Florida International University students research ways to ease gridlock, road rage

MIAMI — The students sit at long desks, their eyes glued to big screens showing traffic-choked highways. A simulator allows the students to create a traffic accident and try to reduce the delay it causes.

Researchers at the Integrated Intelligent Transportation System Laboratory at Florida International University are working to advance traffic research, a field that has yielded technologies from optimally timed stoplights to highway ramps that measure vehicle flow.

The lab debuted last month in collaboration with the Florida Transportation Department, as part of the Lehman Center for Transportation Research at the College of Engineering.

Forty-five master's and doctoral students seeking degrees in transportation engineering use the facility.

Its director, Mohammed Hadi, says South Florida, where congested roadways can spur bouts of road rage, gives students ample opportunities to put research to test.

Cameras and motion detectors along the highway track traffic or vehicle speeds and transmit the information to the Transportation Department. Lab researchers can use the information to see how many vehicles are being diverted or if traffic is slowing.

John Augustine, deputy director of the intelligent transportation systems joint program office, a division of the U.S. Transportation Department, said researchers working in the field could develop systems to allow vehicles to communicate wirelessly and that alert traffic controllers to know, for example, when a car's windshield wipers are activated.