SmartCross - Traffic signal interface on the smartphone

In 2008 there were 69000 and 52000 injuries reported for pedestrians and bicyclists respectively.A majority of these injuries were a result of impulsive decisions by road users. This proposal aims to make use of proliferation of smartphones and provide a technical solution to mitigate the risks associated with these two types of road users. The SmartCross application will enable pedestrians and bicyclists to make informed decisions for crossing a signalized intersection thereby reducing the risks. The application would provide the smartphone user with the traffic light status for the intersections as well as alerting them of potential crash risks. The use cases and requirements will be defined by studying the different scenarios between the pedestrian the traffic light and nearby DSRC equipped devices. We will demonstrate in both laboratory and real world settings how a smartphone would connect to roadside infrastructure using available short-range wireless technologies like WiFi and Bluetooth. SmartCross will provide user feedback via audio visual and haptic mechanisms. The feature set can be further extended to implement features like two-way communication with the traffic light controller to request pedestrian phase extension and to provide alerts to DSRC equipped vehicles about potential pedestrian/bicyclist hazards.