CUTR Webcast Recording: Safety Effects of Street Illuminance on Urban Roadways

April 13, 2017, 12:00PM (ET)

Safety Effects of Street Illuminance on Urban Roadways

Nighttime crashes are over-represented on the highway system in the United States. Street lighting is an effective countermeasure to improve nighttime safety. To monitor street lighting-level data (illuminance) on a big-scale roadway network precisely and efficiently, CUTR developed the Advanced Lighting Measurement System (ALMS) which is a microcontroller-based system measuring horizontal illuminance (foot-candle) at a high speed (>30 mph) and high resolution (two measure points every 10 feet for each lane). Until now, CUTR has utilized the ALMS to measure street illumination for 300+ centerline miles for FDOT District 1 and District 7. These collected data were used by FDOT, consulting companies, and CUTR to validate street lighting design, diagnose street lighting issues, compare street lighting technologies (LED vs HPS), and assess the safety effectiveness of the horizontal illuminance in reduction of nighttime crashes. Download Handout

Presenters: Pei-Sung Lin, Ph.D., Program Director of ITS, Traffic Operations and Safety, Center for Urban Transportation Research, University of South Florida; and Zhenyu Wang, Ph.D., Research Associate, Center for Urban Transportation Research, University of South Florida

Dr. Pei-Sung Lin is the Program Director of ITS, Traffic Operations and Safety at the Center for Urban Transportation Research (CUTR) at the University of South Florida. Dr. Lin obtained his Master’s Degree in 1991 from the University of Texas at Austin, and Doctoral Degree in 1995 from the University of Florida. He has 25 years of work and research experience in transportation. Dr. Lin is a registered Florida Professional Engineer (P.E.) and he is also certified as Professional Traffic Operations Engineer (PTOE) by the Institute of Transportation Engineer (ITE). Dr. Lin specializes in traffic signal systems, traffic engineering and operations, pedestrian and bicycle safety, nighttime safety, crash analysis, naturalistic driving and bicycling behavior studies, wrong-way driving countermeasures, and intelligent transportation systems. Before joining CUTR, Dr. Lin was a professional traffic engineer in Sarasota County, Florida and managed Sarasota County traffic signal systems. During his career at CUTR, Dr, Lin has worked numerous research projects and highway safety grants. He has published more than 130 technical papers and reports, and given more than 100 professional presentations via international, national and statewide conferences. Dr. Lin was chair of Intelligent Traffic Signal Operations Committee at ITE. He also served as the president of International Chinese Transportation Professionals Association (ICTPA) for two years. Currently, Dr. Lin is the member Transportation Systems Management & Operations Council at ITE.

Zhenyu Wang’s research interests focuses on transportation safety, traffic engineering and operations, intelligent transportation systems, traffic simulation, and application development in transportation engineering. Zhenyu Wang has conducted over 30 funded research projects and published more than 50 peer-reviewed journal papers, conference papers, and final reports. He developed four transportation software packages implemented by Florida DOT. He also served as instructors of graduate/undergraduate courses, reviewers for academic journals, and members of thesis/dissertation committees.