Students seek public’s help in deer strategy

ST Brendan’s College, Killarney students are seeking the public’s help for their project which has been accepted for the 2018 BT Young Scientist competition in Dublin this coming January.

Second-year pupils Colm Looney, Darragh Fleming and Ethan O’Neill are currently assessing the risk of deer collisions on roads, using three main strands of research which will help reduce accidents involving deer. The three strands are: Information, Surveys & Risk Locations; Investigate Deterrents in the field, and a Prototype and low cost effective Smart Signage system.

The public can get involved by ‘crowdsourcing’, meaning they can identify deer sightings that present a risk factor for road users, using smartphone and web technology. People simply identify the locations and times where deer are present on or near roads, and where they might present most risk to traffic.

Deer sightings can be recorded using the project’s website ‘DeerWatch.ie’ and from smartphones by downloading the free ‘Ushahidi’ crowd sourcing App and by loading the DeerWatch deployment, which allows ‘out and about’ members of the public to report sightings using easy to use smartphone technology and GPS aided locations and photo upload capability.

This information is then mapped for road safety assessment and shared with Kerry County Council, An Garda Síochána, TII, and the Road Safety Authority.

The project was initially started in 2016 by Darragh Fleming, but this year’s research is about broadening its scope as students look to the public for information which, when combined with the ‘hard information’, will determine locations for ‘Vehicle Activated Digital Signage’ in the future.

“The lads have worked extremely hard on their project for the last couple of months and this is the next level of what Darragh started last year,” said Brian Looney (Colm’s father).

Brian added: “The first part of the project is about identifying the locations where deer are crossing the road so as to establish a baseline to work on and see if deterrents can prevent deer from crossing at these points. Using this new interactive signage, motorists will be notified of deer activity in the area and can proceed with caution. So far there has been a lot of public interest and the students have gained a lot of traction from it.”

For more information, contact: killarney.colm@gmail.com