The safety and efficiency of our cars, roads and bridges affects us every day, and the U.S. Department of Transportation is giving colleges around the country millions of dollars to find ways to improve it.
One of those grants, for $3.5 million, is going to Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pennsylvania, which plan to work together over the next two years on several transportation-based research initiatives. Ten faculty members at
Carnegie Mellon and six at Penn have been assigned to the project, and each will focus on a specific subject. Areas of study will include transportation policy, road safety and technology that can make driving more efficient.
Government officials from Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, along with the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, will advise the researchers. Raj Rajkumar, the Carnegie Mellon engineering professor who will direct the group, explains that the federal funding will last for two years and he hopes it will be continued later.
He sees several possibilities for technological improvements that could come out of the project. For one thing, vehicles may be able to collect information about unsafe intersections and warn drivers to be especially careful when they approach these areas. This communication could also communicate with traffic lights and prevent annoyances like waiting at a red signal for several minutes at a deserted intersection. Vehicles in the future might be able to signal to these traffic lights so they turn green. “Your car can basically tell the traffic light, 'I'm here,' and it's not getting that signal from anyone else,” Rajkumar says.
Source: Raj Rajkumar, Carnegie Mellon University
Writer: Rebecca VanderMeulen
