Traffic Assignment: Vehicle to Vulnerable Road User Communication

Question

Task: Prepare a research plan on traffic assignment on the topic “Vehicle to Vulnerable Road UserCommunication: Survey, Design Considerations and Challenges”?

Answer

Introduction
The present traffic assignment discusses about the road accidents and issues which are becoming a rising concern in the present times with hundreds of accidents recorded each year. With the help of right sets of tools and methods one can drastically reduce road accidents and enable efficient movement of traffic. The conventional methods of controlling and manipulating traffic movement are gradually being replaced by smart technologies such as Intelligent Transportation System (ITS).The communication on the road is being shaped gradually in this way with the help of communications and information technology in the sector of transport. Although the accidents are reducing greatly along with the rise in traffic order, certain section of people such as pedestrians and motorcyclists are still facing numerous threats(Tahmasbi-Sarvestani et al. 2017). An intelligent transportation system (ITS) can be referred as an application that is advanced in nature and have an objective of providing innovative services associated with various transportation modes and management of traffic. Furthermore, it enable the users to become informed in a better way and come up with safer, smarter, and more coordinated utilization of networks of transport. Getting aid from emergency services in times of accidents, utilizing cctv cameras to coordinate traffic movement are some of the technologies related to ITS.

Research questions
Objectives
The following objectives provided in the traffic assignment have been formulated for the given proposal-

• To determine and conduct a feasibility study on Bluetooth 5x so that the fitness for the road communication can be investigated.
• To determine the architecture of the network as well as the communication protocols for the V2VRU communication.

What are the necessary questions to be answered in this traffic assignment?
The following questions have been formulated for the proposal on traffic assignment-

• What safety issues are there for vulnerable road users (VRUs) in the system of transportation?
• How can technology be used to provide safety solutions for the VRUs?
• How the VRU solution being accommodated by the intelligent transportation system that is gradually emerging?
• What is the role of wireless technology in bringing VRU in active communication with other entities of the road?
• What is meant by state of arts Bluetooth enabled solution?
• What are the advanced features that come alongside BLE 5x that might be used to leverage the road solutions of VRU?
• How to come up with technology associated with BLE that will help in providing positioning and communication solutions for VRUs while at road?

Literature detailed review
Various entities in road traffic interact with each other and uses common infrastructure for travel. Here, a slight error can result in major road accidents with loss of property and even lives. Managing traffic can become a complex job unless some specific guidelines and regulations are not followed. Moreover, it requires the dedicated algorithms to function side by side having a sense of precise data related to traffic. Effective traffic control can be established with the help of traffic data, which can aid in saving daily times spent in traffic and road accidents. The traffic data here can consist of several elements like type of vehicles and their numbers.Traffic monitoring systems can be relied uponwith the help ofroad infrastructure. The technology nowadays is advancing at a rapid pace, leading to several discoveries and breakthroughs at various fields. Traffic monitoring and control is no exception and smart cities have been utilizing Bluetooth and other information technology systems to coordinate and manage day to day traffic (Omar, Lu & Zhuang, 2016). It is useful in preventing road accidents and can help to maintain law and order while driving.The primary drawbacks of the solutions that are combined with the infrastructure consist of low level of flexibility and high maintenance costs.New technologies can be applied in the field in order to overcome these drawbacks, such as wireless sensor networks. Although the cost is still considered high, the effectiveness becomes high for such cases.Bluetooth has been used in devices for a long time and it is being recently utilized for controlling and coordinating traffic. It has been seen in this traffic assignment that a fundamental Bluetooth sensor system for the purpose of monitor of traffic includes Bluetooth probe devices that are capable of scanning other devices that are Bluetooth enabled and is within its proximity. This collected data is then stored for future analysis and can be used as well for development purposes (Park et al. 2017).

It has been observed that the elderly, children, and disabled are primarily vulnerable to road accidents as the given section of people have less resilience to collisions or falls and also have limited mobility. The disabled and elderly ones are often seen to be relying upon aids in forms of wheelchairs, walking sticks, and pushchairs. Therefore special care needs to be taken when considering these groups of people in the road. Here, the aid of technology can be taken to provide the VRUs with certain benefits while traversing busy roads. In certain cases there might be deployment of V2P safety applications using Bluetooth low energy. This can be effective in avoiding collisions especially between someone who is using a headphone while riding and pedestrians.

As per the research on traffic assignment, in the year 2012, according to the International Traffic Safety Data and Analysis Group (IRTAD), there were 10,386 and 1605 road fatalities, especially regarding VRUs in the USA and Germany respectively. The vehicles at the manufacturing plants undergo rigorous checks for safety and the government has made it a necessary step to improve the safety features of various motor vehicles as a part of Intelligent Transportation System (ITS). The occupants of the vehicles along with the VRUs has benefitted from it over the course of years. One of such safety features is Vehicle to Everything (V2X) communication, which enables the users of the vehicles to establish communication among different road entities so that safety can be implemented in a coordinated and combined way. They can therefore become become an active part of ITS by enabling V2P for VRUs. This can be achieved by enabling different safety and convenience applications of ITS (Prashar et al. 2020).

