Full Potential of Future Robotaxis Achievable with Trip-Based Subsidies and Fees Applied to the For-Hire Vehicles of Today

As described by Grush and Niles in their textbook, The End of Driving: Transportation Systems and Public Policy Planning for Autonomous Vehicles, there are two distinct market states for the future of automobility as vehicles become increasingly automated. The first, Market-1, is comprised of all vehicles that are manufactured and sold to private owners and used as household vehicles. This private consumer fleet will—through automated driver assistance systems (ADAS)—be increasingly capable of hands-off operation, even self-driving in certain environments such as limited-access expressways. The second category, Market-2, represents all the vehicles made expressly for the service market, i.e., roboshuttles and robotaxis, meant to be eventually driverless in prepared, defined areas and streets. Ford, GM, Lyft, Uber, Waymo, and dozens of other companies assert that they are preparing vehicles for Market-2. The main thesis in this perspective is that a productive, efficient system of on-demand Market-2 mobility can evolve from incentive-based governance—here termed “harmonization management.” This approach strikes a contrast with rigid regulation of a style seen with big city taxicabs and based on using constrained service classifications or per-vehicle medallion approaches. This essay recommends that transportation authorities set up systems of robust pricing signals—incentives and fees—delivered through a universal, mandatory system providing efficient, equitable distribution of these signals

Speech-based interaction in an AAL context

International audiencePURPOSE The number of older persons in industrialized countries is steadily increasing. Seniors living alone are more numerous, and we must find solutions that will allow them to continue to stay at home comfortably and safely. Smart housings can be one of these solutions. One of the biggest challenges in ambient assisted living (AAL) is to develop smart homes that anticipate and respond to the needs of the inhabitants. Given the diverse profiles of the older adult population, it will therefore be essential to facilitate interaction with the smart home through systems that respond naturally to voice commands rather than using tactile interfaces. METHOD The first step in our study was to evaluate how well ambient assistive speech technology is received by the target population. We report on a user evaluation assessing acceptance and fear of this new technology. The experiment aimed at testing three important aspects of speech interaction: voice command, communication with the outside world, home automation system interrupting a person's activity. Participants were 7 older persons (71-88 years old), 7 relatives and 3 professional carers; the experiments were conducted in a smart home with a voice command using a Wizard-of-Oz technique. The second step in our study was related to the adaptation of speech recognition technologies to the older adult population. Judging by the literature this has not been extensively studied. In fact, it is known that industrialized speech recognition system models are not adapted to seniors but to other categories of the population. In order to do this we recorded a specific speech corpus (voice-age) with 7 older adults (70 to 89 years old) reading sentences (a total of 4 hours of speech). A second corpus (ERES38) of free talking (18 hours of speech) was recorded by 23 speakers (68-98 years old). These corpora were analyzed in a semi-automatic manner to reveal the aged-voice characteristics. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Regarding the technical aspect, it appears that some phonemes are more affected by age than others. Thus, a specific adaptation of the acoustic models for ASR is required. Regarding the acceptance aspect, voice interfaces appear to have a great potential to ease daily living for older adults and frail persons and would be better accepted than other, more intrusive, solutions. By considering still healthy and independent older persons in the user evaluation, one interesting finding was overall acceptance provided the system is not conducive to a lazy lifestyle by taking control of everything. This particular concern must be addressed in the development of smart homes that support daily living by stressing the ability to control the daily routine rather than altering it. This study shows the great interest of voice interfaces to develop efficient solution to enable the growing number of older persons to continue to live in their own homes as long as possible

Determination of the influence of specific building regulations in smart buildings

