Towards a Sustainable City for Cyclists: Promoting Safety through a Mobile Sensing Application.

Area of Science:

• Computer Science
• Transportation Engineering
• Environmental Science

Background:

• Cycling reduces environmental impact but faces safety risks due to shared roads with vehicles.
• Technological solutions are needed to prevent accidents involving vulnerable road users like cyclists.
• Smartphone-based alert systems offer a feasible approach to enhance urban road safety.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate a smartphone-based alert system for preventing collisions between bicycles and vehicles.
• To determine the most effective communication architecture for transmitting alerts in real-time.
• To compare the performance of REST/HTTP and UDP protocols for alert system communication.

Main Methods:

• Development of two communication protocols for a smartphone alert system over 4G cellular networks.
• Implementation of one protocol using REST architecture over HTTP and another over UDP.
• Real-world testing of the alert system to measure response times and detection distances.

Main Results:

• The smartphone alert system is feasible, demonstrating adequate communication response times.
• The UDP protocol implementation showed approximately three times better response times than the REST/HTTP implementation.
• Drivers were alerted to the presence of bicycles at distances under 150 meters, allowing time for reaction.

Conclusions:

• The smartphone-based alert system effectively enhances cyclist safety by providing timely warnings.
• UDP protocol is recommended for implementation due to its superior communication speed compared to REST/HTTP.
• The system contributes to safer urban environments and promotes sustainable transportation methods like cycling.