Driving Successfully: Anne Fabiny, MD

Tue, 06 Mar 2012 15:30:08 GMT

Anne Fabiny, MD, Chief of Geriatrics, Cambridge Health Alliance, explores the medical aspects of aging that might impact one's ability to operate a motor vehicle safely

Driving Successfully: Joe Coughlin

Tue, 06 Mar 2012 15:30:08 GMT

AgeLab and New England University Transportation Center Director Joe Coughlin speaks on driving successfully as we age.

AIDA - The Affective Intelligent Driving Agent

Fri, 30 Sep 2011 18:18:14 GMT

The Affective Intelligent Driving Agent (AIDA) - a new in-car personal robot that aims to change the way we interact with our car. The project is a collaboration between the Personal Robots Group at the MIT Media Lab, MIT's SENSEable City Lab and the Volkswagen Group of America's Electronics Research Lab.

Formation of a 'phantom traffic jam'

Tue, 30 Aug 2011 15:48:37 GMT

Read the full story at http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2009/traffic-0609.html

The Future is Gray, Small & Female: Disruptive Demographics and Transportation Tomorrow

Tue, 02 Nov 2010 04:00:00 GMT

11/02/2010 4:00 PM 4"237Joseph F. Coughlin, Director, MIT AgeLab; Engineering Systems DivisionDescription: If the prospect of aging and infirmity seems remote, you could use some time with AGNES (Age Gain Now Empathy System), a wearable apparatus that approximates "what it feels like to be a 75"year"old woman." Joseph Coughlin's MIT AgeLab designed the suit to promote better understanding of the challenges of aging -- part of a larger effort to address the evolving demographic reality in the U.S., where a baby boomer turns 64 every seven seconds, 85"year"olds are the fastest growing age cohort, and most of the longest"lived will be women. Coughlin believes society must anticipate the needs of this rapidly emerging population, particularly where transportation is concerned. Coughlin draws from a flurry of statistics a vivid portrait of the near future when great numbers of people, mainly women, will not only live longer, but alone. In the U.S., many of these seniors expect to continue working and playing, sometimes battling chronic illness, but above all, maintaining independence and freedom. Given these expectations, "What is driving?" asks Coughlin. "EverythingIt's the glue that holds life together." Coughlin sees "transportation as a function of all the other activities you do." How then will an aging, frequently ailing, isolated population meet its needs for healthcare, shopping, work, leisure, especially when driving becomes a challenge, if not an impossibility? Older drivers contending with stress or fatigue may turn to such automotive technology as the AwareCar, from Coughlin's lab, which can alert drivers if their performance flags at the wheel. Some communities have developed alternative transportation options for seniors who can't count on relatives or friends to shuttle them to appointments or shopping. Big box stores have begun to recognize that acres of parking lot and warehouse pose insuperable challenges to older folks, and are working on making their locations more convenient and navigable. Coughlin cites additional ways society is beginning to accommodate the specific needs of the elderly, so as to sidestep the problems of transportation altogether. These include smart toilets that monitor human waste and upload information to disease management companies, signaling if a change in diet is indicated, and delivering appropriate foods; and home delivery of health care services and products by such retailers as Walgreens. In spite of these promising moves, the sheer number of aging baby boomers who will need to get around in coming years spells trouble. "We are still going to have a major mobility gap in the U.S.," Coughlin believes, "even if we started yesterday and invested billions to work really fast." About the Speaker(s): Joseph F. Coughlin is founding Director of the MIT AgeLab " a partnership between MIT, industry and the aging community to engineer innovative approaches and technologies to improve the quality of life of older adults and those that care for them. Coughlin's research has been featured in Business Week, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Le Monde and ABC News, CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News and CNN World. He has assisted numerous organizations including AT&T, IBM and the American Business Collaborative for Quality Dependent Care, Johnson & Johnson, and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. He teaches strategic management and public policy within the MIT School of Engineering's Engineering Systems Division.Host(s): School of Engineering, Transportation@MIT

