UCF Smart & Safe Transportation Lab (SST Lab)
Our team does research in the fields of transportation safety, mobility, travel behavior, as well as applies digital twinning to analyze different traffic scenarios. It has an expertise in computer vision and is home to advanced driving simulators. Although the lab was founded by Prof. Mohamed Abdel–Aty in 2018, the research and development work started more than 25 years ago. At any given moment, the lab hosts on average a team of about 25 researchers from different parts of the world and with various expertise.
Meet Our Team
“Coming together is a beginning, staying together is progress, and working together is a success.” – Henry Ford
Director and Founder
Dr. Mohamed Abdel-Aty
P.E., F.ASCE, F.ITE
Dr. Mohamed Abdel-Aty, PE is a Trustee Endowed Chair at the University of Central Florida (UCF). He is a Pegasus Distinguished Professor and former Chair of the Civil, Environmental and Construction Engineering Department at UCF. He has a joint appointment with the department of Computer Science. He is the founder and leading the Future City initiative at UCF. As part of the initiative, he introduced in 2019 the first MS degree in Smart Cities in Engineering in the US. He is also the director of the Smart and Safe Transportation Lab, the Winner of the USDOT Solving for Safety Visualization Challenge, Real-time crash risk visualization using integrated tools for traffic safety evaluation and management, November 2019. His main expertise and interests are in the areas of traffic safety, transportation technology, simulation, big data and data analytics, ITS and CAV. He is pioneer and well recognized nationally and internationally in work and research in real-time safety, Proactive traffic management, integrating road safety and transportation planning and Connected Vehicles. In 2015, he was awarded the Pegasus Professorship, the highest honor at UCF. Dr. Abdel-Aty has managed 80 research projects of more than $30 million. Dr. Abdel-Aty has published more than 825 papers, 425 in journals (Google Scholar citations are more than 31,350 H-Index 98; Science direct papers downloaded more than 400,000 times). He supervised to completion 107 PhD and MS students (currently 16 more PhD students). He is a member of the Academy of Science, Engineering and Medicine of Florida (ASEMFL). Dr. Abdel-Aty is the Editor Emeritus of Accident Analysis and Prevention, the premier journal in safety. He is an Executive Associate Editor of the Analytic Methods of Accident Research Journal, and Associate Editor of the ASCE Journal of Transportation Part A: Systems. He is a member of the Editorial Boards of the ITS Journal, Transportation Research Part C and the International Journal of Sustainable Transportation, Fellow of both ASCE and ITE, and Senior member of IEEE. He is the former Chair of the ASCE Transportation Safety Committee. In 2003, he was selected as UCF’s Distinguished Researcher, and in 2007 as UCF’s Outstanding Graduate Teacher. He has received multiple research awards from the College of Engineering & Computer Science in 2003, 2008, 2010 and 2012, including the Dean’s Advisory Board award. He and his students received multiple awards for their papers and research from ASCE, TRB, WCTR, ITS Florida and FL section ITE. His students received twice the best University dissertation, and once the best MS thesis, and the Milton Pikarsky Memorial Award for the best Masters thesis in the field of science and technology in transportation studies, Council of University Transportation Centers (CUTC), Dec. 2019. Dr. Aty has received the 2020 Roy W. Crum Distinguished Service Award from the Transportation Research Board of the National Academies, National Safety Council’s Distinguished Service to Safety Award, Francis C. Turner award from ASCE for his “outstanding leadership in the field of road safety nationally and internationally”. He has also received the 2019 Transportation Safety Council Edmund R. Ricker Award, Institute of Transportation Engineering (ITE) and the Lifetime Achievement Safety Award and S.S. Steinberg Award from ARTBA in 2019 and 2022, respectively. He has also received multiple International awards including the prestigious Prince Michael International Road Safety Award, London 2019. He has delivered more than 30 Keynote speeches in conferences around the world, including in the US, Belgium, Brazil, China, Greece, Korea, Turkey, Italy, KSA, Jordan, Qatar, and UAE. He has worked closely with USDOT and multiple state DOTs as well as internationally in China, Korea and Abu Dhabi in implementing numerous safety systems and strategies that lead to much reduction in road crashes around the world. He is a registered professional engineer in Florida.
