The LSU Center of Analytics and Research in Transportation Safety was awarded a grant from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.

With this funding, the university hopes to build on artificial intelligence to help us better understand how we react when behind the wheel.

“We will use video from roads and interstates to analyze videos and using artificial intelligence to turn it into data,” said Helmut Schneider, Executive Director of the Center for Analytics & Research in Transportation Safety.

In Louisiana, the number of fatal commercial vehicle crashes jumped by more than 28% from 89 fatalities in 2020 to over 100 fatalities in 2021.

“In some respect, we have specific issues in Louisiana with speeding, impaired drivers, and seatbelt usage,” said Schneider.

With nearly $1,000,000 from the U.S. Department of Transportation, this will allow researchers to build a dashboard to provide more detailed insights into what the contributing factors are behind crashes.