Pittsburgh Tests New Bus Safety System

"The Port Authority of Allegheny County will kick off the largest fieldtest of Intelligent Vehicle Technology by a public transit agency in the U.S.A two-day meeting of federal and state officials April 4-5 will mark the start of the year-long test of the side collision avoidance system recently installed on 100 port authority buses. The meetings will be conducted at the Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute in Pittsburgh. The $1.8 million projectis being funded jointly by the Federal Transit Administration and PennDOT aspart of FTA program designed to reduce transit accidents. Sensors on eachbus are spaced about six feet apart and mounted between 30 and 50 inches above the road surface. An on-board computer measures the time it takes anemitted sound wave from the sensors to return after bouncing off a hard object within six feet of the side of the bus and four feet to the rear. The system is designed to detect typically stationary roadside objects at least12 inches in diameter when the bus is moving and detect an automobile while both the bus and the car are in motion."

Thanks to APA Dateline