June '24 Newsletter

In 2020, the United States recorded 6,516 pedestrian fatalities and approximately 55,000 injuries, with children under 16 being especially vulnerable. This project focuses on designing and developing a smart robot to assist pedestrians with road crossings. Unlike existing studies that rely on traffic light infrastructure, the study's approach accurately identifies both vehicles and pedestrians at intersections, creating a comprehensive safety system. The authors' strategy involves implementing advanced Machine Learning (ML) algorithms for real-time detection of vehicles, pedestrians, and cyclists. These algorithms, executed in Python, leverage data from LiDAR and video cameras to assess road conditions and guide pedestrians and cyclists safely through intersections. The smart robot, powered by ML insights, will make intelligent decisions to ensure a safer and more secure road-crossing experience for pedestrians and cyclists.

According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the U.S. had over 10 million job openings and only 5.7 million unemployed workers in March 2023. In 2017, the Washington Post posited that there were not enough workers to fill the vacancies, as the U.S. Census Bureau announced a 17-year low in unemployment while the Bureau of Labor Statistics hit record streaks for numbers of job openings. The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the employment challenges that the U.S. already faced. To top it all, the pandemic also led to increased retirement rates among those close to retirement age. This provides transit industry executives and transportation professionals with ideas of tools that are available to help attract more qualified candidates to the transit industry and ways to advance the development of the transit workforce. This research highlights some of the social media recruiting; online hiring platform improvements; and partnerships with career centers, universities, and recruitment centers to attract new employees to the transit workforce. In addition, increases in pay, benefits, bonuses, providing flexible schedule options and some other atypical ideas have successfully been used to retain workers in the transit workforce. This research focuses on ways in which all transit stakeholders can invest in all aspects of industry workforce development to ensure qualified employees choose the transit industry and that they are subsequently trained to be the most beneficial assets to the organization and remain there via effective retention strategies.

Cybersecurity threats are everywhere, and no organization is immune. While the volume of cyberattacks has increased exponentially, the bigger concern for most transit agencies is that the average cost to recover from successful attacks has skyrocketed. While many transit operators have taken steps to improve cyber resiliency, others continue to assume they will not be targeted. How are insurance companies and regulators responding? Don’t miss insight from the experts about recent evolutions in the cyber risk landscape and the impacts on transit. Expert speakers will provide recommendations on how the different segments of the market can work together to manage the risk of cyber attacks in “Uncharted Territory: 2024 Cybersecurity Insurance and Transit Landscape.” Join the conversation on Tuesday, July 30th at 12:00p.m. (PT).

Presenters:

• Scott Belcher, Research Associate, MTI; Co-Founder, Cybrbase, LLC
• Todd Chollet, Risk Advisor and Cyber Practice Leader, Sunstar Insurance Group

Moderator: Hilary Nixon, PhD, Deputy Executive Director, Mineta Transportation Institute (MTI)

*0.5 PDH credit available