Concentrate on Distracted Driving: A Challenge to MIT Students from US Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood

Mon, 03 May 2010 04:00:00 GMT

05/03/2010 12:00 PM E14"674Ray LaHood, US Secretary of TransportationDescription: From the MIT News Office: Research has shown that talking on a phone while driving, even with a hands"free cellphone, causes as much of an impairment to driving ability as being drunk. And yet, says U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood, while the nation has successfully cracked down on drunk driving, when it comes to cell phone use in cars, nearly everybody does it. This dangerous "epidemic" must stop, he said, and he hopes that smart people like the students at MIT will come up with ways - technological, social or political - to help curb the phenomenon, which kills thousands of people every year and causes many thousands more injuries. To emphasize the point, LaHood invited a local couple, Jerry Cibley and Jeri Katz of Foxborough, Massachusetts, to come to his talk to share their experience: Three years ago, Jerry was talking on the phone to his son Jordan, who was driving at the time; Jordan dropped the phone during the conversation, bent down to pick it up, and slammed into a tree. He was killed instantly. In calling for students to help find solutions to the problem, LaHood said, "Your time at MIT is more than an opportunity, it's a responsibility." He urged students to devote themselves to helping to find solutions to real"world problems such as the "driving while distracted" issue that he stressed in his talk, or the problem of reducing greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change. "Something needs to be done," he said. "I challenge all of you to find solutions." About the Speaker(s): As Secretary of Transportation, Ray LaHood leads an agency with more than 55,000 employees and a $70 billion budget that oversees air, maritime and surface transportation missions. Secretary LaHood's primary goals include safety across all modes, restoring economic health and creating jobs, sustainability _ shaping the economy of the coming decades by building new transportation infrastructure, and assuring that transportation policies focus on people who use the transportation system and their communities. Before becoming Secretary of Transportation, LaHood served for 14 years in the U.S. House of Representatives from the 18th District of Illinois (from 1995"2009). During that time he served on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and, after that, on the House Appropriations Committee. Prior to his election to the House, he served as Chief of Staff to U.S. Congressman Robert Michel, whom he succeeded in representing the 18th District, and as District Administrative Assistant to Congressman Thomas Railsback. He also served in the Illinois State Legislature. Before his career in government, Secretary LaHood was a junior high school teacher, having received his degree from Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois. He was also director of the Rock Island County Youth Services Bureau and Chief planner for the Bi"States Metropolitan Planning Commission in Illinois. Host(s): School of Engineering, Transportation@MIT

Sustainable Accessibility: A Grand Challenge for the World and for MIT

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 05:00:00 GMT

02/09/2010 4:00 PM 3"270John Sterman, PhD '82, Forrester Professor of Management and Engineering Systems, and; Director, System Dynamics Group, MIT Description: Transportation systems, as we know them today, will simply not sustain the worlds' growing population. Imagine a projected population of nine billion individuals. If this future population had mobility patterns like drivers in the United States, there would be a staggering 7.6 billion motor vehicles, using 440 million barrels of oil and producing 62 billion tons of CO2 per year. John Sterman says it is self"evident that our current transportation model simply will not scale. But, since the gross world product (GWP) is growing at 3.2% annually, and doubles every twenty years, our current model of development is an overture for environmental disaster. It is clear to Sterman that we need to think differently about the problem. People need access to goods, services, people, and opportunities. This access is what traditional forms of transportation provide. We also need to see transportation in its complexity, and expect that our planning efforts will have totally unintended, unexpected "rebound" effects. Sterman provides two examples of these rebound effects. The first examines the relationship between reducing traffic congestion and mass transit. Traditionally, the solution to traffic congestion has been one of supply and demand, and new roads are built to accommodate the increase in vehicle traffic. But, notes Sterman, augmenting road capacity just does not work: When new capacity is added, new vehicle trips, or longer ones, are encouraged. These trips quickly fill up the new road capacity, which produces a spiral of more severe traffic congestion. Meanwhile, some portion of these new auto trips come at the expense of public transit, which, upon losing riders, then reacts by either cutting service, or increasing fares. This downward spiral of public transit has a feedback loop which increases the attractiveness of driving. Sterman observes that planning is chaotic if we don't pay attention to these feedback loops and really think through what it is people want to achieve. A different, but equally complex set of feedback loops, has been the undoing of the alternative fuels industry. Over a thirty"year horizon, three countries, namely Brazil, New Zealand, and Argentina each developed a national policy and provided incentives to reduce their dependence on foreign oil. Unfortunately, none of their fuel programs grew large enough to achieve sufficient scale economies. Sterman characterizes these new starts as "sizzle and fizzle". He cautions us from repeating their mistakes as a current initiative gets underway to develop a hydrogen vehicle and fueling network in California. Having volume and scale will help us go down the learning curve, and we also need to bring many groups into the problem solving" these include vehicle manufacturers, fuel retailers, suppliers, and consumers. But, technology alone will not solve the problem. Sterman says we should prepare for the counter"intuitive lessons of transportation, and recognize that we will achieve better results if we make driving less attractive. Host(s): School of Engineering, Transportation@MIT

