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    <title>Research in Progress (RIP)</title>
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    <language>en-us</language>
    <copyright>Copyright © 2026. National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.</copyright>
    <docs>http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss</docs>
    <managingEditor>tris-trb@nas.edu (Bill McLeod)</managingEditor>
    <webMaster>tris-trb@nas.edu (Bill McLeod)</webMaster>
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      <title>Research in Progress (RIP)</title>
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      <link>https://rip.trb.org/</link>
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    <item>
      <title>Immersive AR/VR learning to enhance pedestrian safety</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/2663606</link>
      <description><![CDATA[Pedestrian injuries remain one of the leading causes of death among children in the United States and globally. Safe crossing behavior depends on cognitive and perceptual skills such as attention, hazard recognition, and gap judgment that are still maturing in younger populations. Traditional classroom instruction offers limited opportunities to practice these skills in realistic traffic contexts, highlighting the need for controlled, repeatable, and engaging training environments that can bridge the gap between knowledge and real-world decision making.
This project develops, tests, and disseminates an integrated Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) learning platform designed to improve pedestrian safety among children. The immersive simulator replicates crosswalks, intersections, and near-miss zones identified through the District Department of Transportation (DDOT) crash database and the DC Traffic Safety Data Portal. VR modules enable users to experience controlled crossings at high-risk intersections, while AR modules project digital traffic cues and guidance into real environments through tablets or mobile devices. Three-dimensional environments are constructed in the Unity or Unreal Engine platform and configured for both mobile devices and VR headsets to support flexible deployment across educational settings.
The methodology proceeds through four tasks: scenario design using DDOT crash data and Vision Zero reports to identify high-risk child pedestrian corridors, prototype development of immersive environments with realistic vehicle motion, environmental conditions, and compliant signal timing, controlled evaluation sessions with K-12 and university participants to assess realism, usability, and learning effectiveness, and dissemination including open-source release, a collaborative workshop with DDOT and school partners, and preparation of a deployment-ready package with simulation files, user manuals, and integration guides. Success is measured by improvements in hazard detection, gap judgment, and safe crossing decisions, with a target of at least 30 percent gain relative to baseline performance. The project also provides initial estimates of the number of crashes and injuries that could potentially be avoided if the toolkit were adopted more broadly in Washington, D.C.
]]></description>
      <pubDate>Tue, 03 Feb 2026 15:36:36 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/2663606</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Health and Activity Impacts of Student Commute Modes</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/2652176</link>
      <description><![CDATA[Active school transportation can profoundly influence children’s health, safety, and wellbeing. This project will investigate how different school commute modes – walking, bicycling, school bus, or private car – affect student physical activity and health, exposure to traffic-related air pollutants, safety, and travel disparity. Focusing on Texas school districts that currently or historically participate in Safe Routes to School (SRTS) programs, we will combine new data collection with existing evidence to evaluate the benefits and challenges of various commute modes. The study will also examine how shifting school trips to active modes may reduce vehicle emissions near schools and improve air quality. We will conduct surveys to quantify students’ physical activity during commutes, assess their exposure to emissions, and gauge perceptions of safety. Recent literature (2015–2025) will be synthesized to identify how school transportation choices affect student health (e.g. obesity, respiratory health, mental wellbeing) and safety outcomes, including disparities by socioeconomic status and geography. By evaluating SRTS interventions’ effectiveness in Texas communities, the project will fill critical gaps in understanding the multi-faceted impacts of commute mode on student wellbeing. Expected outcomes include practical recommendations for school districts and transportation agencies to design safer, healthier school travel environments. ]]></description>
      <pubDate>Tue, 13 Jan 2026 15:25:48 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/2652176</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Using Linked Data to Explore the Accuracy of Crash Reported Injuries of Minors</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/2640191</link>
      <description><![CDATA[Police crash reports often provide the first record of injury severity for minors involved in motor vehicle crashes, yet these reports may not always match clinical assessments. Differences between the reported level of injury and the medically confirmed level can influence emergency response decisions and limit the usefulness of crash databases for safety analysis. This project will link crash data from the Connecticut Crash Data Repository with hospital discharge and Emergency Medical Services (EMS) datasets to compare police reported injury codes with medically derived measures. The analysis will document where inconsistencies occur and examine how factors such as crash location, agency type, passenger protection, and driver behavior relate to reporting accuracy.

