Mingyang Hao, USC MSCE 2016

Iteris Associate Vice President John Lower kicked off the METRANS Spring 2016 Lunch with A Practitioner Series with a screening of “IF YOU DON'T COUNT IT, IT DOESN'T COUNT,” a newly created presentation of transportation systems and traffic sensors at ITERIS, followed by a lively discussion of applications of this technology as we move toward the goal of successfully growing and integrating active transportation into road networks nationwide. Lower leads ITERIS activities in sustainable transportation activities and greenhouse gas reduction strategies in transportation.

Lower demonstrated the latest video-based bicycle detection system (SmartCycle) capable of differentiating between bicycles and vehicles to enhance bicyclist safety to the student audience, comprised of a wide variety of transportation related majors, including planning, engineering, and construction management, from undergraduates to doctoral students. 

ISE student, Bixiao Yan, attended the presentation to learn more about how modern technology can be used to improve our transportation systems, and found the presentation a fascinating and inspiring application of the things she is currently learning in the classroom. "This activity increases my interests in transportation and I find some career opportunities in this area," she shared.

The SmartCycle system was introduced to differentiate bicycles, which is important for vulnerable road environment especially at the intersection. It is said that 40% of bike fatalities occur at intersections and 31% of cyclists failed to yield to another road user. Lower mentioned that detection is paramount to growing bicycle mode share by improving safety. Also, he demonstrated that based on 2014 NCHRP, video detection is considered an accurate alternative to manual counts.

Lower pointed out that the benefits and features of SmartCycle, including the ability to achieve both vehicle and bicycle counting and to discriminate bicycles from vehicles, as well as the non-intrusive nature of the installation (compared to traditional, embedded sensors, for example, which require disrupting the road surface). It is worth noting that bicycle counts enable Low Carbon Roads, which will develop and implement strategic signal timing and signal phasing operation within the bicycle detection corridors.  The information of vehicle counts also helps agencies evaluate capacity needs and identify opportunities to repurpose vehicle lanes for bike lanes.

"It is great that there is potential to increase efficiency and safety of transportation by changing the operation system,” remarked MPP student Christina Baghdasarian. “This activity (the METRANS Lunch with a Practitioner) helps people without transportation background to learn more about this area from the transportation expert."

Mingyang Hao

Mingyang Hao is a second-year graduate student in Viterbi School of Engineering of Transportation Engineering program. His interests are in traffic engineering, ITS, and non-motorized transportation fields.