CROSSROADS OF TRANSPORTATION ENGINEERING AND HUMAN INTERACTIONS
UMass Amherst PhD student Angelina Caggiano is investigating roadway safety.
How can studying the ways people use a traffic device help an engineer improve public safety? Angelina Caggiano is a PhD student in the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering with a focus in transportation and has a profound passion for making roadways safer for pedestrians and drivers alike.
Caggiano is studying a new traffic control device called a “Pedestrian Hybrid Beacon” and how people understand and interact with it. If Caggiano can better understand human behavior and patterns through how individuals interact with the device, she can subsequently make drivers and pedestrians safer. Roadways are a system with many components at hand and understanding each piece is integral to promoting public safety.
Caggiano`s path to becoming a transportation engineer began over a decade ago. Caggiano describes transportation engineering as “a branch of civil engineering that involves the application of technology and scientific principles to the planning, design, operation, and maintenance of transportation systems to help build smart, safe, and livable communities.”
A native of Salem, Massachusetts, Caggiano found an early curiosity in infrastructure after building a model bridge for a middle school class and testing how many books it could hold. This project made Caggiano realize how infrastructure not only supports and keeps people safe, but also connects people to where they need to go. In graduate school, she joined projects in the College of Engineering focused on traffic operations and road safety. She describes how she was drawn to transportation engineering because it gives her the ability to combine “the creative aspect of engineering and the more technical aspects of engineering while also connecting with the people in the society.”
Caggiano said she wanted to do research initially due to its potential to allow her to mentor younger students by sharing her projects with them and be connected to her community through teaching. During her first year of graduate school, Caggiano competed in the Berthiaume Center for Entrepreneurship Tech Challenge. She led a team that designed what she described as “a device for a crosswalk system that passively lights the road for roadway users.” Her talent and innovative ideas scored her and her team a second-place award and $8,000. This project further sparked Caggiano`s interest in researching transportation devices, leading her to her current research project on Pedestrian Hybrid Beacons.
So, what is a Pedestrian Hybrid Beacon (PHB)? A PHB is a mid-block crosswalk device, meaning it is not used at intersections. If you’ve driven on Route 9 between Amherst and Northampton, you have encountered a PHB.
Introduced to Massachusetts roadways about 10 years ago, PHBs are a crosswalk innovation designed to improve public safety. The PHB has signal sections displaying two red lights (or “indications”) above a single yellow indication which communicate different actions that can be safely taken by drivers and pedestrians, similar to a regular traffic signal at a crosswalk. After a pedestrian pushes the cross button, the PHB flashes yellow to notify drivers to slow down as a pedestrian is waiting to cross. The PHB then transitions to solid yellow to notify drivers to prepare to stop. Next, the PHB turns solid red on both indications and drivers must stop and allow pedestrians to cross with caution. Concluding this sequence is an alternating flashing red light, which indicates drivers may proceed after stopping only if the crosswalk is clear. Uniquely, the PHB also allows for a reduction in time that vehicles must stop because during the final interval where the indications are flashing red, drivers may proceed after stopping if the crosswalk is clear.
Caggiano describes the focus of her research as “how drivers interpret and behave at each of the specific intervals of the beacon and how that translates to pedestrian safety.” She studies driver and pedestrian behavior through surveys and video observations, aiming to understand their comprehension and testing their usage of the technology. Caggiano says she aims to maintain a “connection between the engineering realm and the people in those communities.” She uses surveys and observations in the community to bridge different components of the roadways from both an engineering and intrapersonal perspective. Are pedestrians and drivers using the PHB properly? How does pedestrian behavior impact the actions of drivers, and vice versa?
Current studies have identified that PHBs can reduce severe pedestrian crashes at crosswalks and encourage higher rates of drivers yielding to pedestrians. However, as a result of her research interviews, Caggiano has learned that some bicyclists and pedestrians seem to dislike PHBs when encountering them on the road. She wants to understand whether PHBs are truly increasing public safety in Massachusetts, even if people say they don`t like the technology.
It is the root of Caggiano`s research to try and connect all different aspects of this overarching traffic system to make pedestrian crossings safer and more efficient. Pedestrians and drivers may seem disconnected as they are in their own respective modes of transportation but in fact, they are operating within a larger traffic system. One person`s actions, whether in a car or on foot, affects the entire traffic system. One person may use the PHB entirely differently than another person. Caggiano is exploring whether there is a pattern in those differing behaviors and if they could lead to potential safety risks. If Caggiano can better understand driver and pedestrian behaviors and PHB use, she can highlight areas where driver education may be needed and inform future research needs regarding the design and operation of PHBs to enhance safety for both drivers and pedestrians.
Additionally, Caggiano has a strong desire to mentor and help pave the way for future engineers. She has done this as a first-year seminar instructor teaching a seminar titled: Transportation Innovation & Smart Cities. As a female in a male dominated field, she said she also aims to provide representation to younger, curious women who wish to join her in engineering, particularly through the UMass Women Transportation Seminar and Institute of Transportation Engineers professional organizations. Caggiano is connecting people through safer roadways and through understanding larger traffic systems at play but is also teaching and inspiring others through mentorship.
Caggiano aims for her research on Pedestrian Hybrid Beacons to highlight areas where Massachusetts drivers may need more education. She also says that she hopes future researchers can build on her work to continue to find ways to make roadways safer and more efficient through new transportation infrastructure. By studying how people interact and utilize PHB`s, she and other engineers will be able to more effectively implement them at crossings and possibly even tweak PHBs operationally, such as their interval timing. Her continuously evolving understanding for the greater traffic system as a whole will allow her to continue to generate new and exciting innovations in transportation and continue to serve her greater community whether that be through teaching, innovation, or improving existing devices.
Written by Isabella Hurley, master's student in Statistics, as part of the Graduate School's Public Writing Fellows Program.