Civil Engineering team develops realistic artificial data set for road safety studies

A Mizzou Engineering team is hoping artificial intelligence (AI) can be leveraged to prevent vehicle crashes in the future. To that end, they’ve developed realistic artificial data sets (RAD) that can be used to train machines to predict the factors that cause wrecks. These data sets are now available through the U.S. Department of Transportation. The three-year $1.1M project was supported by the US DOT’s Exploratory Advance Research Program.

MU Professor Appears in Federal Code

Civil and Environmental Engineering Professor Glenn Washer has earned a unique distinction: appearing by name in the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations.

Mizzou research aims to improve driver alerts through science

If researchers can predict how drivers will react, they can better tailor systems either broadly or potentially to individual motorists. Mizzou Engineering Assistant Professor Jung Hyup Kim’s research opens the door to potentially creating a more interactive system.

Lighting the way to safer driving

A team of MU Civil and Environmental Engineering researchers discovered as much when they studied response to different types of lights on what are called truck mounted attenuators (TMAs) in mobile work zones — for example, road striping zones. TMAs are attached to a construction vehicle and typically contain lights alerting drivers to upcoming work zones and additional items such as lane closures, upcoming lane mergers, etc.

Driver distractions in work zones can be costly

Distractions in the car are everywhere. Texting, taking a call, changing the radio, attending to passengers, picking up a dropped item — all of them can cause us to lose sight of the road for a few seconds. But mere seconds can be the difference between life and death.