Carnegie Mellon University with partner Propel and the University of Pennsylvania
have been named two of the ten US Department of Transportation Inclusive Design
Challenge semi-finalist award winners from hundreds of applications.
The Inclusive Design Challenge focuses on innovative design solutions to enable people
with physical, sensory, and cognitive disabilities to use automated vehicles to access
jobs, healthcare, and other critical destinations. This theme was well aligned with the
Traffic21/Mobility21 theme of “Innovating Mobility for All”.
The CMU winning project, Promoting personal control of AVs through inclusive
smartphone communication interfaces, will be led by Nikolas Martelaro, Patrick
Carrington, Sarah Fox, Jodi Forlizzi, and Lisa Kay Schweyer with students Aziz Ghadiali,
Daisy Gollis, Franklin Mingzhe Li, Wei Tung Lin, Xuanyuan (Ember) Liu, Estelle
(Yicheng) Jiang, and Yunzhou (Kathy) Song (all from Carnegie Mellon University) and
Pramod Mallapragada, Tapan Mukerji and Michael Dieschbourg (from Propel).
The project will be focused on using the accessible features of smartphones to facilitate
inclusive communication between the car and rider, allowing people with differing
abilities to control different aspects of the vehicle and adjust their ride experience.
Utilizing the Mobility21 UTC Deployment Partner Consortium, Program Manager, Lisa
Kay Schweyer helped recruit community and organizational members which became
part of an overall community engagement group.
Since August 2020, the project team has facilitated an ongoing series of virtual meetings
bringing together the community engagement group which includes people with
disabilities, disability rights advocates, transportation officials, Tier 1 suppliers, and
automotive user experience designers.
The project will kick-off this Spring, the community engagement group will continue to
meet throughout the project, and progress updates will be posted to the project’s
website.
For more information, please contact the Propel project team, Mark Franz at
mark.franz@propelit.net or 1-412-927-1794
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