Browsing by Author "Owens, Justin M."

Now showing 1 - 11 of 11
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    Constructing a Distracted Driving Dataset
    Foley, James; Ebe, Kazu; Owens, Justin M.; Angell, Linda; Hankey, Jonathan M. (2014-08-25)
    Distracted driving has become a topic of critical importance to driving safety research over the past several decades. Naturalistic driving data offer a unique opportunity to study how drivers engage with secondary tasks in real-world driving; however, the complexities involved with identifying and coding relevant epochs of naturalistic data have limited its accessibility to the general research community. Method This project was developed to help address this problem by creating an accessible dataset of driver behavior and situational factors observed during distraction-related safety-critical events and baseline driving epochs, using the Strategic Highway Research Program 2 (SHRP2) naturalistic dataset. The new NEST (Naturalistic Engagement in Secondary Tasks) dataset was created using crashes and near-crashes from the SHRP2 dataset that were identified as including secondary task engagement as a potential contributing factor. Data coding included frame-by-frame video analysis of secondary task and hands-on-wheel activity, as well as summary event information. In addition, information about each secondary task engagement within the trip prior to the crash/near-crash was coded at a higher level. Data were also coded for four baseline epochs and trips per safety-critical event. Results 1,180 events and baseline epochs were coded, and a dataset was constructed. The project team is currently working to determine the most useful way to allow broad public access to the dataset. Discussion We anticipate that the NEST dataset will be extraordinarily useful in allowing qualified researchers access to timely, real-world data concerning how drivers interact with secondary tasks during safety-critical events and baseline driving. Practical applications The coded dataset developed for this project will allow future researchers to have access to detailed data on driver secondary task engagement in the real world. It will be useful for standalone research, as well as for integration with additional SHRP2 data to enable the conduct of more complex research.
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    Data Mining to Improve Planning for Pedestrian and Bicyclist Safety
    Jahangiri, Arash; Hasani, Mahdie; Sener, Ipek Nese; Munira, Sirajum; Owens, Justin M.; Appleyard, Bruce; Ryan, Sherry; Turner, Shawn M.; Machiani, Sahar Ghanipoor (SAFE-D: Safety Through Disruption National University Transportation Center, 2019-11)
    Between 2009 and 2016, the number of pedestrian and bicyclist fatalities saw a marked trend upward. Taken together, the overall percentage of pedestrian and bicycle crashes now accounts for 18% of total roadway fatalities, up from 13% only a decade ago. Technological advancements in transportation have created unique opportunities to explore and investigate new sources of data for the purpose of improving safety planning. This study investigated data from multiple sources, including automated pedestrian and bicycle counters, video cameras, crash databases, and GPS/mobile applications, to inform bicycle and pedestrian safety improvements. Data mining techniques, a new sampling strategy, and automated video processing methods were adopted to demonstrate a holistic approach that can be applied to identify facilities with highest need of improvement. To estimate pedestrian and bicyclist counts at intersections, exposure models were developed incorporating explanatory variables from a broad spectrum of data sources. Intersection-related crashes and estimated exposure were used to quantify risk, enabling identification of high-risk signalized intersections for walking and bicycling. The modeling framework and data sources used in this study will be beneficial in conducting future analyses for other facility types, such as roadway segments, and also at more aggregate levels, such as traffic analysis zones.
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    Development and Testing of an Integrated, Versatile, Bicycle-Based Data Acquisition System
    Owens, Justin M.; Alden, Andrew; Antin, Jonathan F.; Gibbons, Ronald B. (National Surface Transportation Safety Center for Excellence, 2022-09-27)
    The goal of this study was to develop and demonstrate the effectiveness of a novel bicycle data acquisition system (bikeDAS) to extend the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute’s expertise in instrumentation and naturalistic data collection into the realm of bicycles and other fully or partly human-powered vehicles. The methodology incorporated the identification of a series of design considerations for effective bicycle instrumentation, including weight and balance, power, data collection capability, and mount location and design. These were addressed in a series of prototype iterations, each of which included testing in on-road situations to determine areas for improvement. The final VTTI bikeDAS is based on a weatherproofed version of the VTTI MiniDAS. The MiniDAS was developed as a low-cost, self-contained data acquisition system (DAS) for use in automobiles and motorcycles and has been adapted for use on bicycles with the addition of a rechargeable battery pack that looks and mounts to the frame like a standard water bottle. It consists of a single main unit measuring approximately 165 mm by 133 mm that contains two video cameras and numerous sensors, including GPS and a multi-axis inertial measurement unit (IMU). A mounting system has been developed to allow flexibility of placement across different types of bicycles; the typical location is attached to the head tube, which allows an unobstructed forward view, as well as views of the rider’s face and hands, and approaching vehicles, depending on bicycle geometry. This report provides detail about the needs analysis, prototyping, development, and deployment phases, and discusses areas of future development and research.
