Updates

Conferences, presentations, and other updates

(including events from Univ. of Michigan)

Young Driver Subcommittee Midyear Meeting, Woods Hole, MA

June 14, 2018

The TRB's "Young Driver" subcommittee holds its annual mid-year meeting at the National Academy's Erik Jonsson Center in Woods Hole, Cape Cod, Massachusetts. It's a great venue to have intense and focused discussions on a chosen topic. This year's topic was on the impact of ADAS on teen drivers - a convergence of my past & current research areas - and was titled "Understanding How Rapid Technological Change Affects Young Drivers’ Safety".

I presented an overview of Behavioral Adaptation and how that may relate to Teen Drivers.

Welcoming Heejin Jeong

June 6, 2018

Delighted to welcome Dr. Heejin Jeong to our Human Factors group here at UMTRI. Heejin got his PhD from U-M Industrial & Operations Engineering. He will be working closely with me on a number of topics on Human Factors of Vehicle Automation, Connected Vehicle Systems, and other driving simulation projects.

Michigan Journal of Law & Mobility

June 6, 2018

The University of Michigan Law School and Mcity announced the launch of the Michigan Journal of Law and Mobility, dedicated to the complex legal issues at the intersection of mobility transformation and law. The announcement was made at the ITS annual meeting in Detroit .

The Michigan Journal of Law and Mobility co-editors-in-chief are Daniel Crane, U-M’s Fredrick Paul Furth Sr. Professor of Law, and Bryant Walker Smith, an assistant professor of law and engineering at the University of South Carolina and a well-known expert on the law of driverless vehicles. The editorial board also includes: Carrie Morton, Mcity ; Steven Croley, Latham & Watkins; Emily Frascaroli, Ford Motor Company; Kyle D. Logue, U-M Law School; Ellen Partridge, Environmental Law & Policy Center; Bryce Pilz, U-M Office Technology Transfer; and Anuj K. Pradhan, U-M Transportation Research Institute.

Read the inaugural article by Prof. Dan Crane, "The Future of Law and Mobility" and follow us on Twitter: @FuturistLaw.

NSC Visit & Mcity Shuttle Launch

June 5, 2018

Was great to have @AlexEpsteinNSC visit us today... just in time to also check out the @UMich automated shuttle that was deployed earlier this week.

Open Online Course on Injury Prevention for Children and Teens

May 10, 2018

The University of Michigan Injury Prevention Center launched a comprehensive online course for pediatric injury prevention: Injury Prevention for Children & Teens. This free online course offers modules on injury prevention for children and teens, including the prevention of teen dating violence, motor vehicle crashes (including child passenger safety), sports concussion, opioid overdose, burn injuries and much more.

I built and delivered the course segment on Teen Driving Safety.

From the UM-IPC site:

Injuries, such as motor vehicle crash, youth violence, and suicide, are the leading cause of child and adolescent death. However, almost all of these injuries can be prevented through the widespread application of evidence-based practices and policies.
This course lays a broad foundation for pediatric injury prevention and will increase your understanding of this major public health issue through powerful, concise, up-to-date lectures, interviews, and demonstrations from a multidisciplinary panel of nationally-recognized injury prevention experts.

CHI 2018 - Montreal

April 21-26, 2018

Professor Jessie Yang presented a position paper titled "Interacting with Autonomous Vehicles: An Interdisciplinary Approach" at a Workshop on "Interacting with Autonomous Vehicles: Learning from other Domains" at the 36rd ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2018) April 21-26, 2015, Montreal, Canada.

Human Robot Interaction - 2018, Chicago

March 5-8, 2018

Students from two of our projects presented at the Human Robot Interaction (HRI) 2018 conference in Chicago. The papers presented were "Trust in AV: An Uncertainty Reduction Model of AV-Pedestrian Interactions" presented by Suresh Jayaraman, and "Explanations and Expectations: Trust Building in Automated Vehicles" presented by Jacob Haspiel.

The "Trust in AV: An Uncertainty Reduction Model of AV-Pedestrian Interactions" paper was awarded the HRI 2018 Best Late Breaking Report Award "3rd Place."