The automation of domestic services began to be implemented in buildings since the late nineteenth century, and today we are used to terms like ‘intelligent buildings’, ‘digital home’ or ‘domotic buildings’. These concepts tell us about constructions which integrate new technologies in order to improve comfort, optimize energy consumption or enhance the security of users. In conjunction, building regulations have been updated to suit the needs of society and to regulate these new facilities in such structures. However, we are not always sure about how far, from the quantitative or qualitative point of view, legislation should regulate certain aspects of the building activity. Consequently, content analysis is adopted in this research to determine the influence of building regulations in the implementation of new technologies in the construction process. This study includes the analysis of different European regulations, the collection and documentation of such guidelines that have been established and a study of the impact that all of these have had in the way we start thinking an architectural project. The achievements of the research could be explained in terms of the regulatory requirements that must be taken into account in order to achieve a successful implementation of a home automation system, and the key finding has been the confirmation of how the design of smart buildings may be promoted through specific regulatory requirements while other factors, such as the global economic situation, do not seem to affect directly the rate of penetration of home automation in construction

Autonomous Shuttles in Santa Fe Springs

The urban planning implications of AV Shuttles and how they could be incorporated into Santa Fe Springs, Los Angeles, California

Impacts of new and emerging assistive technologies for ageing and disabled housing

This research looks at how smart home assistive technologies (AT) may be best used in both the aged care and disability sectors to reduce the need for support services. It includes an assessment of ease of use, quality-of-life and cost benefit analysis, and contributes to the development of policy options that could facilitate effective adoption of smart home AT in Australia

A Sensing Platform to Monitor Sleep Efficiency

Sleep plays a fundamental role in the human life. Sleep research is mainly focused on the understanding of the sleep patterns, stages and duration. An accurate sleep monitoring can detect early signs of sleep deprivation and insomnia consequentially implementing mechanisms for preventing and overcoming these problems. Recently, sleep monitoring has been achieved using wearable technologies, able to analyse also the body movements, but old people can encounter some difficulties in using and maintaining these devices. In this paper, we propose an unobtrusive sensing platform able to analyze body movements, infer sleep duration and awakenings occurred along the night, and evaluating the sleep efficiency index. To prove the feasibility of the suggested method we did a pilot trial in which several healthy users have been involved. The sensors were installed within the bed and, on each day, each user was administered with the Groningen Sleep Quality Scale questionnaire to evaluate the user’s perceived sleep quality. Finally, we show potential correlation between a perceived evaluation with an objective index as the sleep efficiency.</p

Design and evaluation of a smart home voice interface for the elderly ― Acceptability and objection aspects

Impact-F=1.13 estim. in 2012International audienceSmart homes equipped with ambient intelligence technology constitute a promising direction to enable the growing number of elderly to continue to live in their own home as long as possible. However, this calls for technological solutions that suit their specific needs and capabilities. The SWEET-HOME project aims at developing a new user friendly technology for home automation based on voice command. This paper reports a user evaluation assessing the acceptance and fear of this new technology. Eight healthy persons between 71 and 88 years old, 7 relatives (child, grandchild or friend) and 3 professional carers participated in a user evaluation. During about 45 min, the persons were questioned in co-discovery in the DOMUS smart home alternating between interview and wizard of Oz periods followed by a debriefing. The experience aimed at testing four important aspects of the project: voice command, communication with the outside world, domotics system interrupting a person's activity, and electronic agenda. Voice interface appeared to have a great potential to ease daily living for elderly and frail persons and would be better accepted than more intrusive solutions. By considering still healthy and independent elderly people in the user evaluation, an interesting finding that came up is their overall acceptance provided the system does not drive them to a lazy lifestyle by taking control of everything. This particular fear must be addressed for the development of smart homes that support daily living by giving them more ability to control rather than putting them away from the daily routine

Transportation for an Aging Population: Promoting Mobility and Equity for Low-Income Seniors

This study explores the travel patterns, needs, and mobility problems faced by diverse low-income, inner-city older adults in Los Angeles in order to identify solutions to their mobility challenges. The study draws information from: (1) a systematic literature review of the travel patterns of older adults; (2) a review of municipal policies and services geared toward older adult mobility in six cities; (3) a quantitative analysis of the mobility patterns of older adults in California using the California Household Travel Survey; and (4) empirical work with 81 older adults residing in and around Los Angeles’ inner-city Westlake neighborhood, who participated in focus groups, interviews, and walkabouts around their neighborhood

