Former Dubai student bags award for her project on the causes of road accidents

A former student at Middlesex University in Dubai was honoured by RTA at the Dubai Award for Sustainable Transport for her final year project.

Venezuelan national, Juliette Martinez, won an award for her project on the cause of road accidents in Dubai, and how can it be prevented with the use of cellular technology.

“It feels special receiving an award for a university project,” said Martinez, after receiving the award in the Best Academic Project category.

“My study revealed that the most common reason for road accidents in Dubai were, not keeping safe distance between vehicles and sudden swerving between the lanes,” said Martinez based on her study.

The main purpose of her study, Martinez said, was to focus on improving road safety, saving energy, and traffic efficiency.

Martinez worked on cellular vehicle-to-everything (C-V2X), which is a unified connectivity platform that is designed to offer vehicles low-latency vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V), vehicle-to-roadside infrastructure (V2I) and vehicle-to-pedestrian (V2P) communication.

C-V2X technology includes two communication links: “Vehicle to Network (V2N), based on the existing cellular network and Vehicle to Vehicle (V2V) direct communication. It is of utmost importance to note, that all V2V safety use-cases require a direct communication link between road users,”

“The data is exchanged through vehicle sensors using high-bandwidth and high-reliability links. Every car has a sensor that sends data to each other as well as infrastructure, such as traffic lights, parking spaces, pedestrians, and more,”

Martinez also added that the C-V2X can be used to enable communications between three vehicles in the platoon. “So that they all slow down or speed up simultaneously and could also be used to signal the presence of the platoon to other vehicles and roadside infrastructure,”

Martinez pointed out that this technology has been put to use only in a few cities in Japan and US. “The C-V2X works best with the 5G network and once Dubai receives it, this technology can be put to use immensely,” said Martinez.

Dubai Award for Sustainable Transport

Mohammed Abubaker Al Hashimi, Director of Marine Transport, RTA said that the award ceremony is one of RTA's initiatives to encourage the private and public sector in playing a role to promote public transport and to encourage safe practices in transportation system.

He also said that the 12th edition of the award is special as RTA has expanded the participation from GCC to the MENA region. “We noticed that the number of participants has increased from 82 in 2008 to 140 this year with 24 winners,” said Hashimi.

Making lives easy for people with special needs

A Sharjah based firm received an award for making the lives of people with special needs on public transportation easier.

Fahad Al Awadhi, CEO of KGL Passenger Transport Services, bagged an award for providing safety and encouraging people with special needs to commute on public transport systems.

“We started developing systems in buses for the Sharjah RTA as we wanted to provide for people with special needs and also for elderly citizens beyond 60 years of age,” said Awadhi.

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Initially, Awadhi started created dedicated spaces in public transport sytems for elderly and people with special need as a social responsibility.

His company then designed a ramp for elderly and people with special needs to enter and exit the bus. “The driver can open and close the ramp to allow easy access for passengers who require assistance,” explained Awadhi.

Apart from that, his company, in collaboration with the Sharjah RTA has also encouraged people with special needs and elderly to commute by the public transport. “We have provided free passes for these people to travel by public transport, which has indeed a successful move,” added Awadhi.

ayaz@khaleejtimes.com

• Dubai