Great Isenberg Transportation Class Field Trip - Driving Simulator and Human Performance Lab

A few years ago, a student in my Transportation & Logistics class told me that a highlight of his college career was going on field trips in my course. I truly believe that, if at all possible, a course should include such experiences. Scheduling may be an issue, but where there is a will, there should be a way!

Today, the students in  that Isenberg School course of mine had the pleasure of a field trip to the Arbella Insurance Human Performance Lab, which is way across the UMass Amherst campus in Engineering Lab 1. Our wonderful tour guide was Professor Shannon Roberts, who is an MIT and University of Wisconsin alumna, and an expert on human factors.

My students found the lab (one showed up 48 hours early but made it today) and were surprised to see a car inside the lab. I had told them about the great work of the lab, which was established in the 1980s and the long-time Director was Professor Don Fisher. The research of the lab focuses on driver behavior and safety. Its impact has been immensely positive - an example being Distractology 101.

Professor Don Fisher, among his numerous earned accolades, was the first ever (inaugural, that is) speaker in our UMass Amherst INFORMS Speaker series, which we started back in 2004.

Since the students in my class include both Operations and Information Management majors as well as Industrial Engineering majors, the experience was not only educational but also fun. All students (except for one who was worried about getting dizzy) got a chance to drive the simulator or be a passenger, which is a real car, courtesy of Ford (a big shoutout to Kevin Koswick, who is an Isenberg alum, an Exec at Ford, and who was in the first class that I ever taught at UMass Amherst!).

The students also heard from Dr. Roberts of the fascinating ongoing studies, some of which focus on young drivers, since they are especially prone to accidents. She was even throwing out a carrot for students to participate as subjects on the driving simulator. I was surprised that there are only about 20 such systems in the US for research.

Many great questions were asked by my students. With so many dynamic changes in transportation, this field never fails to fascinate! And the research conducted at the Human Performance Lab has relevance to auto companies, insurance companies, various suppliers in the auto global supply chain, as well as departments of transportation, and even driver education operators.

Thanks to Professor Shannon Roberts for sharing her research experiences, including hands-on ones, with my students.

Operations Research Speaks: From Human Trafficking to Distracted Driving to Wildfire Fuel Management and More!

Operations Research has had many successes from methodological advances to important applications and the solution of numerous relevant problems in areas as diverse as transportation and logistics to health care and even blood supply chains.

This semester we are very lucky to have a fantastic lineup of speakers in our UMass Amherst INFORMS Speaker Series which the UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter helps me to organize.

This Friday, October 13, 2017 we are hosting Dr. Renata Konrad from the Foisie School of Business at WPI in Massachusetts. Dr. Konrad will be speaking on human trafficking and how operations research and analytics can help in combating it.  Dr. Konrad I know through WORMS (Women in Operations Research and the Management Sciences), since she is this INFORMS forum's past President.  Also, Renata and I share a cultural heritage in that she was born in Canada and we both speak Ukrainian.

Renata and I were among the invited participants to a workshop sponsored by the National Science Foundation on Disrupting Illicit Supply Chains, which took place last May at the University of Texas Austin and a followup workshop will be taking place in Arlington, VA in early December.

Then, on Friday, October 20, 2017, the chapter will be continuing its annual tradition of hosting a tune-up for the annual INFORMS conference, which this year is taking place in Houston, Texas, October 22-25. Given the horrific impact of Hurricane Harvey there it will be a memorable experience, I am sure. In this year's tune-up there are 5 doctoral student speakers who will be presenting the papers that they will also be giving in Houston. It's a wonderful way in which to share research and to get positive feedback on presentation skills. The breadth of topics illustrates the wide reach of Operations Research! The doctoral students who are presenting are from the Isenberg School of Management (and are in the Management Science PhD track) and the College of Engineering (Industrial Engineering). Two of my doctoral students, Deniz Besik (the current chapter president) and Pritha Dutta (the immediately preceding chapter President), will be speaking. Also, presenting are doctoral students of Professor Erin Baker and Professor Chaitra Gopalappa.

It will be a very exciting INFORMS Houston conference, since our student chapter, which I have served as a Faculty Advisor of since its inception in 2004, will be receiving its 12th consecutive award from INFORMS there - the Magna Cum Laude Award for its activities in the previous year!

And, the Friday after the INFORMS Houston conference, we will be hosting Dr. Shannon Roberts of the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at UMass Amherst. She will be speaking on driving safety and social networks - another extremely timely talk!

On November 3, I am delighted that Professor Dmytro Matsypura of the University of Sydney School of Business in beautiful Australia will be speaking in our series at the Isenberg School!  Dr. Matsypura was my PhD student and is also a Center Associate of the Supernetwork Center that I founded in 2001. He is on sabbatical this term and will be speaking on wildfire fuel management. Given the horrific fires now blanketing northern California, this is also a talk not to be missed!

Many thanks to the wonderful officers of the award-winning UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter as well as to its members for enriching the intellectual climate of our campus and broader community through  myriad exciting activities!

All of the above talks are open to the public.

A Great Transportation Class Field Trip to the Arbella Human Performance Lab and Driving Simulator

Today the students in my Transportation & Logistics class and I  had the pleasure of taking part in our second field trip of the semester and just in time before they all headed away from campus for the Thanksgiving holiday. Tomorrow UMass Amherst is closed because of the pending snowstorm, which should make for some interesting travel experiences so do be extra cautious!

The field trip was to the Arbella Human Performance Lab in the Engineering 1 building at UMass Amherst, which is way across campus from the Isenberg School of Management. The weather was perfect and the temps in the 60s so we had a pleasant walk.

The Human Performance Lab is directed by Professor Don Fisher, who is also the Chair of the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering. He has done seminal research on distracted driving and his research team utilizes the latest in eye-tracking technology to study driver's eye movements and the impacts thereof. Dr. Fisher is a psychologist by training and an expert in human factors. He also is a Faculty Fellow at the Volpe National Transportation Systems Center in Cambridge, MA. His research has attracted over $10 million in funding including an NSF grant to study driverless cars.

In his lab is a $500,000 black car, which is utilized to do some of the testing and experimentation with the use of human subjects as drivers. It has had about another $500,000 put into it for experiments and upgrades. One of the undergraduates was a willing volunteer. and drove the driving simulator.

It was fascinating to hear Professor Fisher speak about hazard mitigation, the types of conditions that lead to distracted driving from inside the vehicle to outside the vehicle plus the differences between experienced drivers and young inexperienced ones as well as younger vs. older ones.

He showed the famous video of counting basketball passes and then asked how many saw the gorilla in the video. The video demonstrates selective attention.

His research has led to new training programs with great positive effects and even to new signage, flashing yellow lights and pedestrian signs,  removal of parking spots, etc., in Amherst and beyond. His team was even involved in studying the effects of the Big Dig and traveller behavior especially with respect to signs in the tunnel.

 

I am a huge fan of Professor Fisher's and the important work that he has been doing for decades. He has spoken in our UMass Amherst INFORMS Speakers Series (in fact, he was our very first speaker) and last April he received an award from the Phi Kappa Phi Chapter at UMass, which I blogged about. I also had the pleasure of giving the speech at the ceremony.

We all left the lab with valuable information and I am sure that everyone drove more carefully today and will continue to do so.

Many thanks to Professor Fisher, to his lab manager, Tracy, and his research assistant, Akhilesh, for such a great educational experience today.

Happy Thanksgiving to all and safe driving!