterns of serious crashes, as a function of crash severity, at-fault levels, road conditions and traffic control measures, differed significantly between age groups. As a group, older drivers (60+) represented the greatest proportion of crashes resulting in fatalities and hospitalisation, as well as those involving uncontrolled intersections and failure to give way. The opposite was found for middle-aged drivers, although they had the highest proportion of alcohol and speed-related crashes when compared to older drivers. Among all older drivers, those aged 60–69 were least likely to be involved in or the cause of crashes, but most likely to crash at interchanges and as a result of driving while fatigued or after consuming alcohol. Drivers aged 70–79 represented a mid-range level of crash involvement and culpability, and were most likely to crash at stop and give way signs. Drivers aged 80 years and beyond were most likely to be seriously injured or killed in, and at-fault for, crashes, and had the greatest number of crashes at both conventional and circular intersections. Overall, our findings highlight the heterogeneity of older drivers’ crash patterns and suggest that age-related differences must be considered in measures designed to improve older driver safety.

The value and effectiveness of driver training as a means of improving driver behaviour and road safety continues to fuel research and societal debates. Knowledge about what are the characteristics of safe driving that need to be learnt is extensive. Research has shown that young drivers are over represented in crash statistics. The encouraging fact is that novice drivers have shown improvement in road scanning pattern after training. This paper presents a driver behaviour study conducted on a closed circuit track. A group of experienced and novice drivers performed repeated multiple manoeuvres (i.e. turn, overtake and lane change) under identical conditions Variables related to the driver, vehicle and environment were recorded in a research vehicle equipped with multiple in-vehicle sensors such as GPS accelerometers, vision processing, eye tracker and laser scanner. Each group exhibited consistently a set of driving pattern characterising a particular group. Behaviour such as the indicator usage before lane change, following distance while performing a manoeuvre were among the consistent observed behaviour differentiating novice from experienced drivers. This paper will highlight the results of our study and emphasize the need for effective driver training programs focusing on young and novice drivers.

Suburbanisation has been internationally a major phenomenon in the last decades. Suburb-to-suburb routes are nowadays the most widespread road journeys; and this resulted in an increment of distances travelled, particularly on faster suburban highways. The design of highways tends to over-simplify the driving task and this can result in decreased alertness. Driving behaviour is consequently impaired and drivers are then more likely to be involved in road crashes. This is particularly dangerous on highways where the speed limit is high. While effective countermeasures to this decrement in alertness do not currently exist, the development of in-vehicle sensors opens avenues for monitoring driving behaviour in real-time. The aim of this study is to evaluate in real-time the level of alertness of the driver through surrogate measures that can be collected from in-vehicle sensors. Slow EEG activity is used as a reference to evaluate driver's alertness. Data are collected in a driving simulator instrumented with an eye tracking system, a heart rate monitor and an electrodermal activity device (N=25 participants). Four different types of highways (driving scenario of 40 minutes each) are implemented through the variation of the road design (amount of curves and hills) and the roadside environment (amount of buildings and traffic). We show with Neural Networks that reduced alertness can be detected in real-time with an accuracy of 92% using lane positioning, steering wheel movement, head rotation, blink frequency, heart rate variability and skin conductance level. Such results show that it is possible to assess driver's alertness with surrogate measures. Such methodology could be used to warn drivers of their alertness level through the development of an in-vehicle device monitoring in real-time drivers' behaviour on highways, and therefore it could result in improved road safety.

Inter-Vehicular Communications (IVC) are considered a promising technological approach for enhancing transportation safety and improving highway efficiency. Previous theoretical work has demonstrated the benefits of IVC in vehicles strings. Simulations of partially IVC-equipped vehicles strings showed that only a small equipment ratio is sufficient to drastically reduce the number of head on collisions. However, these results are based on the assumptions that IVC exhibit lossless and instantaneous messages transmission. This paper presents the research design of an empirical measurement of a vehicles string, with the goal of highlighting the constraints introduced by the actual characteristics of communication devices. A warning message diffusion system based on IEEE 802.11 wireless technology was developed for an emergency breaking scenario. Preliminary results are presented as well, showing the latencies introduced by using 802.11a and discussing early findings and experimental limitations.

Pedestrians' use of Motion Pictures Expert Group audio layer 3 players or mobile phones can pose the risk of being hit by motor vehicles. We present an approach for detecting a crash risk level using the computing power and the microphone of mobile devices that can be used to alert the user in advance of an approaching vehicle so as to avoid a crash. A single feature extractor classifier is not usually able to deal with the diversity of risky acoustic scenarios. In this paper, we address the problem of detection of vehicles approaching a pedestrian by a novel simple nonresource intensive acoustic method. The method uses a set of existing statistical tools to mine signal features. Audio features are adaptively thresholded for relevance and classified with a three-component heuristic. The resulting acoustic hazard detection system has a very low false-positive detection rate. The results of this study could help mobile device manufacturers to embed the presented features into future potable devices and contribute to road safety.

