By Dar Danielson (Radio Iowa)

A just completed study at the University of Iowa’s Driving Safety Research Institute found there is more work to be done to create an automated vehicle that can safely navigate on Iowa’s rural roads.

Institute Deputy Director Omar Ahmad says the study is the first of its kind. “Most of the testing is taking place in larger urban areas, or on interstates. But the fact is, that while a smaller portion of the population lives in rural areas, half of all traffic fatalities occur on rural roadways,” Ahmad says.

One of the goals of the research was to see if automated vehicles can provide help to elderly residents with mobility, vision, or other challenges who can’t drive themselves. Ahmed says they created an automated shuttle bus designed to deal with the unique situations in rural driving, like navigating on gravel. “You drive a gravel roadway in the center of the road and then you give way as you approach somebody and then you more or less go back to the center because that’s the best part of the gravel roadway,” he says. “As you get towards the edge, the gravel starts to get looser, and especially in bad weather, it can almost pull you in or off the road.”

He says their automated vehicle had trouble discerning when to move to the middle of the gravel, especially in wet weather conditions. “It would stay towards the edge regardless of whether the weather was good or bad,” Ahmed says. “And we would want it to be smarter like a human and drive more towards the center and only go towards the edge when it sees somebody approaching.”

The automated vehicle also had trouble sensing what was a hazard and what was not — sometimes slowing down for dust clouds created on gravel roads. Another issue came at intersections with low visibility, or where the rural road came to a highway. “If the sensors can’t see around the corner, or because the traffic is moving so fast, if they don’t see the traffic until it’s almost too late, that can be very challenging. And that was certainly something that we experienced, as we were making turns onto highways where we were at a stop sign and the traffic was approaching really fast,” he explains, “our sensors weren’t able weren’t look far enough ahead in either direction.”

They used a safety driver in the bus as they drove a 47-mile route multiple times a week, round trip between Iowa City, Hills, Riverside, and Kalona. For each drive, the bus began and ended the route at one of the four pre-arranged locations to pick up residents who were volunteer research participants.

Ahmad says they collected a lot of data and says there is a lot of work ahead. “The technology has a lot of potential, it has a lot of promise, but it’s simply not there yet in terms of its reliability to be able for us to feel confident driving without a safety driver,” he says. Ahmad says there is a lot of potential for automated vehicles to make a driver safer, but taking the driver completely out of the equation is not going to happen anytime soon. “They are not yet a replacement for the driver. And I would say it’s fairly hard to predict when they will be, but my own personal guess would be that it will be quite some time,” Ahmad says.

The U.S. Department of Transportation awarded eight institutions a $7 million grant for automated vehicle research. Ahmad says the U-I was one of three to study rural driving conditions, and the first of the three to complete the data collection portion of their project. He says they will now share the good and bad issues they found with rural roadways and automation with the other institutions.

By Dar Danielson (Radio Iowa)

The State Board of Regents approved an increase in salary or retention bonuses for the three presidents of the University of Iowa, Iowa State University, and the University of Northern Iowa Wednesday.

Board President Michael Richards read the proposed increase for U-I President Barbara Wilson.  “Authorize a $50,000 increase to her annual base salary effective July 1st 2023. Amend the 2021 deferred compensation plan to increase the total principal value by 25 percent,” he says. The raise moves Wilson’s yearly salary to $700,000.

For ISU president Wendy Wintersteen, there will be a new deferred compensation plan starting July 1st with annual contributions of $415,000, and her new employment agreement extends through June 30th of 2026. Her salary stays at $650,000. UNI president Mark Nook also receive a raise. “Authorize a $15,000 increase to his annual base salary effective July 1st 2023,” Richards says. This moves Nook’s salary to $372,110  a year.

The executive director of the Board of Regents, Mark Braun is also getting a change in his deferred compensation. Richard says they will establish a new deferred compensation plan starting July 1st, 2023 and ending on June 30th, 2025, with annual contributions of $155,000 for Braun. The Regents discussed the salary issues in a closed meeting Tuesday and did not make any comments before voting to approve them Wednesday.

After raising the compensation packages for the Board and university leaders, the Regents then approved a 3.5% tuition increase for in-state students. Iowa State University student body vice president, Jennifer Holiday spoke before the vote. “We understand the decision to increase tuition is not one taken lightly or made out of apathy, but rather out of necessity. The deficit between state allocations, and unnecessary costs must be supplemented for the sake of student success,” Holiday says.

Holiday says the increase can also inhibit students as they have to choose between eating and paying for textbooks. “As we prepare for the next meeting of the State General Assembly, Iowa State student government is ready to advocate alongside the Board and our other Regent universities to secure increased allocations from the state,” Holiday says. “Increased tuition and fees may be the short-term fix, but it is not a viable long-term solution for our students attending Iowa State University.”

University of Iowa student body vice president Carly O’Brien also discussed the burden on students. She says 30 percent of undergraduate students report using more than half of their income for housing and struggle with paying for food. “Sixty-seven percent of students in Iowa report eating less because they could not afford food. As a STEM major, I regularly learn about the importance of nutrition for daily functioning, and I’ve seen students struggle with the ultimatum to buy textbooks or food,” O’Brien says.

UNI student body president Micaiah Krutsinger says he encourages the legislature and the Board of Regents to look at how the school is being funded. “If the core inflation is expected to be around four percent in 2023 and three percent in 2024, why is the state’s 2024 appropriations for general funding staying flat, while tuition is proposed to increase three-point-five percent?,” he says.

Krutsinger says state funding for higher education has not kept up. “In fiscal year 2001, 63,7% of the three universities’ general funding came from the state, and 30.6%  from tuition,” Krutsinger says. “Now, for fiscal year 2023’s budget is nearly flipped with 30.5% from the state and 63-point-eight percent from tuition. Krutsinger says the three universities combined currently have $57.5 million less in general funding from the state as compared to 2001.

The Board of Regents approved the tuition increase and also an increase in mandatory fees without discussion.