Bonn, 07.02.2023
The boom in bicycles, e-scooters and other means of micromobility did not just start during the coronavirus pandemic. This is increasingly leading to conflicts between different groups of road users and has already led to an increase in accidents involving cyclists in recent years. A new project now aims to record the causes of hazards based on data, predict risks in the future and thus ensure a safer transport infrastructure.
The “HarMobi” (Harmonizing Mobility) project, which was launched on 01.12.2022, aims to use sensor and traffic flow data from bicycles, e-scooters and motor vehicles to determine the behaviour of road users, their interaction and the influence of the infrastructure. The results will be fed into a learning system together with data from numerous other sources in order to better assess the safety implications for future traffic developments and planning.
Holistic approach with concrete benefits
For the first time, HarMobi will collect information on the causes of danger and conflict across the entire region. “Starting with the Aachen focus region, we will record, collect and evaluate sensor data from cars, buses, bicycles and e-scooters using smartphones and other sensors,” explains Jörg Ehlers from the Institute of Road Engineering at RWTH Aachen University, project coordinator of HarMobi. “This enables us to detect safety-critical driving maneuvers by different road users and their causes. By overlaying other data, such as accident data from the police and danger spots reported by citizens, we want to develop a reliable forecasting model for predicting causes of danger and then test it in Aachen. In this way, it should be possible in future to design the infrastructure in such a way that it is as safe as possible for all road users and minimizes sources of danger.”
Making transport infrastructure safer
How does the design of the traffic infrastructure affect the occurrence of conflicts? How can conflict situations and accidents be avoided? These are further questions that HarMobi aims to answer. By analyzing conflict situations between road users, predictions are to be made for future, constantly changing traffic that go beyond previous forecasting models. The aim is to increase traffic safety, especially for vulnerable road users such as cyclists. A wide variety of mobility data will contribute to this, as will live observations on site and camera images, which will be incorporated into the learning system.
About the actors
The Institute of Road Engineering at RWTH Aachen University acts as the joint coordinator of the HarMobi project. Other project partners are the Chair of Computer Science 11 – Embedded Software at RWTH Aachen University, the Initiative für sicherere Straßen GmbH from Bonn, Velocity Mobility GmbH from Aachen and the Traffic Accident Research Department at Hannover Medical School.
About the mFUND of the BMDV:
As part of the mFUND innovation initiative, the BMDV has been funding data-based research and development projects for the digital and networked mobility of the future since 2016. The project funding is supplemented by active professional networking between stakeholders from politics, business, administration and research and by the provision of open data on the Mobilithek. Further information can be found at www.mFUND.de.