The latest version of the Bluetooth communication standard is the Bluetooth 5.0, which is usually used for wireless headphones and other audio devices and hardware. As Bluetooth can enable interaction between various devices including IoT devices, this can be an effective tool, which can be used in preventing major road accidents and coordinating traffic flow. The range and speed of the latest Bluetooth version has been increased significantly. The devices that are capable of using this latest technology can transfer data up to 2 Mbps, which is considered almost twice the speed of the previous version, i.e., Bluetooth 4.2. The traffic congestion and flow of a particular can be seen beforehand with the help of this technology along with ease of navigation. Safe driving applications are nowadays popular which utilizes Bluetooth technology to alert the driver and helps to prevent car accidents. Billions of dollars are being funded to improve this technology and make it even better in terms of efficiency and accuracy. A driver can now automatically connect to his or her phone when in a cap capable of Bluetooth services. This can be done without having to physically doing so, as voice command is there in such technologies. There are other advanced technologies that can be used for road safety, such as automatic energy braking (AEB), back up camera, auto-steering, led headlights, lane departure warning system, rear-cross traffic alert, rear automatic energy braking, autonomous cruise control, Bluetooth/voice control, forward collision warning (FCW), and bling spot warning (Sewalkar & Seitz, 2019).

Methodology
Introduction
In this research on traffic assignment, the primary method of data collection will be from external research sources such as articles and journals.Research materials on various latest technologies used for road safety are to be studied and with the help of their concepts and theories a reliable and flexible conclusion will be drawn.

Research philosophy
Positivism research philosophy will be used in this research as it helps to highlight the existence of factual knowledge. This is in turn gained via observation of situations or research phenomenon.

Research design
Descriptive research design will be chosen here as it helps a researcher to shed light on the important sections and criteria of the research via collection of essential data and information.Various writers and authors have previously written on utilization of technology to implement road safety. Their studies consisting of certain ideas and views can be used togive shape to this research paper.

Research strategy
A qualitative method and approach will be used in this study, which can be depicted as its strategy to reach a reliable conclusion. Presence of inadequate candidates and participants in the current situation of the global pandemic has restricted the researcher to carry out quantitative data collection and analysis. Moreover, it would require extensive outdoor activities and interacting with people, which at the current moment is not possible.

Data collection and analysis methods
The primary data collection will be conducted by going through previous researches, including journals and articles that are relevant to the given topic. Moreover, a thematic analysis will be used to study various journals and articles. This will be done with the help of a thematic table in which numerous criteria and requirements of the research will be met accordingly.

Additional resources and tools
The following tools and resources are required to aid in the research-

• A stable internet connection to look upon the journals and articles from trusted sources and that are relevant to the topic.
• A computer capable capable of multitasking activities
• Software like Google sheets, MS Word, MS Excel.

Research limitations
The primary limitations as predicted will be regarding time and available resources to conduct the research successfully. As the research has to be completed within a limited time period, the researcher might face time management difficulties that may hinder the progress of the study. Moreover, there might also be the issue of resources to conduct the study. In the current worldwide pandemic it will be difficult to carry out quantitative analysis, which would have been a better option. This is primarily because the results would then have been highly unbiased and reliable, which would benefit the study in the long run.

Expected outcomes
It is likely that the research would yield similar results as previous studies. Although there might be the statement of some new technologies and methods for implementing road safety like the use of Bluetooth 5x, the overall result is expected to be similar to the previous researches that will be taken under consideration herein traffic assignment.

References
A. Tahmasbi-Sarvestani, H. Nourkhiz Mahjoub, Y. P. Fallah, E. Moradi-Pari and O. Abuchaar, "Implementation and Evaluation of a Cooperative Vehicle-to-Pedestrian Safety Application," in IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Magazine, vol. 9, no. 4, pp. 62-75, winter 2017, doi: 10.1109/MITS.2017.2743201. Retrieved from: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1808.06463

Omar, H. A., Lu, N., & Zhuang, W. (2016). Wireless access technologies for vehicular network safety applications.Traffic assignment IEEE Network, 30(4), 22-26. Retrieved from: http://bbcr.uwaterloo.ca/~wzhuang/papers/Hassan_Network15.pdf

Park, H., Lee, S., Moon, E., Ahmed, S. H., & Kim, D. (2017, September). Performance analysis of bicycle-to-pedestrian safety application using bluetooth low energy. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Research in Adaptive and Convergent Systems (pp. 160-165). Retrieved from: https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3129676.3129727

Prashar, D., Jha, N., Jha, S., Joshi, G. P., & Seo, C. (2020). Integrating IoT and Blockchain for Ensuring Road Safety: An Unconventional Approach. Sensors, 20(11), 3296. Retrieved from: https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/20/11/3296/pdf

Sewalkar, P.; Seitz, J. Vehicle-to-Pedestrian Communication for Vulnerable Road Users: Survey, Design Considerations, and Challenges. Sensors 2019, 19, 358. Retrieved from: https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/19/2/358/pdf