University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI)

🚗🔒 Ensuring Child Safety on the Road: Michigan's Updated Child Passenger Safety Laws 🚸 Since the late 1960's UMTRI experts have been committed to improving the safety of children riding vehicles. Their work has influenced vehicle design, car seat design and manufacturing and legislation.  Despite this, vehicle crashes remain the leading cause of death for young children. Vehicle crashes remain the leading cause of death for young children. To combat this, Michigan is updating its Child Passenger Safety Laws, effective April 2, 2025, to enhance protections for child passengers. Key updates include: Infants to 2 years: Use a rear-facing car seat until they reach the maximum weight/height per the manufacturer or turn 2. Ages 2 to 5: Transition to a forward-facing car seat until maximum weight/height or age 5. Ages 5 to 8: Move to a belt-positioning booster seat until 4 feet 9 inches or age 8. Under 13 years: Must ride in the rear seat if available. Additional requirements: Children under 4 must ride in a car seat in the rear seat if available. If rear seats are occupied by children under 4, a front seat is permissible for a child under 4 in a car seat—rear-facing seats require the airbag to be off. Proper buckling in a car seat or booster is mandatory until children are 8 years old or 4 feet 9 inches tall, adhering to either age or height requirements. For more information, visit: Michigan.gov/carseats. Let's commit to keeping our young passengers safer and ensuring they are secured properly every time they travel. #ChildSafety #RoadSafety #SafeTravel #MichiganLaws

🌟 The Great Debate at the @CCAT Global Symposium! 🚗🤖 In an electrifying session, industry leaders Yuxiao Chen from NVIDIA, Ram Vasudevan from U-M, Felix Heide of Torc Robotics/Princeton, and Matthew Walter from Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago took center stage to tackle one of the hottest topics in tech today: Is Generative AI the key to scaling the deployment of Autonomous Vehicles? With the flip of a coin, these experts were tasked with taking sides to present compelling arguments and sway the audience's opinion.  Who emerged victorious? While the debate was fierce, one thing was clear: the real winners will be road and vehicle users worldwide. The insights and progress discussed today promise a future of safer, more efficient, and innovative transportation solutions for all. 🌍 Kudos to all the debaters for pushing the boundaries and expanding our understanding of how AI can revolutionize the way we move. #CCATGlobalSymposium #AutonomousVehicles #GenerativeAI #Innovation #FutureOfTransport

🚗🌐 Exciting day ahead as the Center for Connected and Automated Transportation (CCAT) Global Symposium kicks off today!  Excellent fireside chat with industry leaders Diana Furchtgott-Roth, Robert C. Hampshire, and Congresswoman Debbie Dingell. Their insights on the future of transportation, policy implications, and emerging technologies set the tone for an enlightening event. Stay tuned for more updates as we explore innovative solutions and collaborations driving the future of transportation! #CCAT #GlobalSymposium #ConnectedTransportation #AutomatedVehicles #Innovation #FutureOfTransportation

Today is Giving Blueday! A dedicated one-day, 24-hour opportunity to share your resources with causes throughout University of Michigan College of Engineering that have meaning to you. UMTRI has participated in this effort since 2014, and all contributions will be dedicated to the Patricia F. Waller Scholarship Fund. UMTRI awards two scholarships a year to students who are interested in conducting research on transportation equity, mobility, or safety with a focus on improving transportation for people.  A direct link to this fund is here!https://lnkd.in/gq7EYtmv

📢 📢 📢  Efficient Model-Based Anthropometry under Clothing Using Low-Cost Depth Sensors 🧑🔬 Byoung-Keon D. Park, Hayoung Jung, Sheila M. Ebert, Brian D. Corner, and Matthew P. Reed 🏫 University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI), Corner3d LLC 💥 Measuring human #body #dimensions is critical for many engineering and product design domains. Nonetheless, acquiring body dimension data for populations using typical anthropometric methods poses challenges due to the time-consuming nature of manual methods. The measurement process for three-dimensional (#3D) whole-body scanning can be much faster, but 3D scanning typically requires subjects to change into tight-fitting clothing, which increases time and cost and introduces privacy concerns. To address these and other issues in current #anthropometry techniques, a measurement system was developed based on portable, low-cost depth cameras. Point-cloud data from the sensors are fit using a model-based method, Inscribed Fitting, which finds the most likely body shape in the statistical body shape space and providing accurate estimates of body characteristics. To evaluate the system, 144 young adults were measured manually and with two levels of military ensembles using the system. The results showed that the prediction accuracy for the clothed scans remained at a similar level to the accuracy for the minimally clad scans. This approach will enable rapid measurement of clothed populations with reduced time compared to manual and typical scan-based methods. https://lnkd.in/ecpwUbYe

