Author: Suzan Ayas

Our Truck Driving Simulator Is Here!

Posted on by Suzan Ayas

(Photo by Phill Snel, CivMin, originally posted on CivMin news) 

Our newest driving simulator is here! The truck driving simulator has three 50-inch wide monitors to display a wide field of view. It includes a real truck driver seat, steering wheel, gear shifter (with options of manual or automatic gear shift), gas and brake pedals and dashboard. All these set on a motion base that can provide acceleration, deceleration, and other motions like road surface roughness to the driver. 

The truck driving simulator was acquired in collaboration with Prof. Matthew Roorda (CivMin). Our PhD candidate Alia Galal, co-supervised by Prof. Roorda and Prof. Donmez, will be conducting her research on evaluating truck driver training modules to reduce hazardous interactions between trucks and vulnerable road users (i.e., pedestrians and cyclists).

Her interview study on vulnerable road user safety has been published on Transportation Research Record.

 

Our simulator has been featured on the Department of Civil and Mineral Engineering website.

 

Two best paper awards go to HFASt Lab at the 67th HFES Annual Meeting

Posted on by Suzan Ayas

HFASt Lab won two best paper awards at this year’s Annual Meeting of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society that was hosted in Washington DC.

 

Dr. Dengbo He and Dr. Birsen Donmez received the Jerome H. Ely Best Paper Award. Dr. Dengbo He is currently a faculty member at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

Dr. Chelsea DeGuzman and Dr. Birsen Donmez received, the Best Student Paper Award from Surface Transportation Technical Group with their paper titled “Factors Influencing Trust in Advanced Driver Assistant Systems for Current Users”. Dr. DeGuzman is currently a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the HFASt Lab.

 

 

HFASt research on vulnerable road user safety gets featured in The Guardian

Posted on by Suzan Ayas

Our lab’s research on visual checks during right turns at red light got featured in a recent news article on the Guardian.

The article examines the increasing pedestrian deaths in the US and discussing whether allowing right turns during red light should be re-evaluated. Prof. Birsen Donmez gave an interview explaining how the drivers could fail looking at the correct spots for pedestrians when turning right at red light because the driver also has to attend to the incoming traffic to seize traffic gap for an opportunity to make the turn.

To read the full news article and Prof. Birsen Donmez’s interview and insights, please visit the Guardian page.

You can read more about our on-road studies investigating the visual attention allocation on turns and vulnerable road user safety by visiting our publications.

HFASt Lab members present at UNERD 2023, Yoonho Kim wins the Best Poster Award in Human Health

Posted on by Suzan Ayas

Undergraduate summer research students, Shabab Salam, Yichen Mao, and Yoonho Kim, presented their summer research projects at the annual Undergraduate Engineering Research Day (UnERD) on August 16, 2023 at the Myhall Centre for Engineering Innovation and Entrepreneurship. The conference booklet with abstracts can be found here.

Yoonho Kim (Eng Sci2T5) won the best poster award in the Human Health category.

1. Driver’s Visual Scanning Behaviours Towards Vulnerable Road Users

by Shabab Salam

 

2. Effects of Training on ​Driver Attention Allocation when Driving with ADAS​

by Yichen Mao

 

 

3. Advancing Driver Safety: An Investigation into Innovations in Drowsiness Detection and Design of System-Initiated Interventions (Best Poster in Human Health)

by Yoonho Kim

UnERD 2023 Presentation Poster

 

Alia Galal wins CSEAs Excellence Award

Posted on by Suzan Ayas

Alia Galal wins an Excellence Award in the 2023 Canada Safest Employers Awards (CSEAs) Competition, organized by the Occupational Health and Safety Magazine. 

For the 13th year, the annual CSEAs is the leading independent awards program in the profession of occupational health and safety. The awards recognize health and safety professionals and companies for their outstanding achievements, leadership and innovation over the past 12 months.

This award falls under the Minerva Rising Star of the Year Award Category of the CSEAs, which is specifically dedicated to full time post-secondary students from Canadian universities or colleges in undergraduate, graduate, or coop programs as well as employees with 2 or less years of work experience since graduation. The list of awards and awardees can be found here:  https://safestemployers.com/winners-and-excellence-awardees/2023-excellence-awardees/?q=2023#theitem3933

More information about Canada’s Safest Employers Awards can be found here: https://safestemployers.com