streetsforpeople.com

How does a pedestrian make "eye-contact" with an autonomous car?

Wes Edwards — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 23:31:06 +0000

MIT's Media Lab is investigating how autonomous vehicles might communicate with pedestrians

This will be one of the key issues to be resolved before autonomous vehicles can navigate the typical street. Have a read through the comments to discover a few more interesting problems to be resolved, even if autonomous vehicles are initially confined to the somewhat more predictable environment of a motorway/ freeway.

Link to Technology Review article

Trade in your car for free public transport for life.

Wes Edwards — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 08:51:08 +0000

If you live in the city of Murcia in Spain you can trade-in your car in return for a life-time pass for the city's trolley service. A novel approach to drawing some attention to public transport and an attempt to reduce car travel and congestion, and reducing the demand for parking.

Spanish-Language Site: http://www.mejorentranvia.com/ccomunicacion.php

English-Language summary on Fast Company: http://www.fastcompany.com/1766407/spanish-city-murcia-offers-lifetime-b...

Advertising Videos on You Tube: http://www.youtube.com/user/F33video

An animated map of Auckland's public transport network

Wes Edwards — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 04:45:55 +0000

Chris McDowall has just published a neat animated map showing the public transport services across Auckland over the course of a day. It is a great animation that cleverly shows the complexity and coverage of the PT system.

Originally posted at sciblogs.co.nz

http://sciblogs.co.nz/seeing-data/2011/01/20/an-animated-map-of-auckland...

Two excellent posts from Strong Towns Blog

Wes Edwards — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 21:59:24 +0000

I recommend you add Strong Towns Blog to your blogroll if you have the time.

Two excellent recent posts include an interesting essay on the real effects of Ramp Metering and a video Conversation with an Engineer that is both entertaining and sobering.

Google Progresses Autonomous Car

Wes Edwards — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 00:53:18 +0000

OK, so this is not strictly related to street / urban design, but is very interesting, particularly when it comes to the future for interaction between people and vehicles in the street.

Autonomous (self-driving) cars have rapidly been making their way from science fiction into science fact.

Robotics blog Get Robo interviews the Google Autonomous Car team.

(via BotJunkie)

Confessions of a Recovering Engineer

Wes Edwards — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 21:05:24 +0000

Charles Marohn over on Strong Towns Blog has written an excellent article about his journey from graduate engineer to seasoned thinking engineer in a path that somewhat matches my own.

This should be required reading for any traffic engineer.

Research Studies Effect of Street Pattern on Road Safety

Wes Edwards — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 03:24:38 +0000

A recently-published paper¹ describes the results of research into the effect of street pattern on road safety. The study looked at several areas of Calgary in Canada, using census units and classifying them into one of four street patterns:

Pedestrians need to be more vigilant when crossing roads

Wes Edwards — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 21:57:02 +0000

An article in the Sydney Morning Herald titled Pedestrian death rise blamed on iPods is highlighting the increasingly poor pedestrian road safety record and draws a link between this increase and the increasing use of mobile audio devices such as iPods and cell phones.

Mobileye aiming to end crashes

Wes Edwards — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 01:11:39 +0000

Technology company MobileEye has just released the MobileEye C2-270, which the company claims will mean an end to motor vehicle collisions.

The new product consists of a device inlcuding a forward-facing camera that attaches to the inside of your windscreen. If the device detects something in front of your car or moving into a collsion situation it provides an audible and visual alert allowing the driver to take evasive action. The device does not take control of the car and so is easily portable between vehicles.

Great Residential Streets - Part 2

Wes Edwards — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 02:27:27 +0000

This is Part 2 of a series about residential street design. See Part 1 here.

In Part 1 we introduced the importance of lowering traffic speed in producing quality residential street environments. The following are some key design principles affecting speed.

Great Residential Streets - Part 1

Wes Edwards — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 08:30:10 +0000

As professionals involved in urban design part of our role is to make great streets, but what makes a street great and how can we ensure that residential streets are places that are good to live in? In this article I'll explore the concepts around suburban residential streets.

So What Does a Traffic Engineer do?

Wes Edwards — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 11:29:40 +0000

That is usually the question after someone hears what my job is - either that or an "Oh" accompanied by a blank expression.

Welcome to Streets for People

Wes Edwards — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 10:50:05 +0000

This blog is intended to be a place where a variety of topics associated with the inter-related topics of traffic engineering, urban design, and transport planning. We will discuss matters such as street design, liveable neighbourhoods, public transport, subdivision design, walking, traffic management, cycling, significant transport projects, parking, and the like.