The 2012-13 INRIX Traffic Scorecard Annual Report ranked Austin as one of the Top 10 Worst Cities for Traffic in America. With an average of over 100 people moving here per day, traffic is predicted only to increase.
With the $1.4 million grant from the US Department of Transportation, WNCG is teaming up with UT’s Center for Transportation Research (CTR) to make Austin a test site for future transportation initiatives. On February 20, 2014, WNCG and the CTR presented their initial research plans for the federal grant money, thus effectively kicking off the project.
The WNCG faculty will focus primarily on the role of wireless networks and communications in addressing current transportation issues. The research plans presented by the WNCG focus on device-to-device communication, the application of cellular technology to relieve congestion, issues of privacy and security as these technologies develop and the involvement of student outreach and education in the project.
Dr. Robert Heath, director of the WNCG, discussed the need for improving device-to-device and vehicle-to-vehicle communications. This field includes discovering how cars can communicate with each other, their surroundings and the cellular network around them. Heath recommends taking advantage of the existing cellular infrastructure and radar concepts to measure and track human movement within cars and public transportation.
“We can use radar concepts to find out what people are doing in the car. Are they nodding asleep or not paying attention? How can we detect humans and incorporate in-the-loop technology?” Dr. Heath questions.
Dr. Heath claims this information could be vital to gathering data about how humans use transportation and interact with their vehicles throughout the day. This data could offer insight into designing vehicles that communicate with each other, relieve traffic problems and meet consumer needs.
Dr. Todd Humphreys, professor of Aerospace Engineering, seeks to expand vehicle communications research by exploring the implementation and maintenance of privacy and security within these communication networks.
“How does Aerospace Engineering fit into ground transportation and vehicle-to-vehicle communications? It’s similar to the way planes communicate with Air Traffic Control by transmitting and receiving signals.”
The problem, Dr. Humphreys suggests, is how easily these signals can be rerouted, jammed or altered. While too late for airplane infrastructure, Humphreys mentions, there is still time to implement privacy and security systems in ground transportation.
“It is easier to build these systems into the structure than to bolt it onto the system afterwards,” Dr. Humphreys states.
Dr. Sanjay Shakkottai will use his expertise to focus on mobile networks and technology. He hopes to augment sensor capabilities with the help of online maps and applications to direct traffic flow not strictly to destinations, but to available parking nearby.
By directing traffic more precisely through mobile reservation apps, option design, proper resource allocation and consumer choice, Shakkottai hopes to relieve congestion and remove the additional road time involved in searching for parking.
Dr. Constantine Caramanis brings optimization and machine learning expertise to the team. Caramanis proposes that understanding global dynamics of traffic and how to optimize them requires understanding patterns cars generate on the road.
“Beyond this, it requires understanding the behavior of drivers—how do drivers respond to traffic signals, warning signs and disruptions? These data mining problems, and optimization and control problems that come with them, are massive in scale,” Caramanis states.
Dr. Caramanis mentions that designing efficient and scalable algorithms that yield quickly computable solutions will be a priority as the project moves forward.
Educational outreach to undergraduate students also plays a large role in the allocation of the grant funds. Each year, Dr. Sriram Vishwanath leads the Eureca summer program to support and promote undergraduate research.
This summer, undergraduate students from nearby universities will engage in networking and communications research as it relates specifically to transportation. Throughout the summer program, these select undergraduates will partner with UT-Austin graduate students and a WNCG faculty adviser to complete a research project.
Day by day, issues of traffic congestion, urban transportation and personal privacy and security cause increasingly greater problems and gridlocks. The road to the perfect transportation solution requires the dedication and collaboration of many talented minds and years of research ahead. The CTR and the WNCG are at the forefront of the transportation field and have made it their mission to get technology, and people, moving.