Review of Human Activity Sensors Applications for Transportation Studies

Abstract— Human Activity Sensors (HAS) have become popular in the field of health (Psychology and physiology) and engineering especially in transportation systems. HAS are used in transportation, especially for road users to analyze their behavior. As these sensors are capable of monitoring various human activities, their applications to transportation research are growing. This study aims to provide a comprehensive review on human sensors and associated applications, with a focus on transport research and the trends of research topics. Most previous HAS applications in transportation were to monitor psychological and physical activities by different road users. Recent advances in wireless communication and cloud services have improved data transfer speeds, storage capacity and analysis power in human sensing technology. However, the presence of these benefits with the increase in technical progress is not consistent with the quantity of research in transportation. While previous human sensor studies were mostly limited to drivers, recent studies tend to include various transportation users including pedestrians and bicyclists. This study sheds lights on scientific approaches with HAS in transportation studies. Keywords: sensing technology, human sensors, transportation applications, human activities, human behavior