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    Factors Surrounding Child Seat Usage in Rideshare Services
    Owens, Justin M.; Womack, Katie N.; Barowski, Laura (SAFE-D: Safety Through Disruption National University Transportation Center, 2019-09)
    This project represents a collaborative, multimodal effort to understand the current state of child passenger safety with respect to rideshare vehicles, with the aim of using this information to develop an effective set of outreach tools. The project team included faculty and student members from the Virginia Tech and Texas A&M Transportation Institutes. Project phases included an in-depth review of the child passenger safety regulatory literature across the United States, a series of focus groups with rideshare riders and drivers, a nationwide internet survey of riders’ and drivers’ knowledge and attitudes toward child passenger safety, and the development of an informational website with a corresponding media outreach campaign. Researchers found that there is a general lack of knowledge of and awareness about the issues surrounding transporting children in this new transportation paradigm, and efforts must continue from both educational and regulatory perspectives to clarify in what ways parents and rideshare drivers can and must safely transport children.
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    Identifying High-Risk Intersections for Walking and Bicycling Using Multiple Data Sources in the City of San Diego
    Hasani, Mahdie; Jahangiri, Arash; Sener, Ipek Nese; Munira, Sirajum; Owens, Justin M.; Appleyard, Bruce; Ryan, Sherry; Turner, Shawn M.; Machiani, Sahar Ghanipoor (Hindawi, 2019-06-16)
    Over the last decade, demand for active transportation modes such as walking and bicycling has increased. While it is desirable to provide high levels of safety for these eco-friendly modes of travel, unfortunately, the overall percentage of pedestrian and bicycle fatalities increased from 13% to 18% of total road-related fatalities in the last decade. In San Diego County, although the total number of pedestrian and bicyclist fatalities decreased over the same period of time, a similar trend with a more drastic change is observed; the overall percentage of pedestrian and bicycle fatalities increased from 19.5% to 31.8%. This study aims to estimate pedestrian and bicyclist exposure and identify signalized intersections with highest risk for walking and bicycling within the city of San Diego, California, USA. Multiple data sources such as automated pedestrian and bicycle counters, video cameras, and crash data were utilized. Data mining techniques, a new sampling strategy, and automated video processing methods were adopted to demonstrate a holistic approach that can be applied to identify facilities with highest need of improvement. Cluster analysis coupled with stratification was employed to select a representative sample of intersections for data collection. Automated pedestrian and bicycle counting models utilized in this study reached a high accuracy, provided certain conditions exist in video data. Results from exposure modeling showed that pedestrian and bicyclist volume was characterized by transportation network, population, traffic generators, and land use variables. There were both similarities and differences between pedestrian and bicycle models, including different spatial scales of influence by mode. Additionally, the study quantified risk incorporating injury severity levels, frequency of victims, distance crossed, and exposure into a single equation. It was found that not all intersections with the highest number of pedestrian and bicyclist victims were identified as high-risk after exposure and other factors such as crash severity were taken into account.
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    Improving the Safety of Interactions Between Vulnerable Road Users and Automated Vehicles: A Collaborative Investigation
    Owens, Justin M. (National Surface Transportation Safety Center for Excellence, 2021-04-28)
    This report documents a collaboration between researchers at the Pedestrian Bicycle Information Center at the University of North Carolina’s Highway Safety Research Center and the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute to advance bicycle and pedestrian safety. Efforts focused on (1) exploring and discussing ways to make vulnerable road users (VRUs) safer around existing vehicles with automation; (2) broadening the dialogue surrounding automation and VRU safety to incorporate underrepresented but necessary voices, such as those from advocacy communities; and (3) laying the groundwork to ensure that future automated vehicle (AV) systems, including transitional and fully automated vehicles, are designed with VRU safety as a priority. The collaboration produced a white paper detailing the current state of AV and pedestrian interaction, organized breakout sessions at annual meetings of the Automated Vehicle Symposium, published the results of those sessions, and hosted outreach activities such as webinars and an invited lecture.
