Feature Channels: Travel and Transportation

• share
• favorite_border

A Montreal study reveals that people who travel by car are four times more likely to be injured than people who travel by city bus. Buses are safer for cyclists and pedestrians, too.

• share
• favorite_border

• share
• favorite_border

Many Airbnb venues in the United States fail to provide the critical carbon monoxide and fire safety protections that are legally required of hotels and motels, suggests new research from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

• share
• favorite_border

• share
• favorite_border

The future of self-driving cars seemed all but inevitable — until a fatal crash in Arizona last month prompted tech companies, automakers and lawmakers to pump the brakes.

• share
• favorite_border

As tourism continues to grow, the CSU is providing graduates who will thrive in new fields like sustainability and guest experiences.

• share
• favorite_border

When federal legislators passed a bill in 2010 requiring longer rest periods and more flight training for commercial airline pilots, the goal was to improve passenger safety. But a University of California, Irvine study has found that the regulations had unintended consequences: higher fares and fewer choices for air travelers.

• share
• favorite_border

Michigan Tech is one of eight universities competing in the AutoDrive Challenge, a design competition sponsored by SAE International and GM. Teams must convert an electrical vehicle, a Chevy Bolt, into an SAE Level 4 autonomous vehicle. Their first competition is the end of April 2018 and part of the team was tasked with considering the social, environmental, and economic impacts of the technology.

• share
• favorite_border

Vikash Gayah, assistant professor of civil engineering at Penn State, will research urban traffic network dynamics from a network-wide perspective, thanks to a prestigious National Science Foundation (NSF) Early Career (CAREER) award.

• share
• favorite_border

Teens who admit to texting while driving may be convinced to reduce risky cellphone use behind the wheel when presented with financial incentives such as auto-insurance apps that monitor driving behavior, according to a new survey conducted by researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). However, while more than 90 percent of teens surveyed said they were willing to give up sending or reading text messages, almost half indicated that they would want to retain some control over phone functions such as music and navigation.

• share
• favorite_border

The eDumper dump truck is the largest electric vehicle in the world and will be in operation in the quarry from 20 April. In cooperation with industry partners, the Bern University of Applied Sciences BFH, the NTB Interstaatliche Hochschule für Technik Buchs and Empa have developed the environmentally friendly truck.

• share
• favorite_border

• share
• favorite_border

A smartphone app designed to promote proper child car seat use among parents proved effective in a study led by researchers at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

• share
• favorite_border

A new study from the University of Iowa shows the importance of drivers pulling over for police cars en route to emergencies. The study finds that police cars are nearly twice as likely to be involved in a traffic accident when they’re in emergency mode than when they are not.

• share
• favorite_border

An international team led by Argonne National Laboratory makes breakthrough in understanding the chemistry of the microscopically thin layer that forms between the liquid electrolyte and solid electrode in lithium-ion batteries. The results are being used in improving the layer and better predicting battery lifetime.

• share
• favorite_border

• share
• favorite_border

Many highways and railways are built near natural or manmade slopes or on top of soil conditions, which during an earthquake or rain-induced landslide, could cause major damage to roads and tracks.

• share
• favorite_border

Yue Zhao, assistant professor of electrical engineering, has received a $500,000 grant from the National Science Foundation’s Faculty Early Career Program to support his research on silicon carbide motor drives.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have developed and successfully tested a novel process - called Friction Stir Dovetailing - that joins thick plates of aluminum to steel. The new process will be used to make lighter-weight military vehicles that are more agile and fuel efficient.

• share
• favorite_border

Argonne partners with CNH Industrial to test the competitive nature of budding engineers as they design, build and race their own electric cars.

• share
• favorite_border

A new study by the University of Delaware has found that hotels need to be more than a "home away from home" in order to satisfy guests. The survey showed that when it comes to technology, hotels should be competing with their customers' homes, not other hotels.

• share
• favorite_border

It is exactly 20 years since experts from Empa and VERT published the first test results on diesel particle filters. Today, more than 100 million vehicles worldwide are fitted with such filters. However, a VERT conference held at the Empa Academy revealed why the emission problem is by no means over.

• share
• favorite_border

• share
• favorite_border

Given the choice of riding in an Uber driven by a human or a self-driving version, which would you choose? Following last month’s fatal crash of a self-driving Uber that took the life of a woman in Tempe, Arizona, and the recent death of a test-driver of a semi-autonomous vehicle being developed by Tesla, peoples’ trust in the technology behind autonomous vehicles may also have taken a hit.

• share
• favorite_border

Less than a month after S&T provided training to teach volunteers how to distinguish relevant pieces of information amid a squall of tweets, news releases and other items that needed vetting before they could be considered actionable, they used their skills in a real-world emergency.

• share
• favorite_border

Dennis Muilenburg EVANSTON - Dennis Muilenburg, chairman, president and CEO of The Boeing Company, will discuss the future of space exploration, from traversing deep space and taking our first steps on Mars to the evolving combination of commercial air and commercial space travel, during the 37th Annual William A. Patterson Transportation Lecture on May 2 at Northwestern University.