The linked dataset will cover crashes involving minors from 2015 through 2024 and will support regression based evaluations of injury classification accuracy across multiple contexts. By identifying sources of error, the study will help improve data quality and support better training and data collection procedures for law enforcement and partner agencies. The resulting insights will strengthen statewide injury surveillance systems and guide the development of safety strategies for children and adolescents.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Thu, 11 Dec 2025 13:50:56 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/2640191</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Engaging Community Partners and Youth to Enhance and Sustain Safe Routes to School</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/2437171</link>
      <description><![CDATA[Studies have shown that Safe Routes to School projects and programs increase the number of children who walk and bike to school. By building pedestrian skills at a young age, students are more likely to choose active transportation modes across their lifespan, therefore decreasing vehicle miles traveled, reducing vehicle emissions, and preventing chronic disease and improving physical health overall. The Safe Routes to School Program will provide critical support for organizing and implementing pedestrian safety education and encouragement activities.  These activities are critical for developing skills to walk and bike safely among one of our community’s most vulnerable road users, children.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Mon, 30 Sep 2024 12:21:53 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/2437171</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Advanced Mobility Innovation Lab</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/2384962</link>
      <description><![CDATA[This project will develop an Advanced Mobility Innovation Lab (AMIL) program to reach underserved K-12 students in rural and urban core areas of the southeast. These portable Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) labs will fuse transportation technology demonstrations with project-based STEM activities to educate students regarding the STEM principles used to develop such systems. Phase 1 of the project will include identifying/inventorying transportation technologies suited for demonstrations to youth, an inventory of transportation learning activities, the development of a plan for an operational AMIL program, and the creation of a Beta version of a lab. Phase 2 will begin the implementation of the plan for a fully functional lab with a program offered primarily in East Tennessee. This phase will include a task for identifying additional funding from sources needed for ongoing operation beyond the Center for Regional and Rural Connected Communities (CR2C2) program. ]]></description>
      <pubDate>Thu, 30 May 2024 17:30:07 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/2384962</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>The Impact of Children's School Format on Women Professionals in STEM</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/2244203</link>
      <description><![CDATA[With many school closures during the pandemic resulting in long-term changes (more than just a month) to child education format (e.g., online or hybrid), many women took on increasingly greater home and childcare responsibilities. Even prior to the pandemic, the retention of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) faced many challenges. The research project described herein tried to capture the experiences of women in STEM with children, as (rather than in retrospect) they navigated various school formats during the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19). The authors anticipate that the results of this research will highlight the challenges facing women in STEM with children when it comes to the education of their children. Three surveys were administered to women in STEM: one in October of 2020, one in March of 2021, and one in May of 2021. Forty-six, ten and three survey respondents replied to each survey. The results suggest that while overall survey respondents remained concerned about impacts that COVID-19 may have on them and their families, the level of concern seemed to dissipate over the successive surveys. Overall, women in STEM reported very limited options for additional support (e.g., a nanny). The hybrid school format was reported as requiring some of the most significant levels of support followed by online and then in-person. As a whole, women in STEM whose children were attending school in-person reported little to no impacts, often instead remarking on impacts felt during the initial lockdowns. Women in STEM with elementary school-aged children seemed to report the most significant impact. The inability to work uninterrupted was one of the most significant challenges suggested, as there are implications that the work that women in STEM are conducting requires periods of meta focus. Therefore, while the flexibility of allowing women in STEM to work at home can bring some benefits, ultimately, when her children are also at home, the benefits are significantly mitigated. Finally, while the three surveys were expected to be able to capture the oscillation between school formats, at least one survey respondent described many changes between subsequent surveys.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Fri, 08 Sep 2023 19:02:01 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/2244203</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Engaging Underserved Communities and Populations in Child Passenger Safety</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/2205311</link>
      <description><![CDATA[Children living in underserved communities have lower rates of child restraint use than children living in other communities. A 2014 study published in Pediatrics (official journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics) found significantly higher proportions of white parents reported their 1- to 3-year-old and 4- to 7-year-old children always used the age-appropriate restraint compared with nonwhite parents (85.3% vs 61.3% and 88.5% vs 69.1%) (https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/133/2/262/30876/Disparities-in-Age-Appropriate-Child-Passenger?autologincheck=redirected). This research reinforces the need to more equitably implement highway safety programs, with an increased focus on people living in underserved communities.