Associate Directors
Research Assistant Professor
Dr. Natalia Barbour
Dr. Natalia Barbour is an assistant professor at the University of Central Florida, where she studies transportation safety and travel behavior. She is leading and supporting research projects of nearly $3 million. Prior to joining UCF, she was an assistant professor of transport and energy at the Delft University of Technology where she focused on sustainable mobility and taught courses on transportation systems and climate change mitigation as well as authored a book chapter on transport and its environmental impacts. Together with other TU Delft scientists, Dr. Barbour recorded an online educational program on edX Climate-Neutral World: Theory, Applications, and Taking Action. Prior to joining TU Delft, she was a Postdoctoral Associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she led the development of New Mobility course for MIT edX platform. Dr. Barbour is on the Editorial Board of Scientific Reports. She holds a doctorate degree in Civil Engineering (Transportation) from the University of South Florida.
Research Assistant Professor
Dr. Zubayer Islam
“Integrating programs in transportation systems and smart cities have extended our influence and reach to many students, and increased the demand for our programs,” Mohamed Abdel-Aty
Postdoctoral Scholars
Software Development
Ph.D. Candidates and Ph.D. Students
Masters and Undergraduate Research Assistants
SST Lab Alumni
- Hassan Abdelwahab Exploring the Viability of Non-Conventional Accident Modeling Techniques in Enhancing Traffic Safety Research (Spring 2002).
- M. Fathy Abdalla Modeling Multiple Route Choice Paradigms Under Different Types and Levels of ATIS Using Correlated Data (Fall 2003).
- Anurag Pande Applying Hybrid Models for Real-Time Crash Risk Assessment on Freeways (Fall 2005).
- Xuesong Wang Safety Analysis at Signalized Intersections considering Spatial, Temporal and Site Correlation (Fall 2006).
- Abhishek Das Analyses of Crash Occurrence and Injury Severities on Multilane Arterials using Machine Learning Algorithms (Fall 2009).
- Kirolos Haleem Comprehensive Analytical Investigation of the Safety of Unsignalized Intersections (Fall 2009).
- Hany Hassan Improving Traffic Safety and Driver Behavior in Reduced Visibility (Summer 2011).
- Chowdhury Siddiqui Macroscopic Crash Analysis and its Implications for Transportation Safety Planning and Management (Spring 2012).
- Mohamed Ahmed Multi-Level Safety Performance Functions for High-Speed Facilities (Spring 2012).
- Rongjie Yu Real-Time Traffic Safety Evaluation Models and their Application for Variable Speed Limits (Summer 2013).
- Jaeyoung Lee Development of Traffic Safety Zones and Integrating Macroscopic and Microscopic Safety Data Analytics for Novel Hot Zone Identification (Spring 2014).
- Muamer Abuzwidah Traffic Safety Assessment of Different Toll Collection Systems on Expressways using Multiple Analytical Techniques (Fall 2014).
- Qi Shi Urban Expressway Safety and Efficiency Evaluation and Improvement Using Big Data (Fall 2014).
- Khalid Alkaaf Transferability and Calibration of the Highway Safety Manual Performance Functions and Development of New Models for Urban Four-Lane Divided Roads (Fall 2014).
- Juneyoung Park Exploration and Development of Crash Modification Factors and Functions for Single and Multiple Treatments (Summer 2015).
- Ling Wang Microscopic Safety Evaluation and Prediction for Special Expressway Facilities (Summer 2016).
- Jung-Han Wang Evaluation of Crash Modification Factors and Functions Including Time Trends at Intersections (Summer 2016).
- Qing Cai Integrating the Macroscopic and Microscopic Traffic Safety Analysis Using Hierarchical Models (Summer 2017).