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    An On-Road Evaluation of the Impact of Explicit and Implicit Cognitive Training Protocols on Safety-Related Senior Driver Behaviors
    Antin, Jonathan F.; Owens, Justin M.; Wotring, Brian (National Surface Transportation Safety Center for Excellence, 2017-04-21)
    This study presents a long-term examination of the effects of two types of perceptual-cognitive brain training programs on senior driver behavior and on-road driving performance. Seniors over the age of 69 engaged in either a Toyota-designed in-vehicle training program based on implicit learning principles or a commercially available computer-based training program developed by Posit Science®. Another group served as a control group and received no training; total enrollment was 55 participants. Participants completed a series of four experimental sessions: (1) baseline pre-training, (2) immediate post-training, (3) 6–9 months post-training, and (4) 12–16 months post-training. Experimental metrics taken at each session included a laboratory metrics portion, a target-detection performance on a closed-road course, and a public-road portion examining vehicle control and glance behavior. These sessions were designed to examine not only whether training provided immediate benefit to senior drivers, but also whether any improvements persisted after training or precluded decrements in performance found in untrained individuals. The results found few statistically significant improvements in performance with either type of training. However, there were non-significant trends toward improved glance behavior at risky intersections for participants in the Car Training group, suggesting that this might be a valuable target of future research using experimental designs with increased statistical power. In addition, several tests of training improvements examined by individual differences suggested that drivers with particular deficits on physical and cognitive metrics could benefit differentially from this type of training, leading to future research questions on appropriate targeting and the potential benefits of refresher training.
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    Perceived Driving Difficulty, Negative Affect, and Emotion Dysregulation in Self-Identified Autistic Emerging Drivers
    Fok, Megan; Owens, Justin M.; Ollendick, Thomas H.; Scarpa, Angela (Frontiers, 2022-01-31)
    Driving is central to adult independence and autonomy; yet most autistic young adults do not acquire driver’s licenses. It is important to understand barriers to achieving this milestone for autistic adults. Differences in negative affect and emotion dysregulation associated with autism may interfere with managing difficult driving situations. The current study compared perceived driving difficulty (DD), emotion dysregulation, and negative affect in emerging drivers with and without autistic traits (AT), and investigated how emotion dysregulation and negative affect relate to perceived DD. We expected (1) greater perceived DD, emotion dysregulation, and negative affect in participants with AT and (2) a positive correlation of perceived DD with both emotion dysregulation and negative affect in the whole sample. Thirty-seven adolescents and young adults (15 AT) self-reported perceived DD in 15 scenarios and completed the Difficulty in Emotion Dysregulation Scale (DERS) and the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale (DASS). Autistic participants scored significantly higher on mean perceived DD, DERS Impulse subscale, DASS total and DASS Stress subscale scores. Perceived DD positively correlated with the DERS and DASS total scores, all DASS subscales, and DERS Nonacceptance, Goals, and Impulse subscales across the whole sample. The findings highlight the roles of emotion dysregulation and negative affect in perceived DD in emerging drivers with AT. In particular, emotional stress and impulsivity may map onto mechanisms of over-reactivity to negative affect and explain why autistic people perceive particular situations as difficult when driving. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.