SAVIR 2017, Ann Arbor

September 18-20, 2017


The 2017 Conference of the Society for Advancement of Violence and Injury Research (SAVIR) was held at the University of Michigan at the Michigan League, with opening remarks by Congresswoman Debbie Dingell, and Mark L. Rosenberg, President Emeritus, The Task Force for Global Health. The conference was hosted by the University of Michigan Injury Center.

I presented our work on the Influence of Multiple Peer Passengers on Male teen Drivers' Risk Taking Behaviors. See the complete print program here, and a Twitter story here.

Automated Vehicle Symposium, San Francisco

July 2017

Somewhat of a follow-up to our January TRB workshop, we organized a Human Factors breakout session at the Annual Automated Vehicle Symposium in San Francisco. The breakout session was titled "Automated Vehicle Challenges: How can Human Factors Research Help Inform Designers, Road Users, and Policy Makers?". The organizers were: Anuj K. Pradhan, Chris Schwarz, John Sullivan, Shan Bao, & Fred Feng.

Our high-powered panelists included Dr. Nidhi Kalra of RAND corp., Dr. Bernard Soriano of CA DMV, Emily Frascaroli from Ford, and Alex Epstein of the National Safety Council.

Driving Assessment Conference, Vermont

June 2017

Attended the always wonderful Driving Assessment Conference in gorgeous Manchester Village, Vermont. As always the conference was intellectually invigorating, with wonderful opportunities for in-depth discussions with academic and industry researchers as well as students. We (Brian Lin, Claudia Wege, and I) presented a poster on our research that examined the effects of in-vehicle and safety-manager feedback on long-haul drivers' safety behaviors.

Mobility Talks International, Washington Auto Show

January 24-25, 2017

I was a panelist at the MobilityTalks International SM at the Washington Auto Show. This was forum designed for governments from around the world to exchange ideas on best practices related to the emerging trends in transportation surrounding connected and autonomous vehicles. The changing landscape of transportation presents lawmakers and regulators with unique challenges and opportunities that can be more effectively addressed through partnership and collaboration.

A highlight of this event was attending a panel on Capitol Hill in the Kennedy Caucus Room at the Russell Senate Office Building, to hear the take on AV & CV deployments and their impact from panelists like Gary Shapiro, John Maddox, and our very own congresswoman Debbie Dingell of MI.

First Annual Joint Toyota-MIT-UMich-Stanford Workshop

January 10-11, 2017

Attended the first TRI/Stanford/UMich/MIT joint workshop at Stanford University. Great experience, especially touring the Stanford Labs and comparing notes with Driving Simulation researchers at Stanford. Attended this workshop with other UMich collaborators as a kickoff for the Toyota Research Institute funded projects at UMich.

Human Factors Workshop - 2017 TRB Annual Conference

January 2017.

We conceptualized and organized a Human Factors Workshop at the Transportation Research Board Annual Conference in Washington DC in January 2017, titled "Acquisition and Maintenance of Driving Skills in the Climate of Driver Support, Driver Assist, and Automation Systems". The members of the organizing committee were : Anuj K. Pradhan, Chris Schwarz, Fred Feng, & Shan Bao.

The following presentations were made:

  • Anuj K. Pradhan (UMich) - ADAS & automation in vehicles: how do we prepare drivers for new tasks and skills
  • Dan McGehee (Univ of Iowa) - Preparing the American public for automated vehicles and a changing transportation network
  • Mike Manser (Texas Transportation Institute) - Experiences from training in automation
  • Don Fisher (Volpe Center) - Effect of automation on the acquisition of novice driver’s skills
  • Jeff Greenberg (Ford) - Maintenance of driver skills with ADAS functions

The workshop included small group breakouts where participants reviewed and critiqued selected sections of driver manuals that contained information about features, capabilities, and limitations of late-model Level 2 vehicles. The following questions were considered:

-What are the issues related to skill acquisition, and issues related to skill maintenance. What solutions or improvements can be made?

-Other than owner’s manuals, what roles should other entities play in training drivers?

-What research needs can be identified, either specifically about systems or generalized to the broader ADAS and automation field?