Child Passenger Safety (CPS) is one focus area for State Highway Safety Offices (SHSOs), affording the opportunity to more effectively engage people living in underserved communities. Achieving this objective would further the CPS goal of protecting children from motor vehicle crash fatalities and injuries. Repeated requests for best practices have yielded some materials, but there is no research-based toolkit available for SHSOs and other organizations with a vested interest in children’s education, health, and safety to support more effective engagement of underserved communities.

For the purpose of this RFP (1) “underserved communities” are defined as areas of persistent poverty and historically disadvantaged communities and (2) “organizations with a vested interest in children’s education, health, and safety” include (but are not limited to) schools, first responders, faith-based organizations, community organizations, outreach programs, social services, and health care providers.   

The objective of this research was to develop a CPS toolkit, that reflects behavioral safety principles and practices, to serve as a resource to support more effective engagement of underserved communities and populations. ]]></description>
      <pubDate>Tue, 04 Jul 2023 13:01:35 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/2205311</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Unattended Child Reminder Systems Evaluation and Test Development (VRTC)</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/2050302</link>
      <description><![CDATA[This project will finalize development of assessment tests for vehicle-based systems and aftermarket vehicle systems.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Tue, 25 Oct 2022 10:24:50 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/2050302</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Simulation study to asses risk of children sitting behind steering wheel in L4 vehicles.</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/2050272</link>
      <description><![CDATA[This research involves rulemaking support for FMVSS for ADS-DV requirements.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Tue, 25 Oct 2022 10:24:35 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/2050272</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Child Occupants in Unconventional ADS Seating Orientations Modeling Study</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/2050265</link>
      <description><![CDATA[This research involves sled tests to support model validation and improve the accuracy of ATD and CRS models in crashes beyond frontal impacts.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Tue, 25 Oct 2022 10:24:31 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/2050265</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Children’s Use of eHMI Displays to Guide Road-Crossing Decisions</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/1853630</link>
      <description><![CDATA[Autonomous vehicle (AV) technology is advancing at a rapid pace. One concern is how AVs will communicate their intentions to vulnerable road users such as pedestrians. Past work has focused almost exclusively on how adults respond to various types of electronic human-machine interface (eHMI) AV displays. The goal of this investigation is to examine how 8- to 14-year-old children respond to the combination of eHMI display cues and vehicle dynamics cues that signal the intention of an AV to yield to them at a crosswalk. In one condition, the timing of the eHMI cues will be early (i.e., the light will turn green at the time the vehicle begins to decelerate) and in the other condition, the timing of the eHMI cues will be late (i.e., the light will turn green at the time the vehicle comes to a stop). The task for participants is to cross between the two vehicles when they think the tail vehicle will yield to them. The primary measure will be how long children wait before initiating their crossing after the first vehicle passes them. The research team expects that vehicle dynamics and eHMI timing may interact such that there will be less difference in children’s responding to vehicles that slow down gradually vs. abruptly when the eHMI comes on early than when it comes on late. This project will provide new information about how child pedestrians interpret and respond to eHMI information that can be used for designing eHMIs that effectively communicate with pedestrians of all ages.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Mon, 24 May 2021 11:54:18 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/1853630</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>An Equity-Driven Approach to School Zone Safety to Inform Safe Routes to School (SRTS) Programs</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/1757939</link>
