Cole Fitzpatrick

Research Assistant Professor
University of Massachusetts Amherst

Research and Background

I have research interests in transportation safety and human factors. I have extensive experience working with UMassSafe's Traffic Safety Data Warehouse. This data warehouse enables deep analyses of traffic safety issues. I have used this data to look specifically at speeding-related crashes (during my PhD) and run-off-the-road crashes (during my MS). Within transportation safety my primary focus lies with crash data; utilizing it for safety analyses and improving the quality and completeness of the data collected by police officers. Within human factors, my primary research interest is in speeding and aggressive driving. I have extensive experience conducting naturalistic and driving simulator studies in this topic area. During my PhD I tested a new smartphone app which could collect continuous speed profiles, and assessed its viability as a tool to set speed limits using USLimits2. I conducted multiple driving simulator studies, looking at the effect of roadside design (clear zone size and vegetation) on driver performance, investigating how time pressures affect driver aggression and examining how time perception is influenced by driver distraction. Currently, I am pursuing opportunities to explore how unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) can be applied to traffic data collection for the purpose of setting speed limits or capturing traffic volumes and turning movement counts (TMCs). I am always interested in leveraging new data sources and linking existing data sources to generate information that can be used to improve traffic safety.