Autonomous Vehicles and Urban Mobility

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 05:00:00 GMT

12/08/2009 32"124Emilio Frazzoli, Associate Professor of Aeronautics and AstronauticsDescription: If you had half a million dollars, would you opt for a passenger car that could drive itself (called an autonomous vehicle) or would you choose a new Ferrari? Emilio Frazzoli provides a number of reasons why autonomous vehicles might be the preferred choice, if not the typical one. Autonomous vehicles, that use electronics in place of human drivers, will offer many improvements for urban mobility. Frazzoli says they will advance the safety and comfort of automotives" and open the doors of mobility for people who cannot or should not drive; as he puts it, "if you had too much to drink, maybe you should let the computer take you home." Future autonomous vehicles can also increase the efficiency and throughput of our existing road system and help reduce congestion by coordinating with others cars. The autonomous vehicle will also be a "green vehicle" that can make more fuel"efficient decisions than human drivers. Future autonomous vehicles might save up to 20 to 50% of emissions and fuel consumption by optimizing speed and stopping. In some ways, the autonomous vehicle is already with us. There are robotic components in the cars we drive today, like ABS (advanced breaking systems) which takes over control from human drivers to stop cars and avoid collisions. Frazzoli says that when ABS first reached the market it was a novelty and good drivers felt they could stop faster than the system. Today, it is widely accepted that it performs better than almost everyone except a Formula 401 racer. More recently, autonomous components enable cars to park themselves, and in the arena of mass transportation, there are autonomous bus demonstrations, and driver"less shuttles. Frazzoli sees the demand for autonomous vehicles as only growing. The autonomous vehicle can address the problem that both drivers and passengers are becoming increasingly distracted on the road with cell phones and electronics. And, with a growing network of V" 2" V (vehicle to vehicle) communications, autonomous vehicles can coordinate with other cars, beyond the capabilities of individual drivers. Simply put, human drivers can only account for vehicles they can see, while an autonomous vehicle has the advantage of synchronizing with the entire network upstream and downstream. Some initial work on autonomous vehicles began in the 1980's. More recently it has captured the imagination of the US Defense Department whose DARPA program has set million dollar prize challenges. Frazzoli gives some firsthand lessons from participating in the highly coveted DARPA vehicle challenge of 2007. Initially there were 89 teams but only 7 teams, including MIT, made the final cut. The road conditions were very realistic and each vehicle team had to navigate as an urban vehicle in regular traffic. In other words, the autonomous vehicle needed to abide by the rules of the road, obey speed limits, merge into traffic, pass safely and avoid obstructions. Frazzoli jokes," the vehicle had to have enough skills to qualify for a California drivers license". The MIT team equipped a Land Rover LR3 with state" of _the" art" technology that included more than 40 CPUs, radar, and a myriad of laser like sensors, rotating scanners, and video cameras. Two main modules were a perception sub system, which figured out where the road was, and a planning control system, which then used a decision tree algorithm to anticipate and adhere to rules" of" the" road. Only six vehicle teams (including MIT) actually finished the race. According to Frazzoli, "the race was so successful that the only way you could detect that an autonomous vehicle was driving, was that each robotic driven car had a human driver close behind it with a remote control (in hand)." About the Speaker(s): Emilio Frazzoli's main research interests are in the general area of planning and control for mobile cyber"physical systems, with a particular emphasis on autonomous vehicles, mobile robotics, and transportation networks. He received a Laurea degree in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Rome, "Sapienza", Italy, in 1994, and a Ph. D. in Navigation and Control Systems from MIT Aero/Astro in 2001. Between 1994 and 1997 he worked as an officer in the Italian Navy, and as a spacecraft dynamics specialist for the European Space Agency Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany, and Telespazio, in Rome, Italy. From 2001 to 2004 he was an Assistant Professor of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana"Champaign. From 2004 to 2006 he was an Assistant Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles. He was the recipient of a NSF CAREER award in 2002. He is an Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and a Senior Member of the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers. He is currently serving as an Associate Editor for the AIAA Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics. Associate Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems at MIT. http://ares.lids.mit.edu/ Host(s): School of Engineering, Transportation@MIT

