Can math tell you who is a bad driver? Researchers at MIT say it can.
In a paper that will appear in the journal IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, Jonathan How, professor of aeronautics and astronautics at MIT, and three of his colleagues say they have come up with an algorithm that can predict whether an oncoming car is about to run a red light one or two seconds before a possible collision.
That might not sound like a lot of time, but it could be enough to save a life.
The complex algorithm can quickly compute—down to milliseconds—the likelihood of a vehicle running a red light based on its rate of deceleration as it is approaching the intersection.
How and his team applied the algorithm to more than 15,000 vehicles at a busy intersection in Christianburg, Va., that was already outfitted with instruments that monitor vehicle speed and location as well as when the lights turned red. They found that they were able to correctly predict who would run a red light 85% of the time.
That accuracy is the highest that’s been tallied so far.
| 
|