Starting on 10/1/06, NIOSH has funds for a taxi driver safety project to develop a taxicab safety device, and I am the project officer. The following is our project description for you review. I would like to know your and/or your colleagues' comments: if the project concepts are practical to improve taxi driver's safety; and if they need modifications, what are the directions.
Thank you for your time to read these.
Best regards.
Shengke
Shengke Zeng, Ph.D.
Biomedical Engineer (Research)
Protective Technology Branch
Division of Safety Research
National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
NIOSH, M/S G800
1095 Willowdale Road
Morgantown, WV 26505
Ph: 304-285-6103; Fax: -6047
Email: szeng@cdc.gov
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PROJECT DESCRIPTION
The objective of this project is to develop a low-cost wireless emergency dialer for the taxi services industry (NAICS 48531), which has the highest homicide rate among all sub-sectors, in order to enable taxi drivers to silently communicate with the rescue unit and/or colleague/family members of their emergency status when they face the danger of assault, robbery or murder.
This project is to develop a silent emergency dialer which consists of a wireless trigger and a mobile phone docking device for taxi drivers. The wireless trigger is small enough to be mounted on the driver’s body, such as waist, knee, elbow, toe (in the shoe), or in a secret location such as under the steering wheel. The docking device, placed in a secret location, connects with a mobile phone and/or an external visual alarm. When facing a dangerous situation, the driver can click the emergency-button on the trigger to remotely activate the mobile phone, by using radio frequency transmission, to dial an emergency number, send out a pre-defined message and enable the built-in mobile-phone assisted-Global Positioning System, and can trigger an external visual alarm. With less dangerous situations, such as suspicious customer behavior or an assault threat, the driver can click a warning-button (with a different shape/color compared with the emergency-button) on the trigger to silently dial a list of phone numbers to send pre-recorded message(s) to a colleague/family-member to monitor the taxi-cab situation. All pre-recorded messages can contain instructions on how to push a combination of phone digit-buttons to send various feedback messages to the driver. The different feedback messages sent to the driver’s mobile phone will activate different vibration patterns on the trigger’s vibrator to silently convey the feedback messages from the rescuer/colleague/family-member to the driver. These safety measures will allow the police or other rescue team to quickly determine the taxicab’s real-time location, and respond for the earliest rescue. Optionally, the trigger may also activate other radio-frequency controllable safety measures inside/outside the taxicab to further protect the taxi driver or other workers.
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Most Respectfully Submitted by:
Jim Szekely Sr.Inter.Taxi Drivers' Safety Council.
Website: www.itdsc.org Also Please see: www.Taxi-Library.org