Drivers' ability to react to unpredictable events deteriorates when exposed to highly predictable and uneventful driving tasks. Highway design reduces the driving task mainly to a lane-keeping manoeuvre. Such a task is monotonous, providing little stimulation and this contributes to crashes due to inattention. Research has shown that driver's hypovigilance can be assessed with EEG measurements and that driving performance is impaired during prolonged monotonous driving tasks. This paper aims to show that two dimensions of monotony - namely road design and road side variability - decrease vigilance and impair driving performance. This is the first study correlating hypovigilance and driver performance in varied monotonous conditions, particularly on a short time scale (a few seconds). We induced vigilance decrement as assessed with an EEG during a monotonous driving simulator experiment. Road monotony was varied through both road design and road side variability. The driver's decrease in vigilance occurred due to both road design and road scenery monotony and almost independently of the driver's sensation seeking level. Such impairment was also correlated to observable measurements from the driver, the car and the environment. During periods of hypovigilance, the driving performance impairment affected lane positioning, time to lane crossing, blink frequency, heart rate variability and non-specific electrodermal response rates. This work lays the foundation for the development of an in-vehicle device preventing hypovigilance crashes on monotonous roads.

International audience; Nowadays, more and more driving assistances are available to help the driver and to improve the vehicle handling. With increasing sensing capacities, it also becomes possible to have a local view of the vehicle surrounding. Hence, the next steps are to provide the driving assistances a supervisor that schedules all the possible actions and plane trajectories. In this article, we propose a decision method that fits the driver decision and action schemes. The system is at three levels, for action, decision and long range planning. the article is focused on the second layer and the interaction with other layer. The second layer algorithm, based on risk assumption, evaluates, in the vehicle vicinity, the risk related to each detected object. It then computes possible actions for lower level layer. The developed method is constrained by the future implementation on a vehicle : low computation time available and small memory size.

Automobiles have deeply impacted the way in which people travel but they have also caused a number of deaths and injury due to crashes. Driver inattention, inexperience, poor judgment and/or fatigue etc., are the major contributing factors in crashes. In order to address these complex issues, scientists have developed a number of technological systems ranging from anti-lock braking system (ABS), early warning systems to complete autonomous driving solutions. Driverpsilas driving competencies also play a vital role in judging the road environment and reacting in-time to avoid any possible collision. Therefore driverpsilas perceptual and motor skills remain a key factor impacting on-road safety. Currently, there is a need for researchers to develop and evaluate intelligent transport systems (ITS) that assess driving competencies. These tools should be designed to help driver instructors and drivers to accurately evaluate the driving behaviour. This paper outlines a vision for future research in the area of intelligent driver training systems for enhancing road safety and also presents preliminary implementation.

It is a great pleasure to welcome you to the 2008 IPS/UMS/WNGS/MUS workshop held in conjunction with the International Conference on Multimedia and Ubiquitous Engineering (MUE2008), Hanwha Resort Haeundae, Busan, Korea. The workshop covers topics on ubiquitous multimedia services and security in ubiquitous multimedia systems. All the submitted papers have undergone rigorous review process by the technical program committee members and external reviewers. We have selected 17 best papers for presentation and publication in the conference proceedings.

The crash rate in road intersection demonstrates the need for a fast and accurate collision detection system. Ubiquitous computing research provides a significant opportunity to develop novel ways of improving road intersection safety. The existing intersection collision warning or avoidance systems are mostly built to suit a particular intersection. We suggest that an intersection collision detection system should be able to adapt to different types of intersections by acquiring the collision patterns of the intersection through data mining. Collision patterns that are specific to that intersection are stored in a knowledge base to select vehicles which are exposed to a high risk of collision. This algorithm increases the speed of collision detection calculation, as detection is not applied on all possible pairs in an intersection. The performance and accuracy of the algorithm are evaluated. This evaluation is done on a developed simulation bed and the results are presented.

The ever increasing use of ICT (information communication technology) in cars to improve the mobility, comfort and safety has sparkled the interests of the ambient intelligent research community. It is widely accepted that the use of advanced in-vehicle technology could contribute to a driver's distraction. Information overload or inappropriateness of the methods and time to convey information to the driver are among the potential drawbacks of the use of in-vehicle technology. This paper identifies the future research directions on driving assistance interactions design. It focuses on factors that preserve or enhance the driver's ability to drive and presents an in-vehicle ambient intelligent transport (I-VAITS) architecture.

The RM-ODP Enterprise Language comprises concepts, rules and structures for the specification of a community, where a community comprises objects (human, software, or combinations thereof) formed to meet an objective. The Enterprise Language focuses on the purpose, scope and policies of the community, where an enterprise policy is a set of rules with a particular objective related to the community's purpose described as obligations, prohibitions, and permissions. In order to enable adaptations of the enterprise's objectives, structure, policies and roles, we are designing a conceptual architecture with a process-oriented view of roles and policy adaptation mechanisms. Mobile enterprise objects interact with the rest of the community via processes called role-proxies.

We envision the integration of the concepts of virtual communities, electronic markets, and ubiquitous wireless services into agent-enhanced mobile virtual communities which we call AMV-communities, a set of which form the AMV-community-space. We present concepts for an AMV-community modelled with RM-ODP Enterprise Viewpoint concepts, and outline an architecture of AMV-communities using software agents attached to roles. We also illustrate how we cope with disconnected computing by using agents and meta-policy rules.