Transportation engineering PhD student Zhixia Li was attracted to the University of Cincinnati because of the real-world education and experience the university provides.
In return, he's headed a real-world project that every driver can relate to. It's a project on which he has presented and published nationally, and it looks at what he calls the "yellow light dilemma." Are you, as a driver, more likely to stop or to speed through a yellow light?
Here's what he found when conducting research, in cooperation with the Ohio Department of Transportation, at intersections in Akron, Cleves and Fairfield, Ohio:
Certain factors make it more likely that you'll opt to speed through an intersection rather than stop at the light.
The results of his research with his advisor Prof. Heng Wei, "Analysis of Drivers' Stopping Behaviors Associated with the Yellow Phase Dilemma Zone -- An Empirical Study in Fairfield, OH," will be presented at the 2010 American Society of Highway Engineers National Conference on June 9-13, 2010, in Cincinnati, at the Hilton Cincinnati Netherland Plaza.
So what are the factors that make us run the yellow?
These include
Li's research has won many awards, including the 2009 Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) Daniel B. Fambro Best Student Paper Award (one winner internationally); first place, 2009 ITE Great Lakes District Student Paper Competition (Great Lakes District includes Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, and West Virginia); and the 2009 Ohio Transportation Consortium (OTC) Best Graduate Student Paper Award.
This UC research will help traffic engineers consider and test safety and traffic efficiency measures, including the positioning of sensors that time traffic lights.
And it just might help drivers consider their own actions when in the yellow light dilemma zone.
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