Personal Mobility

Ride–sharing is a resource efficient mode of personal transportation. While the perceived benefits
of ride–sharing include reduced travel times, transportation costs, congestion, and carbon
emissions, its wide–spread adoption is hindered by a number of barriers. These include the
scheduling and coordination of routes, safety risks, social discomfort in sharing private spaces,
and an imbalance of costs and benefits among parties. To this extent, this paper describes implementation details of a system for ride–sharing that eliminates these barriers, in particular the
one relating to social aspects, by utilizing the concepts of social networks and social interest
groups. Realistic, city–wide simulations show that the proposed social ride–sharing system is
viable and effective.

Uppsala University

Aalborg University

Online Hungarian Forum for Mobility and Transport

Presented at the 15th World Congress on Intelligent Transport Systems, November 16-20, 2008, New York, New York

Various driver assistance systems have been developed in recent years. Pattern recognition algorithms, using several kinds of sensors mounted on vehicles, have been applied to detect “overt hazards”. We have been trying hard to expand use of these systems to every vehicle on the road in order to reduce the number of traffic accident fatalities. Furthermore, we think that “covert hazards”, which cannot be detected by the existing systems, are more important than “overt hazards” in urban areas. In this paper, we propose a hierarchical architecture for assessing both types of hazard, combining causal knowledge with stochastic collision prediction capability. The knowledge base evaluates “covert hazards”, using expected risk values as temporal and spatial relationships for each object. The collision prediction takes account of “covert hazards” to calculate the expected risk value. This architecture is examined for several typical scenes, such as a vehicle passing alongside parked cars.

Toyota Central R&D Labs., Inc.

Presented at the 15th World Congress on Intelligent Transport Systems, November 16-20, 2008, New York, New York

The number of injuries in traffic accidents in Japan has exceeded one million for nine
consecutive years in 2007, and reducing the number of traffic accidents remains an important
issue. We believe that reducing situation which may lead to traffic accidents, is an effective
means of helping to reduce the number of traffic accidents. This study utilized a questionnaire
investigation to collect examples of traffic incidents which occur during ordinary driving, and
analyzed the driver behavior and driver’s mental and physical states immediately before
encountering the traffic incident. Based on this analysis, we clarified the driver characteristics
which tended to make traffic incidents more likely.
We also conducted a comparison with the regression analysis results from previous research
concerning subjective daytime sleepiness which is thought to be one of factors that is likely to
lead to serious accidents. Based on these results, we propose a direction for further research
concerning next generation driving support systems that detect information on driver’s
physiological signals in order to help prevent traffic accidents.

TOYOTA INFOTECHNOLOGY CENTER Co., LTD.

TOYOTA MOTOR CORPORATION

Aichi Prefectural University

Presented at the 15th World Congress on Intelligent Transport Systems, November 16-20, 2008, New York, New York

5-1-1 is the nationwide dialing code for real-time travel conditions, but deployment is scattered
and financing is left to individual jurisdictions. In many states, including Wisconsin, the key
question was whether it is possible to deploy a statewide 511 traveler information system for
relatively low cost. Many business models have been considered nationwide, several have been
tried, but few have succeeded. Comparable five-year costs for 511 deployments around the
country range widely from around $1.5 million to over $50 million, with a median value in the
$4 million to $7 million range. Wisconsin is proceeding with a bottom-dollar budget, but if the
schedule holds, the system will have been live for about six weeks at the time of the ITS World
Congress in November 2008, making this a particularly timely topic.

University of Wisconsin-Madison

Presented at the 15th World Congress on Intelligent Transport Systems, November 16-20, 2008, New York, New York

511 has been a successful traveler information system in the San Francisco Bay Area since
the telephone number and Web site (511.org) were adopted and launched in 2002. The
Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) operates both systems and works to
enhance their features. Users send MTC daily comments with ideas on system
enhancements. The most requested enhancement was a tool for users to save their most-used
trips so as to avoid restating their inputs for every call or Web visit. MTC listened and has
created MY 511, a personalized traveler information tool.

Metropolitan Transportation Commission

ICx Transportation Group

Presented at the 15th World Congress on Intelligent Transport Systems, November 16-20, 2008, New York, New York