ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Four Ann Arbor intersections are in line to test a system that tries to spot a crash before it happens, after University of Michigan researchers won a $5.66 million federal transportation grant.
The project, named SAFETI, is run by the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute. It would pull together equipment many streets already have, such as signal controllers and city traffic cameras, and add vehicle sensors and phone alerts to flag a likely collision between cars, bikes and people on foot.
When a conflict looks likely, the system could warn a driver on the dashboard, flash lights set into the pavement, ping a walker on a phone or hold a red light longer for cross traffic.
The work builds on MSight, a roadside sensing tool the institute built in-house. Its developers wrote in 2023 that it was already working day and night at one of the city’s two-lane roundabouts, following vehicles down to the lane and predicting their paths a few seconds ahead.
The grant runs three and a half years. About 18 months of testing at the Mcity track on North Campus come first, with robots standing in for pedestrians and cyclists, before the street trial. The City of Ann Arbor and the Michigan Department of Transportation are public partners, and the code will be open source.
Section: More Ann Arbor MI crime news
Filed under: Ann Arbor MI Traffic News
