I-Corps: Improving pedestrian visibility and safety through passive detection and direct illumination at crossings

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is the development of a more effective and less expensive pedestrian safety device that will help reduce the thousands of pedestrian deaths and hundreds of thousands of pedestrian collisions that occur in crosswalks each year. Previous research has demonstrated that the underlying shortcomings of existing traffic measures in ensuring pedestrian safety are geographically and culturally unique.

An understanding of the issues and constraints experienced by communities across a wide variety of ecological and cultural climates is necessary in order to develop and deploy traffic measures. Specifically the proposed crosswalk innovation, that effectively works to reduce and eliminate pedestrian deaths. The quality of city life depends under consideration is walkability, which in turn relies on pedestrian safety.

This I-Corps project is based on the development of a technology that improves pedestrian visibility and safety through passive detection and direct illumination of pedestrians at crossings. The passive pedestrian detection system will provide real-time deterministic pedestrian traffic and pattern data. Such data will enhance urban planners’ scientific understanding of the transportation environment.

Crosswalk networks interfaced with autonomous vehicles will enhance planners’ technological understanding of the scaffolding needed for smart city infrastructure. As cities become more hectic and congested, the freedom, adequacy, and accessibility of walkability becomes an important issue. Feeling safe and being safe on a crosswalk is vital for the future transportation health.

Encouraging technology that makes pedestrians visible to the traffic system may ultimately lead to viable, walkable communities.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.