This paper reviews literature on the optimal design of pricing policies to reduce urban automobile congestion. The implications of a range of complicating factors are considered, such as traffic bottlenecks, constraints on which roads and freeway lanes in the road network can be priced, driver heterogeneity, private toll operators, other externalities besides congestion, and interactions betwee...

In an on-going research program, on the causation of injuries in motor vehicle accidents, at the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute, crashes with airbags have been, and are continuing to be, investigated. In order to determine the occurrence, if any, of 'hearing problems' associated with airbag deployments, drivers and passengers who had been involved in 'airbag' automobil...

This study developed the simulator for knocking analysis that enables knocking discrimination and engine balance correction applicable to the ECU exclusive to the industrial CRDI engine. The purpose of this study is to provide the driver-oriented diagnostic services that enable drivers to diagnose vehicles directly by developing diagnostic devices for vehicles with the use of the results of the...

We report two experiments designed to investigate the potential use of vibrotactile warning signals to present spatial information to car drivers. Participants performed an attention-demanding rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) monitoring task. Meanwhile, whenever they felt a vibrotactile stimulus presented on either their front or back, they had to check the front and the rearview mirror ...

Hands-free communication provides a safer communication system and driving for all road users especially the driver of a vehicle. Many studies have been made to look into the sound quality problem of an automobile and the perceive quality of sound due to noise and other ills that corrupt the speech signal to an extend that the far-end receiver could not even recognize the speaker. Here this pap...

The effects of gaze eccentricity on the steering of an automobile were studied. Drivers performed an attention task while attempting to drive down the middle of a straight road in a simulation. Steering was biased in the direction of fixation, and deviation from the center of the road was proportional to the gaze direction until saturation at approximately 15 degrees gaze-angle from straight ah...

Two series of finite element and lumped parameter model vehicle-to-vehicle frontal crash simulations were conducted. The vehicles modeled are the 1994 Chevrolet C-1500 light truck and the 1997 Ford Crown Victoria. The first set of simulations involves fully-engaged angled impact. Angles range from +50° to -50°. The second set simulates offset impacts in head-on vehicle crashes. The front-end ov...

Currently, from the statistical analysis of accidents at home and abroad, the number of automobile defects and the resulting automobile accidents are very large. Obviously, the automobile defects have become one of the main factors affecting traffic safety, and risk assessment as an automobile key technical defect of risk management, the elimination of defects and reduce automobile accidents ar...

Epidemiological studies indicate that automobile drivers from varying demographics are confronted by difficult driving contexts such as negotiating intersections, yielding, merging and overtaking. We aim to detect and track the face and eyes of the driver during several driving scenarios, allowing for further processing of a driver’s visual search pattern behavior. Traditionally, detection and ...

The Chance fracture represents a spinal lesion caused by a flexion-distraction injury pattern. We describe a rare case of a male driver admitted at the Emergencies of our Institution, level A Trauma center. The was involved in an automobile accident without wearing a seatbelt. Radiological findings of plain radiography and computed tomography (CT) demonstrated a horizontal fracture extending ac...