• share
• favorite_border

According to the National Safety Council, there were more than 40,000 motor vehicle deaths across our nation in 2017, with distracted driving being cited as a major contributor.

• share
• favorite_border

Transportation researchers at the University of Arkansas and their collaborators at five other research institutions will continue to lead the nation in maritime and multimodal transportation research with an additional $1.4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation. The grant will be used on a wide range of ongoing research.

• share
• favorite_border

Rear-facing car seats have been shown to significantly reduce infant and toddler fatalities and injuries in frontal and side-impact crashes, but they’re rarely discussed in terms of rear-impact collisions. Since rear-impact crashes account for more than 25 percent of all accidents, researchers at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center conducted a new study to explore the effectiveness of rear-facing car seats in this scenario.

• share
• favorite_border

Annual study shows involuntary denied boarding, mishandled bags and customer complaints improved last year while on-time performance fell

• share
• favorite_border

Every day, about 165 in-flight emergencies occur on the 100,000 or so airplanes that take to the skies around the world, according to the most recent estimates. But, there are currently no federal guidelines for physicians in these situations, and there is no mandatory reporting system that tracks in-flight emergencies. After being the only physician on board during two in-flight emergencies, Rachel Zang, MD, an Emergency Medicine resident at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, learned as much as she could about the laws and what exactly is in on-board medical kits. Today she imparts that knowledge to other physicians.

• share
• favorite_border

Mental health symptoms related to attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and conduct disorder are associated with increased errors in a driving simulator and self-reported risky driving behaviors in adolescents, according to study in Nursing Research, published by Wolters Kluwer.

• share
• favorite_border

“As long as human behaviors are the foundation of automated driving technology, safety will continue to be an issue.” -- Aviral Shrivastava, ASU computer science assistant professor.

• share
• favorite_border

• share
• favorite_border

• share
• favorite_border

• share
• favorite_border

Zero-emissions cars zipping into a sustainable energy future are just one dream powered by fuel cells. But cell technology has been a little sluggish and fuel prohibitively pricey. This new catalyst could offer a game changer. And there are more developments to come.

• share
• favorite_border

In their detailed analysis of dozens of empirical studies on the effects of talking while driving, human factors researchers have provided a comprehensive and credible basis for governments seeking to enact legislation restricting drivers’ use of cell phones.

• share
• favorite_border

Rutgers’ Xiang Liu heads the only academic rail engineering and safety program in the entire region – one of less than a dozen nationwide – at Rutgers University-New Brunswick’s School of Engineering.

• share
• favorite_border

Despite claims that helmets do not protect the cervical spine during a motorcycle crash and may even increase the risk of injury, researchers from the University of Wisconsin Hospitals and Clinics in Madison found that, during an accident, helmet use lowers the likelihood of cervical spine injury (CSI), particularly fractures of the cervical vertebrae.

• share
• favorite_border

Argonne offers licensing opportunities for a patented refueling method that can significantly lower capital investment costs while increasing capacity at hydrogen refueling stations.

• share
• favorite_border

University of Portsmouth researchers are at the forefront of a drive to develop environmentally-friendly materials from agricultural waste for use in the automotive, marine and aerospace industries.

• share
• favorite_border

Using advanced computational methods, University of Wisconsin–Madison materials scientists have discovered new materials that could bring widespread commercial use of solid oxide fuel cells closer to reality.

• share
• favorite_border

A UCLA study explored the relationship between new drivers' skills to age, gender and playing organized sports or video games. The results suggest all novice drivers should undergo mandatory training, not just teenagers. Age: Among males, the older the student, the worse his driving skills score.

• share
• favorite_border

What could a "gas station of the future" look like? What services does it offer? Which fuels can be refueled there and where do they come from? Possible answers to these questions can be found at the stand of the of Swiss Oil Industry Association (Erdöl-Vereinigung) at the Geneva Motor Show. The stand in Hall 6 is run in cooperation with Empa and Hyundai.

• share
• favorite_border

• share
• favorite_border

A new study led by the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children’s Hospital used data from a national survey to examine the effectiveness of state-level cellphone laws in decreasing teens’ use of cellphones while driving. The study, done in conjunction with researchers from West Virginia University and the University of Minnesota, and published today in Journal of Adolescent Health, looked at state-level cellphone laws and differences in both texting and hand-held cellphone conversations among teen drivers across four years.

• share
• favorite_border

• share
• favorite_border

Black women with higher incomes are more likely to experience a forceful police interaction during a traffic stop, finds a new study from the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis.“We found that the likelihood of exposure to each type of police use of force was significantly greater for black females with incomes over $50,000,” said Robert Motley Jr.

• share
• favorite_border

Driving assessments and experience in diverse driving situations could lead to fewer crashes among young drivers.