PAT to test 'smart' buses

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PAT to test 'smart' buses

Thursday, April 05, 2001

By Joe Grata, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

Federal and state government agencies, the Port Authority, a university research group and a high-tech equipment company picked the right place to test a collision avoidance system on buses.

In Pittsburgh, the partnership gets narrow streets, tight intersections, variable weather conditions, heavy traffic, an ample supply of carefree drivers and other distractions.

Chuck Thorpe, acting director of Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute, boards a Port Authority bus that has been equipped with commercial sonar sensors, seen on the side of the bus. The sensors, which are being tested on 100 buses, can help drivers avoid accidents. (John Beale, Post-Gazette)

The group opened a two-day meeting yesterday to kick off what it called the largest field test of "intelligent vehicle" technology by a public transit agency in the United States.

One of 100 Port Authority buses fitted with the collision avoidance system named "Blind-Sight" offered demonstration rides at Carnegie Mellon University's National Robotics Engineering Consortium facility in Lawrenceville.

The objective of the system is to warn bus drivers of close objects -- a wayward pedestrian, a utility pole or a passing car, for instance -- that pose a threat of an accident while operating in an urban environment, using a total of 12 ultrasonic sensors mounted on the sides of a bus.

Interior warning lights mounted near the driver's mirrors and an audible "beep" when the turn signals are on provide a warning and prod drivers to react and take evasive action. The sensors are set to ignore objects six feet from the sides of buses or smaller than 12 inches in diameter.

A small onboard computer measures the time it takes a sound wave emitted from any or all of the sensors to bounce off a hard object and determines whether to activate the visual and audible signals around the bus driver's perch.

The bottom line is to cut down on accidents, which also cuts down on repair costs, damage claims, out-of-service vehicles, injuries and even obstructive rush-hour traffic.

If Blind-Sight works in Pittsburgh, it'll work anywhere, Port Authority instructor DeCarlo Gilliard said.

"A lot of impatient people speed past us, and bus drivers have 'blind spots' just like any other driver," he said. "When we make service stops, it's a problem pulling in and out of traffic. This system tells us what's out there."

It cost about $2,600 per bus to buy the devices, manufactured by Collision Avoidance Systems Inc., and install them on 100 buses based at the East Liberty Division garage.

For the next year, the accident rates of those buses will be compared with the accident rates of 120 others without Blind-Sight -- called placebo buses -- operating out of the East Liberty garage.

The Federal Transit Administration, which is providing $960,000 to Carnegie Mellon researchers to develop an even more sophisticated version of the sensor system including graphic displays, estimates injuries alone from bus crashes account for $800 million a year in insurance claims.

The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation is providing $950,000 to fund the demonstration project at the Port Authority and pay for the field test.