From IT to Cleantech: New Sources of Innovation

Thu, 04 Dec 2008 05:00:00 GMT

12/04/2008 3:45 PM Wong AuditoriumShai Agassi, Founder & CEO, Better PlaceDescription: Imagine a response to oil dependence and climate change that offers people around the world a new and improved version of the car, premised on redesigning infrastructure top to bottom with green technology in a way that recharges ailing national economies. Applying both an entrepreneurial spirit and a systems engineering approach, Shai Agassi has devised just such a visionary plan for cracking these vexing global challenges. A recent World Economic Forum asked participants how to make the world a better place by 2020. Agassi felt an engineer's compulsion to respond. He describes a process "like a fractal problemopening up a cascade of questions." First came the notion of running a country without oil. He seized on, then dismissed, the idea of bio" and hydrogen"based fuels. He then experienced the seminal insight that "you need to go down from molecules to electrons if you want to change the world." This realization meant addressing both economic and engineering problems. He'd need to offer consumers not a vehicle limited to two seats, three wheels and 28 mph speeds -- but one that could go faster than gas cars, with all the requisite bells and whistles. To move his plan along, he also determined to use available electric car battery engineering. This raised significant issues of convenience: where to recharge and how frequently. Agassi envisioned charging docks in parking lots and home garages. He devised a simple battery replacement method. Then came the issue of affordability, which Agassi solved by applying a familiar business model, though not one associated with cars: cell phone minutes. Sell consumers an electric car with a subscription for miles: the longer the subscription, the greater the discount (or rebate check). In Europe, Agassi notes, where gas costs $7 to $8 a gallon, a five"year subscription pretty much gets you "a free electric car." The model's complexity and infrastructure requirements imply government backing, which Agassi has already secured. In Denmark there's a 180% tax on gasoline, and gas"powered sedans costs 60 thousand euros while electrics go for 20 thousand. North Sea windmills will provide clean electricity for charge stations. Israel's building a desert solar field to "drive every car," and a smart grid to monitor battery charging. The U.S. is hosting pilot programs in Hawaii and the Bay Area. His is not a plan to phase in gradually: The time is now, he says. "We must do the right, moral thing," to contend with climate change and brutal oil regimes, and "to create the biggest expansion in U.S. history." About the Speaker(s): Shai Agassi launched Better Place, a company dedicated to solving the problem of sustainable mobility, to help bring about an end to oil dependence. He works directly with government leaders, auto manufacturers, energy companies and others to make his vision of zero"emission electric vehicles powered by renewable energy a reality in countries around the world. In 2008, Israel became the first country to embrace the Better Place model of building an open network to enable mass adoption of electric vehicles and delivering transportation as a sustainable service. Today, Agassi and Better Place are in discussions with more than 25 countries, major auto manufacturers and other potential partners around the globe. TIME Magazine recently named Agassi one of its "Heroes of the Environment 2008." Before founding Better Place, Agassi was president of the Products and Technology Group at SAP AG and a member of the software company's executive board. Agassi is also an active member of the Forum of Young Global Leaders of the World Economic Forum, where he focuses on climate change and transportation issues. Host(s): School of Engineering, Engineering Systems Division

