Health, Equity And Transportation (HEAT) Moment Center

The Health, Equity And Transportation (HEAT) center is a combined partnership between George Washington University (GW) and a start-up company, Moment Artificial Intelligence (AI). Moment AI is a technology company focused on the development of artificial intelligence systems that detect, monitor, and analyze human health abnormalities that occur on the road. A key goal of The GW HEAT Moment Center is to support and contribute to the design and development of an autonomous and connected transportation system that provides services equitably to populations with different health and income characteristics. 

Activities:

Critical urban services within a smart city need to be equitably shared among diverse communities especially those who are disadvantaged in terms of health and income level. In particular, transportation services provide essential mobility and accessibility to minorities and lower-income populations in daily activities such as reaching work, healthcare, and educational institutions. Yet, the private and public transportation sectors rarely consider the impact of their plans, projects, and technologies on vulnerable communities. For example, the Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems (ADAS), including those that feed into newer autonomous and electric vehicles (AEVs), are rarely designed to accommodate 1) elderly drivers who normally struggle when dealing with complex sensing and automation technologies and 2) individuals with cognitive and physiological impairments. In addition, such technologies come at a high cost and are not affordable to populations with low incomes. At this stage (2022 – 2025) the Center’s focus is on health equity associated with drivers. 

Towards chartering a cross-disciplinary research initiative at the George Washington University (GW) under the broader umbrella of transportation engineering and health, we envision activities driven the following four core pillars:

Ongoing Research: 

The HEAT center and the Moment AI is developing an artificial intelligence-based driver monitoring system that can detect and warn drivers about potential health-related anomalies while driving