Statistical Society of Australia Meeting: Williamson -- Automated vehicles, big data and road safety

Date: Wednesday, 23 August 2017 

Time: 

6:00pm - 6:30pm: Refreshments 

6:30pm - 7:30pm: Lecture 

7:45pm onwards: Dinner (at a nearby restaurant) 

Location: The Quadrangle Refectory Room H113 

Direction: 

The Refectory Room H113 is a room downstairs in the Quadrangle building (same corner as
Maclaurin Hall, but downstairs instead of upstairs).  It is *not* the Refectory Building
on Parramatta Rd (next to/part of the Holme Building).  

Dr Ann Williamson 

Transport and Road Safety Research Centre & UNSW 

Automated vehicles, big data and road safety 

Autonomous vehicles and driver assist technologies are seen as the next-big-thing for
road safety.  Many authoritative organisations are predicting benefits of up to 95%
reductions in crashes; levels never achieved before.  Unfortunately, these forecasts are
at best optimistic and at worst misleading as they are based on the false ideas that
driver error is at the heart of all road safety problems and that new technology is
infallible.  This presentation will summarise some of the main issues with the
introduction of autonomous vehicles, discuss how big data is being used in their
development and suggest an alternative path to ensure that the road safety benefits from
these vehicles become a reality.  

Biography of Ann Williamson 

Ann Williamson is Director of the Transport and Road Safety (TARS) Research Centre and
Professor of Aviation Safety at UNSW Sydney.  She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of
NSW and of the Australian College of Road Safety.  She has a PhD in Psychology, was
Foundation Director of the NSW Injury Risk Management Research Centre and previously
Head of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Unit at the National Institute for Occupational
Health and Safety.  Ann’s research focusses on human factors and injury in the areas
of transportation and workplace safety, in particular on the role of error, especially
skill-based error, in safety and the effects of fatigue on performance.  She has been an
invited technical expert on advisory committees for a wide range of transport and road
safety authorities.  She has twice been awarded an NHMRC Senior Research Fellowship
(2005-2015) and won the Ron Cumming Memorial medal from the Human Factors and Ergonomics
Society of Australia (2013), the Sustained Achievement over a Professional Career Award
(2011), and the Meritorious Achievement in Research Award (2004).  She has been
President of the Australian Injury Prevention Network.