Virginia Tech Transportation Institute equips bikes for data collection

BLACKSBURG, VA (WSLS) - It's nothing unusual to see a guy riding his bike to work but what's unusual about this one is how it's equipped.

This is the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute's first instrumented bicycle.

"It's a way of collecting a lot of data about how riders ride in the real world," said senior researcher Justin Owens.

It's similar to research VTTI conducted, garnering nationwide attention, when it equipped 18-wheelers, cars and motorcycles with instrumentation to study driver behavior.

"It allows us to collect new types of data that we've never been able to collect before both on real roadways and in controlled environments like the smart road."

Owens says the instrumentation, pioneered by VTTI engineers will allow them to look at how riders behave when on the roadways and how they interact with drivers. The purpose: gathering information to improve bicycle safety.

"Last year there were over 700 bicycle fatalities in the U.S.," he said.

The MiniDas data collection system is attached to the front of the bike. It has two cameras, one facing forward to see what's going on in front of the rider and another facing up at the rider to show where he's looking and what's he's doing with his hands when using the brakes or shifting. It is equipped with GPS tracking, and a 3D accelerometer.

It has enough battery power to collect information over two days before needing to recharge and enough memory to store data for weeks.

"We have a battery mounted inside a water bottle," Owens explained.

The MiniDas meets a challenge researchers faced in practical implementation until now. It comes in a light weight package.

"Of course on a bicycle you have electrical power considerations, you have weight considerations, you have weather proofing considerations for potential rains."

VTTI is doing pilot data collection right now and hopes to do real collection with bicyclists in Blacksburg. The research teams says it expects the Blacksburg setting will allow riders to encounter a variety of traffic situations, including two-lane roads, back country roads, dedicated paths, on-campus streets, and infrastructure features that include roundabouts and a variety of signalized and unsignalized intersections.

Research is expected to begin in 2015.