- Yina Wu Improving Safety under Reduced Visibility Based on Multiple Countermeasures and Approaches including Connected Vehicles (Fall 2017).
- Samer Alamili Dynamic Hotspot Identification for Limited Access Facilities using Temporal Traffic Data (Spring 2018).
- Saif Alarifi Hierarchical Corridor Safety Analysis Using Multiple Approaches (Spring 2018). .
- Ahmed Farid Investigating and Facilitating the Transferability of Safety Performance Functions (Spring 2018).
- Khalid Alkahtani Safety Investigation of Traffic Crashes Incorporating Spatial Correlation Effects (Summer 2018). .
- Moatz Saad Safety, Operation, and Design Analyses of Managed Toll and Connected Vehicles’ Lanes (Summer 2019).
- Md. Sharikur Rahman Assessing the Safety and Operational Benefits of Connected and Automated Vehicles: Application of Platooning and CAV Managed Lanes (Summer 2019).
- Jinghui Yuan Arterial-Level Real-Time Safety Evaluation in the Context of Proactive Traffic Management (Summer 2019).
- Whoi Bin Chung Development of Decision Support System for Active Traffic Management Systems Considering Travel Time Reliability (Summer 2019).
- Lishengsa Yue Evaluating the Safety Effectiveness of Advanced Driver Assistance and Connected Vehicles Technologies in Different Pre-Crash Scenarios (Spring 2020).
- YaoBang Gong Improving Traffic Safety and Efficiency by Adaptive Signal Control Systems Based on Deep Reinforcement Learning (Spring 2020).
- Md. Hasibur Rahman Evaluation of Safety and Mobility Benefits of Connected Vehicles by Considering V2V, V2I, and V2P Technologies (Summer 2020).
- Nada Mahmoud Safety and Operations of Urban Arterials Incorporating the Context Classification System (Spring 2021).
- Shile Zhang Improving Pedestrian Safety Using Video Data, Surrogate Safety Measures, and Deep Learning (Spring 2021).
- Pei Li Real-Time Traffic Safety Evaluation in the Context of Connected Vehicles and Mobile Sensing (Summer 2021).
- Zubayer Islam Applying Machine Learning Techniques to Improve the Safety and Mobility of the Urban Transportation System Using Infrastructure- and Vehicle-Based Sensors (Summer 2021).
- Ma’en Al-Omari Evaluation of Unconventional Signalized Intersections on Arterial Roads and a Proposition for a Novel Intersection Design (Fall 2021).
- Amr Abdelraouf A Deep-Learning Approach for Spatiotemporal-Data-Driven Traffic State Estimation (Spring 2022).
- Ou Zheng Development, Validation and Integration of AI-Driven Computer Vision and Digital-Twin Systems for Traffic Safety Diagnostics (Spring 2023).
- Jingwan Fu Time-Specific Safety Performance Functions for Different Advanced Traffic Management Strategies (Spring 2023).
- Jorge Ugan In-Depth Analysis of individual Characteristics, Road Environment and Situational Influences on Drivers’ Speeding Behavior (Summer 2023).
- Heesub Rim Integrated Hybrid Crash Analysis Incorporating Long and Short-Term Safety Predictive Models (Summer 2023).
- Md. Rakibul Islam Real-time Deployable Crash Prediction and Management Framework (Fall 2023).
- Tarek Hasan Safety Evaluation of Active Traffic Management Strategies on Freeways by Short-Term Crash Prediction Models (Fall 2023).
- Nafis Anwari Assessment of Midblock Pedestrian Crossing Facilities Using Surrogate Safety Measures and Vehicle Delay (Fall 2023).
- Zijin Wang Cooperative Driving Using an Integrated Co-simulation and Digital-Twin Platform (Spring 2024).
- Shengxuan Ding Comprehensive Analytics of Automated Vehicles’ Effectiveness, Benefits, and Crash Severity (Fall 2024).
