SafeTrip 21: Networked Traveler

SafeTrip-21 is the catalyst to our transportation future, enabling a 'connected traveler' with information before a trip and during a trip such that this trip may be taken efficiently and safely. Imagine being truly connected through your cell phone or other consumer handheld device, such as an aftermarket navigation unit. Imagine it "telling" you about your trip or the road, to allow you mode (such as by car or transit) or route choices. Imagine it "telling" you and others, "Watch out for me!" to allow you safer travel.

We at California PATH have imagine this and under SafeTrip-21 are transforming these ideas into research and, in the San Francisco Bay Area, implementation. Our work leverages our existing testbed, the Bay Area roadway infrastructure, and Silicon Valley's myriad creative ways of communicating with the traveler. By surfing the ongoing revolution in wireless and personal computing we are creating an environment and applications - tell me about my trip, tell me about my road, watch out for me - which we will implement and evaluate in the next year or so in San Francisco Bay Area. We call this "Networked Traveler."

Our premise is straightforward: the multi-applications environment that underpins SafeTrip-21 will give consumers the desire and the United States the market penetration to use SafeTrip-21 devices.

SafeTrip 21 will put safety and mobility on the map, thanks to a partnership that has as stake holders, the USDOT, Caltrans, private industry (and primarily Nokia, NAVTEQ, and Nissan) and academia, the University of California Berkeley, California Center for Innovative Transportation (CCIT) and California PATH - and the American drivers. We at California PATH are conducting research to take the revolution of wireless communication on the road and into the car to you, the traveler, in a manner that will in the very near term give you more mode and route options and make it indeed a safe trip.