Shared Connectivity for Safer Shared Space Facilities: Improving mobility for non-motorized and vulnerable Road-Users
We focus on an important and unique application of MANETs in transportation; shared-space facilities MANETs for Active Mobility. In those facilities, mobility models must account for the connectivity and communication patterns between pedestrians and cyclists. We propose a mobility model that takes into consideration the heterogeneity of movement patterns of pedestrians and cyclists. This formalism represents a realistic approach that accounts for road-users reasoning and their rational decision-making process. We will validate the main properties of the network protocols in a simulation setting that models the tight interactions between road users and their communication devices. We will implement a proof of-concept simulator with applications for traffic safety, and the effect of bicycle-pedestrian interactions on the operation of MANETs. This application will be timely as UCF has recently been awarded with FDOT an ATCMTD grant from FHWA to test various safety technologies on the UCF campus.