John Hourdos

My research focuses on the effects of human behavior as well as environmental conditions in the efficiency and safety of surface transportation networks. Ongoing work has suggested that although traffic conditions, in a macroscopic sense, can increase the probability of vehicle crashes, there are also at least two populations of drivers each manifesting their own propensity for crashes under similar circumstances. The Minnesota Traffic Observatory is supporting a number of field laboratories where remote sensing technologies are employed to collect high-resolution traffic data as well as utilize them in new systems for traffic safety. For example, a real-time queue warning system based on machine vision sensors and radar has been in operation on I-94 westbound in Downtown Minneapolis for the last 1.5 years with really promising results.