Professor Andry Rakotonirainy is the Director of CARRS-Q and founder of its Intelligent Transport Systems human factors research program, establishing its Advanced Driving Simulator laboratory. With 25 years research and management experience in computer science, he brings advanced expertise in road safety and ITS design and implementation. He is  a member of the Australian Research Council (ARC) College of Experts and is a regular member of EU funded projects’ advisory boards. He has authored over 250 internationally refereed papers in prestigious journals and conferences. The impact of his research is significant, with one paper cited 994 times (4710 citations in total), and he has an h-index of 32. He has been awarded 11 Australian Research Council (ARC) grants, serves on international conference and journal committees, and reviews internationally competitive grants.

Professor Rakotonirainy’s ITS research has been recognised both nationally and internationally. He has proactively investigated the use of existing and emerging ITS from multiple disciplines such as computer science, mathematics, human factors, engineering, psychology and sociology. His research has made extensive use of driving simulators, traffic simulators and instrumented vehicles for developing system prototypes, assessing cost-benefits, understanding human errors and evaluating system deployment. He has been successful in securing numerous competitive grants and has established partnerships with many road safety stakeholders. Presently, he is involved in a€6,4 million EU funded (Horizon 2020) project called Levitate led by Loughborough University on ‘Societal Level Impacts of Connected and Automated Vehicles’. He isalso the lead researcher on two projects as part of CAVI initiative on Automated and Cooperative Vehicles.

1. A large-scale pilot project validating the effectiveness of emerging cooperative vehicle technologies with Queensland’s Department of Transport and Main Roads (TMR),  iMOVE CRC and QUT. The pilot will involve around 500 private and fleet vehicles retrofitted with Cooperative-ITS devices. The large-scale, 3.5 year project will commence with the design and equipment-testing phase, culminating in a 9 month on-road trial in Ipswich, Queensland in late 2019.
2. Use of a small passenger  automated vehicle (SAE level 4) to study human factor related issues with Queensland’s Department of Transport and Main Roads (TMR),  iMOVE CRC and QUT.