U.S. Department of Transportation Free Public Webinar: Enhancing the Safety of Vulnerable Road Users at Intersections

Title: Enhancing the Safety of Vulnerable Road Users at Intersections
Date: March 17, 2023
Time: 2:00 pm to 3:00 pm ET
Registration Link:https://usdotvruwebinar.eventbrite.com
Potential Speakers:

• Robert Hampshire, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology and Chief Science Officer
• Govind Vadakpat, Program Manager, Smart Infrastructure, Intelligent Transportation Systems Joint Program Office
• Chris Atkinson, Deputy Director for Advanced Research, Office of the Secretary for Research and Technology
• Brian Cronin, Director, Office of Safety and Operations Research and Development, Federal Highway Administration

The U.S. Department of Transportation (U.S. DOT) will host a webinar on March 17 to discuss how the U.S. DOT envisions leveraging emerging technologies to enhance the safety of vulnerable road users at roadway intersections.

Improving the safety of pedestrians, bicyclists, and other vulnerable road users is of critical importance to achieving the objectives of the U.S. DOT National Roadway Safety Strategy and the U.S. DOT's vision of zero fatalities and serious injuries across our transportation system. According to data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), there were 10,626 traffic fatalities in the United States at roadway intersections in 2020, including 1,674 pedestrian and 355 bicyclist fatalities. These fatalities at intersections represent 27% of the total of 38,824 road traffic deaths recorded in 2020. Early estimates in 2021 point to even worse numbers overall, with pedestrian fatalities up 13% and pedalcyclist fatalities up 5% compared to 2020 (NHTSA, May 2022).

To better understand existing and emerging technologies that could enhance intersection safety, the U.S. DOT released a Request for Information (RFI) on “Enhancing the Safety of Vulnerable Road Users at Intersections” in the Federal Register on September 16, 2022 (the comment period closed on November 15, 2022).

The U.S. DOT is considering the potential of emerging technologies to transform intersection safety and ensure equity among all road users (including vehicles and vulnerable road users). Leveraging emerging technologies to anticipate, prevent, and mitigate unsafe roadway conditions could augment traditional safety engineering in roadway design and intersection control. These emerging technologies could include machine vision, machine perception, sensor fusion, real-time decision-making, artificial intelligence, and vehicle-to-everything communications (among other approaches). These technologies in most cases rely on real-time decision-making informed by data ingested and analyzed from multiple sensor systems.

The webinar will include insights gained from the RFI responses as well as the U.S. DOT’s vision of leveraging these technologies to improve intersection safety. Please register for this webinar by visiting the following registration link: https://usdotvruwebinar.eventbrite.com.

2/23/23