      <description><![CDATA[Even as the trends in traffic fatalities for motorists have been improving, vulnerable road users (VRUs, specifically pedestrians and bicyclists) have seen an alarming rise in fatalities in recent years. According to the Center for Disease Control, injuries from road traffic crashes are a leading cause of death for children under the age of 10, hence a critical public health issue. School-age pedestrians in lower-income neighborhoods may be particularly at risk. The proposed research takes a data-driven safe systems approach inspired by Vision Zero (VZ) policy goals. The data-driven approach will be used to develop engineering and educational safety countermeasures for areas near elementary schools serving disadvantaged populations in major metropolitan areas of FL, TX, and CA (three largest states with Center for Transportation, Equity, Decisions and Dollars (CTEDD) consortium partners). The PIs will work closely with the stakeholders to incorporate engineering countermeasures into Safe Routes to School (SRTS) programs. Potentially effective education-related activities will be evaluated using Virtual Reality-based (VR-based) pilot testing on elementary school children from schools serving low-income neighborhoods in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. PIs have a long history of working collaboratively with stakeholders, including MPOs, state DOTs, school administrators, and community groups engaged with SRTS programs. The stakeholder engagement plan documented in the proposal will ensure successful tech transfer towards more effective SRTS programs.  ]]></description>
      <pubDate>Mon, 14 Dec 2020 18:10:18 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/1757939</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Child Passenger Safety State of Knowledge</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/1747532</link>
      <description><![CDATA[This project will produce a report in which each chapter contains a comprehensive systematic literature review that summarizes, evaluates, and synthesizes research published since 2000 on topics related to child passenger safety. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has previously published periodic “State of Knowledge” reports on a variety of behavioral safety topics. However, the current project represents the first on issues related to child passenger safety. The current project will apply systematic review procedures to comprehensively identify and evaluate the quality of studies on a selection of topics related to child passenger safety.  Each chapter of the Child Passenger Safety State of Knowledge report will describe the selected studies, aggregate findings across studies, and weigh study quality to provide a synthesis of the best evidence to date on the topic. The State of Knowledge is intended to be a reference document for both in-house use and use by other Federal agencies, State Highway Safety Offices, and other partners. The report will also be of use to researchers interested in child passenger safety and non-profits involved in child passenger safety development and administration.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Wed, 28 Oct 2020 17:58:22 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/1747532</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>K-12 Workforce Development/Outreach,The Citadel (YR3)</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/1692005</link>
      <description><![CDATA[The objectives of this project are to: (1) coordinate, organize and conduct a 1-week Summer Camp on multimodal mobility, connected vehicles and congestion mitigation for targeted population of 15-20 student cohorts; (2) host Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day, an event for 80 Girl Scouts each year to learn about engineering through an engaging 3-hour program including interaction with college student mentors, and resulting in participants earning a Girl Scout Engineering Badge; and (3) host STEM Outreach and Events, including hosting bridge breaking competitions, conducting student workshops, hosting special student groups on campus, engaging college students in outreach activities.  
]]></description>
      <pubDate>Mon, 09 Mar 2020 16:15:21 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/1692005</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>K-12 Workforce Development/Outreach, The Citadel (YR2)</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/1692004</link>
      <description><![CDATA[The objectives of this project are to: (1) Host a 1-week long STEM Camp focusing on transportation and congestion reduction themes, engaging students and additional mobility oriented educational threads connecting with research and educational activities. (2) Continue with previous K-12 initiatives focusing on K-12 outreach for Charleston Lowcountry region, specifically focusing on student engagement with transportation engineering issues. Implementation of this outreach program is anticipated to engage approximately 1,000 students.  
]]></description>
      <pubDate>Mon, 09 Mar 2020 16:09:56 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/1692004</guid>
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