Acceptance of ambient assisted living (AAL) technologies among older Australians : a review of barriers in user experience

One of the great challenges facing Australian society is that of an ageing population. Amongst the issues involved in this drastic demographic change, the most significant aspect is the demand for older Australians to live independently at home. The development of Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) technologies aims to address this issue. The advancement of AAL applications have been done to support the users with their daily-life activities and health concerns by providing increased mobility, security, safety in emergencies, health-monitoring, improved lifestyle, and fall-detection through the use of sensors. However, the optimum uptake of these technologies among the end-users (the elderly Australians) still remains a big concern. Thus, there is an elevated need to understand the needs and preferences of the seniors in order to improve the acceptance of AAL applications. The aim of this study is to investigate the barriers and perceptions in the use of AAL applications amongst older Australians. Focus groups and quantitative surveys have been conducted to provide a detailed analysis of these impediments. The results show that there are different factors that restrict the use of these technologies along with the fact that elderly people have certain preferences when using them. An understanding of these factors has been gained and suggestions have been made to increase the acceptance of AAL devices. This work gives useful insights towards the design of AAL solutions according to user needs

Mozambique

Dissertação de Mestrado em Arquitetura com a especialização em Arquitetura apresentada na Faculdade de Arquitetura da Universidade de Lisboa para obtenção do grau de Mestre.Beira, Moçambique. A segunda maior cidade por população, num dos países mais pobres do mundo.Uma cidade que tem sido devastada por oodas regulares seguidas por surtos de doenças. Com um crescimento rápido mas muitopopulação jovem, onde metade dos habitantes tem menos de 15 anos de idade, Moçambique é um país com muitosdesafios a vencer. Depois de abordar as estratégias de planeamento urbano mais adequadas para mitigar o impacto que a cidadeas cheias regulares e a actual falta de unidades residenciais disponíveis, este trabalho centra-se numa das menos faladasquestões sociais em Moçambique. O abandono dos idosos e a falta de apoio social que este grupo minoritário tem.Uma questão que há muito tempo devia ser abordada de uma forma holística, à qual o papel dos Arquitectos na sociedadepode dar uma grande contribuição. O objectivo é analisar as necessidades, do ponto de vista de um designer, de um centro de cuidados para idosos. A análise centra-sesobre a situação em Moçambique, e na cidade da Beira, relativamente à arquitectura local, à indústria da construção,os cuidados a idosos existentes que estão a ser prestados e as instalações existentes centradas nos cuidados a idosos. A conclusão será um conjunto de "Directrizes de concepção para Centros de Cuidados a Idosos na cidade da Beira", que pode então ser aplicado a outras partes de Moçambique e a outros países com contexto semelhante. Acknowledgment Thank you to family, friends and lecturers who have supportedABSTRACT: Beira, Mozambique. The second biggest city by population in one of the poorest countries in the world. A city that has been devastated by regular oods followed by illness outbreaks. With a fast growing but very young population, where half of the inhabitants are less than 15 years old, Mozambique is a country with many challenges to overcome. After addressing the most adequate urban planning strategies to mitigate the impact that the city's regular oods have and the current lack of residential units available, this work focuses on one of the less talked social issues in Mozambique. The elderly abandonment and the lack of social support this minority group has. An issue that has been long due to be addressed in a holistic way to which the role of the Architects in society can give a great contribution. The aim is to analyse the needs, from a designer point of view, of an elderly care center. Analysis focuses on the situation in Mozambique, and in the city of Beira, regarding the local architecture, construction industry, existing elderly care being provided and existing elderly care focused facilities. The conclusion will be a set of "Design Guidelines for Elderly Care Centers in the city of Beira", which can then be applied to other parts of Mozambique and other countries with similar context. IN/