SAVE THE DATE for our upcoming Caring for People with Memory Loss Conference on Saturday, June 14th, 2025, from 8:00 AM - 4:30 PM CST! Attendance is available in person at the McNamara Alumni Center, U of MN , and via Zoom, where we will stream the event. This will be the 17th year we have held this special event, which is designed to provide information, support, and education for people living with dementia and those who care for them. The conference is free for those not seeking contact hours (approximately 7 for a range of professionals), but pre-registration is required. Free food and beverages for those who attend in person! To learn more and register, please go to: https://lnkd.in/e8XifpC. Our speakers and topics this year include: -Dongming Cai of the University of Minnesota Medical School: "Dementia: Early Detection, Prevention and Treatment;" -Kate Klosterman and Kelsey Krause of Alzheimer's Association Young Champions - Twin Cities and Grace Savard and Kennedy Heidel of the UMN Aging Studies Interdisciplinary Group (ASIG): "Experiences of Young Caregivers;" -Former Wisconsin Governor Martin J. Schreiber: "Learning, Coping, and Surviving as an Alzheimer's Caregiver;" and -Colleen Peterson of the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI): "Navigating Driving Retirement and Dementia." Support for this event comes from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSAgov), HHS #outreach #education #community #dementiacare #alzheimersdisease #memorycare #dementia #support #memoryloss #umnproud Ashley Millenbah, Robyn Birkeland; Katie Louwagie; Allycia Wolff; Teresa Schicker, MPA; Center for Healthy Aging and Innovation; Minnesota Northstar Geriatrics Workforce Enhancement Program (MN GWEP), Rajean Moone, Ph.D.; Robbin Frazier; Minnesota Leadership Council on Aging; Minnesota Gerontological Society; University of Minnesota; University of Minnesota School of Public Health; University of Minnesota Office of Academic Clinical Affairs; UMN CTSI; Volunteers of America Minnesota and Wisconsin; Amherst H. Wilder Foundation, Ebenezer, Alzheimer's Association Minnesota-North Dakota Chapter, Family Caregiver Alliance / National Center on Caregiving, The John A. Hartford Foundation, National Alliance for Caregiving, Alzheimer's Association®, UsAgainstAlzheimer's

I'm looking forward to speaking on March 28 at the Connected and Automated Transportation Global Symposium on #Mobility Innovation, together with my friend Robert C. Hampshire. It's presented by Mcity and the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI) and will feature the latest exciting issues in transportation and CCAT-funded research. The conference venue is Washtenaw Community College in Ann Arbor, MI. You can register at https://myumi.ch/lx72G. #ccatSymposium

One of the most pivotal challenges in infrastructure-based roadside perception systems for cooperative driving is a lack of #data. Research from the Smart Intersections Project team at UMTRI (Rusheng Zhang, Depu Meng, Lance Bassett, Shengyin Shen, 邹征夏, and Henry Liu) propose a novel solution that creates synthesized training data using #augmentedReality. This work was published in IEEE Xplore. Read it here: https://lnkd.in/gtU9JDyc #umtriResearch

Thank you to Neda Masoud and the Next Generation Transportation Systems webinar series for inviting Rusheng Zhang to present on their work as part of the Smart Intersections Project which is enhancing roadside intelligence to increase vulnerable road user safety! Watch the presentation: https://myumi.ch/AZAxw

We're ecstatic to announce the launch of our Vehicle Controls and Display Usability Survey! Completion of this survey will help UMTRI make vehicles easier to use for everyone. Please consider taking this brief survey if you have a disability, are at least 18 years old, and drive or travel in passenger vehicles. Please consider sharing it with someone you know who meets our requirements. Take the survey: https://myumi.ch/VGRRb Questions? Contact UVIDsurvey@umich.edu