Technologies Changing Communities, Communities Innovating Technology

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 05:00:00 GMT

11/05/2008 6:00 PM MuseumDayna Cunningham, SL'04, Executive Director, Community Innovators Lab, Department of Urban Studies and Planning; Alexa Mills, Community Media Artist, MIT Community Innovators LabDescription: The best way to help a community help itself, say Dayna Cunningham and Alexa Mills, is to enable its members to find their voices and talk to each other. In several projects in the U.S. and overseas, the two speakers are developing methodologies for enabling communities to express and define themselves, so they may become more engaged in a larger civic and political process. Cunningham describes her particular focus on African"American civic engagement. She confesses she had "come to the conclusion that the infrastructure of black civic engagement was dead" -- and then the U.S. elected its first black president. However, in spite or because of this triumph, she feels there's more reason than ever to find channels for African"American involvement in the civic process. Alexa Mills recounts her efforts in two historically black Brooklyn neighborhoods to create community"based media projects. A large Baptist church, the cornerstone of the community, was challenged by various issues of gentrification, and asked Mills to conduct interviews with a diverse group of African" American community members to hear their perspectives. "Their goal is to hear one another before projecting their voice," says Mills. Although she went into the enterprise imagining organizing the community around affordable housing, she found that instead, there was fierce concern about white people moving in and behaving in an uncivil way: New neighbors wouldn't say hello as they passed on the street or in buildings. She hopes her interviews and an envisioned future website will help make connections among new and old community members, and ultimately inform the church's future efforts. In another project, Mills worked with people in an Eastern Kentucky town who felt oppressed by the destructive environmental behaviors of local coal companies. She helped make a movie about one local man's fish pond -- his life's work -- that was poisoned by mining runoff. The web site designed by a community group hosts lively conversations about this video, and other issues provoked by mining, and partly through this technology, the group is learning to "fight for what it wants," says Mills. About the Speaker(s): A 2004 graduate of the Sloan Fellows MBA program, Dayna Cunningham holds an undergraduate degree from Harvard and Radcliffe Colleges and a juris doctor degree from the New York University School of Law. From 2006"2007 she directed the ELIAS Project, an MIT"based collaboration between business, NGOs and government that seeks to advance economic, social and environmental sustainability. Previously, she was an associate director at the Rockefeller Foundation, where she funded initiatives that examined the relationship between race and democracy, changing racial dynamics and new conceptions of race in the US, as well as innovation in civil rights legal work. At the MIT Community Innovator Lab, Alexa Mills combines her passion for stories with her passion for bottom"up urban planning. Mills works directly with communities to develop media that express their perspective on various issues. Mills' body of work includes Predatory Tales, the true stories of predatory lending scams in Lawrence, Massachusetts; an interactive map of Tambo de Mora, Peru, hand"drawn by local teenagers seeking to describe their town to outsiders; and a series of short films about organizing to protect the environment from the coal industry in eastern Kentucky. All projects use various forms of media to express a community's perspective on an issue. Mills earned her B.A. in English, with a concentration in Medieval Literature, from Cornell University in 2003. She earned her Master's in City Planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2008. Before attending MIT, Alexa directed the SAFE Victim Advocacy Program in the Domestic Violence Unit of the Washington D.C. city courthouse. Cunningham has also worked as a voting rights lawyer in Arkansas, Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi and elsewhere in the South, and briefly as an officer for the New York City Program at the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. The Ford Foundation recently announced a grant to the Center of $1.15M in support of three projects under the general heading of Deepening Local Democracy.Host(s): Office of the Provost, MIT Museum

Recent Videos tagged 'Driving' on MIT Video