Ruth is a senior research fellow at the Transport Safety Research Centre within º¬Ðß²ÝÊÓƵ. She has 16 years experience in the field of transport safety with a particular interest in the development and use of Naturalistic Driving studies as a research tool. Most recently she has participated within the EU funded Prologue, DaCoTA projects and is the Principle Investigator for the UDRIVE project. This project undertakes a large scale Naturalistic Driving Study within Europe. Ruth also teaches naturalistic driving methodology on an MSC course together with statistics for designers.
Ruth is a member of the Transport Safety research group where research activities are embedded in road user accident analysis and prevention, built on the fundamental principles of vision zero. A particular interest lies in evaluating driver behaviour and analysing real world accident data in order to inform the next generation of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems in the transition through levels of passenger car autonomy.
Recent and current research projects include
- UDRIVE - a large scale pan-European naturalistic driving study, News feature (To be profiled at the National Road Safety Conference, November 2016 ) (2012-2017)
- Time to Collision Analysis of Cyclist Accidents on behalf of the European Autonomous Emergency Braking working group (2015)
- SUSTAIN - a European Commission funded project reviewing the circumstances surrounding, and injury outcomes for, severely injured road users across Europe (2015-2016)
Expertise
Accident data analysis, accident and injury causation, data quality, driver behaviour, naturalistic driving and field operational tests.
Teaching focuses on two themes:
- Research methods and quantitative data analysis
- Vehicle safety in the context of driver behaviour
Teaching methods integrate theory, skills development and practical sessions in order to provide an engaging environment for learning.
Semester 1
- DSB113 Study Design and Data Analysis 1
- DSP106 Data Collection and Analysis
- DSC021 Design Research
- DSA114 The mind at work
- DSC117 Driver and Vehicle Ergonomics
Semester 2
- DSP121 Transport Safety
- DSP100 Project (Ergonomics)
- Contributing to vehicle design and consumer crash testing through analysis of real world accident data
- Supporting government in policy making relating to road safety and emissions through real world driving studies and analysis of real world accident data
- Providing analytical skills, desirable for future prospects, to undergraduate and post graduate students (Quantitative methods for data analysis)
- LDS enterprise committee member
- LDS Athena Swan SAT member
- MacDonald Aimes, S - Does Emergency response negatively affect Driver behaviour? An evaluation of Blue Light and non Blue Light drivers
- Nitsche, P - Safety-critical scenarios and testing procedures for highly automated driving at road intersections