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    Radio Tuning Effects on Visual and Driving Performance Measures: Simulator and Test Track Studies
    Perez, Miguel A.; Owens, Justin M.; Viita, Derek; Angell, Linda; Ranney, Thomas A.; Baldwin, G. H. Scott; Parmer, E.; Martin, John; Garrott, W. Riley; Mazzae, Elizabeth N. (United States. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 2013-05)
    Existing driver distraction guidelines for visual-manual device interface operation specify traditional manual radio tuning as a reference task. This project evaluated the radio tuning reference task through two activities. The first activity consisted of a static evaluation of the features and layouts of 12 original equipment vehicle radios. The second activity consisted of an experiment in which naÏve participants drove five models of vehicles on a test track while performing manual radio tuning tasks. Driving performance measures and eye glance behavior were examined during radio tuning and baseline (no secondary task) periods. Results showed differences between task and baseline periods in most measures as a function of radio design. Results of the test track radio running experiment were evaluated along with experimental data for radio tuning obtained in a driving simulator by NHTSA. Similar results were found for most eye glance measures. The data suggest the following visual demand acceptability criteria based upon driver 85th percentile radio tuning performance: - Individual eye glances away from the forward road scene should not exceed 1.3 seconds, and - Total eyes-off-road time to perform an entire task should not exceed 12.1 seconds. For compatibility with occlusion testing, these time values should be rounded off to multiples of 2.0 seconds. This gives task acceptability criteria of individual eye glances away from the forward road scene not exceeding 2.0 seconds and total eyes-off-road time to perform an entire task not exceeding 12.0 seconds.
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    Virtual Reality as a Tool to Evaluate Pedestrian Safety
    Bhagavathula, Rajaram; Williams, Brian M.; Owens, Justin M.; Gibbons, Ronald B. (National Surface Transportation Safety Center for Excellence, 2020-06-25)
    Virtual reality (VR) promises to be an effective tool to evaluate changes to the built environment that could improve safety for pedestrians. However, in order to draw actionable conclusions from VR, it is important to understand the degree to which pedestrians’ perceptions and behaviors match across real and virtual environments. In this study, participants experienced equivalent real and virtual environments and performed similar tasks in each. Tasks included the intention to cross an intersection, the estimation of the speed and distance of an approaching vehicle, and the perceived safety and risk of crossing a road. Results showed no statistical difference between the real and virtual environments for participants’ intention to cross, estimation of distances, and perceptions of safety and risk. Statistically significant differences between real and virtual environments were observed in the estimation of speed and measures of presence. These results indicate that at lower vehicle speeds (25 mph and lower) VR can be used as tool to evaluate pedestrian safety in built environments.
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    What Are the Restraint Practices, Preferences, and Experiences When Australian Parents Travel with Their Children in a Rideshare Vehicle?
    Koppel, Sjaan; Peiris, Sujanie; Aburumman, Mohammed; Wong, Chernyse W. R.; Owens, Justin M.; Womack, Katie N. (MDPI, 2021-08-25)
    This study aimed to explore the preferences, experiences and restraint practices of Australian parents travelling with their children in rideshare vehicles. Six hundred and thirty-one participants completed an online survey (M = 39.2 years, SD = 10.5, Range = 18.0–70.0 years; Female: 63.4%). Most participants (59.1%) reported that they had not travelled in a rideshare vehicle with their youngest child (M = 7.2 years, SD = 5.2, Range = 0.0–17.0 years; Male: 54.2%). Participants who reported that they have travelled with their youngest child in a rideshare vehicle tended to: be younger, identify as male, have completed an Undergraduate or Postgraduate degree, reside in the Australian Capital Territory, earning a higher yearly household income, and were involved in an at-fault crash in the past two years. In addition, these participants were: less likely to have a ‘younger’ youngest child, less likely to ‘always’ wear a seatbelt while travelling in their private motor vehicle, and also less likely to ‘always’ restrain their child in an appropriate restraint while travelling in their private motor vehicle. Prohibitive reasons for not travelling in a rideshare vehicle included: cost (29.3%), concerns over driver safety (27.5%), concerns over travelling with children in a rideshare service (24.8%), or inconvenience (24.3%). Participants who reported that they had travelled in a rideshare vehicle with their youngest child reported lower rates of appropriate restraint use within the rideshare vehicle (57.3%) than when travelling in their private motor vehicle (85.6%). Reasons associated with inappropriate restraint use within the rideshare vehicle included: unavailability of a child restraint (39.6%), travelling a short distance (33.0%), were not required to use one in this situation (33.0%), or the parent did not have a restraint with them (26.4%). Given the increasing popularity of rideshare services in Australia, and globally, the urgent adaption of rideshare-specific policy, legislation, education, and design in relation to child restraint requirements is needed to ensure the safety of child occupants.