Digital Commons Network^™

Understanding The Value Of Travel Time Reliability For Freight Transportation To Support Freight Planning, Kollol Shams 3085942

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Today’s logistics practices are moving from inventory-based push supply chains to replenishment-based pull supply chains, leading to a lower and less centralized inventory, smaller shipment sizes, and more just-in-time deliveries. As a result, industries are now demanding greater reliability in freight transportation. Delays and uncertainty in freight transportation translate directly into additional inventory, higher manufacturing costs, less economic competitiveness for businesses, and higher costs of goods that are being passed on to the consumers. Given the growing demand in freight transportation, the emerging needs to better understand freight behavior for better policy and investment decisions, and the increasing role of …

Exploratory Assessment Of Roadway Infrastructure Adaptation To The Impacts Of Sea-Level Rise, Mostafa Batouli

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Transportation agencies in coastal urban areas face a significant challenge to enhance the long-term resilience of their networks to flooding and storm surge events exacerbated by sea level rise. The problem of sea-level rise adaptation is characterized by deep uncertainty that makes it complex to assess the value of adaptation investments. To enable informed adaptation decisions, the present study created a dynamic stochastic modeling framework based on the theoretical underpinnings of complex adaptive systems that integrates: (i) stochastic simulation of sea-level rise stressors based on the data obtained from downscaled climate studies pertaining to future projections of sea-level and precipitation; …

Hurricane Preparedness In A Construction Site: A Framework To Assess The Construction Companies’ Current Practices, Michelle S. Chavez

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Civil infrastructure construction sites including incomplete structures and unsecured resources are among the most vulnerable environments to hurricane conditions. Hurricane driven damages cause disruption of construction sites and considerable schedule delays, and thus negatively impact the efficiency of the construction projects. This research aims to study current best practices on securing construction sites from hurricane conditions and evaluate the performance of the preparedness plan. To do that, first, an interview-survey is conducted with key project personnel from multiple construction companies. Then, the insight from the interviews serves to do a Micro and Macro Environmental Analysis. For further analysis, a Balanced …

Risk-Based Decision Making Support For Construction Corporate Resource Management, Reza Sheykhi

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Competitive bidding typically challenges contractors to stay in business by reducing contingency and limiting profit margin, which imposes more prudent resource utilization and allocation decisions during both planning and construction phases of projects. Many of these decisions must be made considering uncertainties that affect resource production and construction performance through several factors such as weather, managerial practices, job-type, and market conditions, etc. Construction decision makers will therefore have varied approaches to deal with these uncertainties based on their risk utility or perception. This research presents the development of a model for investigating the impact of risk-based approaches on construction network …

A Comprehensive Decision Support Framework In The Front-End Phase Of Major Transportation Projects, Nahid Vesali Mahmoud

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Identifying the best project alternative is a critical challenge facing major transportation projects (MTPs) at the front-end phase. The increasing complexity and dynamism of MTPs have imposed substantial uncertainties and subjectivities in the decision-making process. Despite the efforts made in previous studies, a stochastic framework to facilitate the comprehensive assessment is still missing.

In this research, a stochastic decision support framework has been developed to cope with the considerable uncertainties in MTPs. The features of the proposed decision support framework are achieved by using the Bayesian belief network modeling technique to provide a comprehensive registry of the relevant decision factors, …

Wind Performance Based Design For High-Rise Buildings, Alireza Mohammadi

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The rapid growth of high-rise high-density urban areas in coastal and near coastal, hurricane-prone cities has been observed globally and in the United States in recent decades. Favored by modern urban growth and planning policies, this trend is expected to accelerate in future. Recent climate change studies suggest a significant increase in the destructiveness of hurricanes in past 30 years by both increases in lifetime and intensity of hurricanes. Current prescriptive wind design approach does not provide transparent methods and criteria to reliably quantify the performance of buildings as well as the functional requirements necessary to accommodate large populations during …

Water Quality Modelling Using Multivariate Statistical Analysis And Remote Sensing In South Florida, Mohammad Hajigholizadeh

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The overall objective of this dissertation research is to understand the spatiotemporal dynamics of water quality parameters in different water bodies of South Florida. Two major approaches (multivariate statistical techniques and remote sensing) were used in this study. Multivariate statistical techniques include cluster analysis (CA), principal component analysis (PCA), factor analysis (FA), discriminant analysis (DA), absolute principal component score-multiple linear regression (APCS-MLR) and PMF receptor modeling techniques were used to assess the water quality and identify and quantify the potential pollution sources affecting the water quality of three major rivers of South Florida. For this purpose, a 15-year (2000–2014) data …

The Impacts Of Telecommuting On The Time-Space Distribution Of Daily Activities, Mario Benito Rojas Iv

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

As major cities have aged, they have also met or exceeded their transportation infrastructure’s capacity. This has led to many negative impacts such as increased greenhouse gas emissions, delay, travel time, congestion, as well as decreased energy independence, standard of living for the cities’ inhabitants and the world as a whole. As a result, these cities will undoubtedly suffer and will struggle to meet the needs of their citizens. It is becoming more evident, and relevant, that the solution to today’s and tomorrow’s transportation problems will be overcome through the use of policy as well as innovative strategies, one of …

A Framework For Recommending Signal Timing Improvements Based On Automatic Vehicle Matching Technologies, Xuanwu Chen

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Continuously monitoring and automatically identifying existing problems in traffic signal operation is a challenging and time-consuming task. Although data are becoming available due to the adoption of emerging detection technologies, efforts on utilizing the data to diagnose signal control are limited. The current practices of retiming signals are still periodic and based on several days of aggregated turning movement counts. This dissertation developed a framework of automatic signal operation diagnosis with the aim to support decision-making processes by assessing the signal control and identifying the signal retiming needs. The developed framework used a combination of relatively low-cost data from Wi-Fi …

Potential Implication Of Automated Vehicle Technologies On Travel Behavior And System Modeling, Seyed Mohammad Ali Sadat Lavasani Bozorg

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) are computer equipped vehicles that can operate without human driver’s active control using information provided by their sensors about the surrounding environment. Self-driving vehicles may have seemed to be a distant dream several years ago, but manufactures’ prototypes showed that AVs are becoming real now. Several car manufactures (i.e. Benz, Audi, etc.) and information technology firms (i.e. Google) have either showcased their fully AVs or announced their robot cars to be released in a few years. AVs hold the promise to transform the ways we live and travel. Although several studies have been conducted on the impacts …

Evaluation Of Redundancy Of Twin Steel Box-Girder Bridges, Huy V. Pham

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Based on the definition given in the AASHTO LRFD Bridge Design Specifications, twin steel box-girder bridges are classified as bridges with fracture critical members (FCMs), in which a failure of a tension member is expected to lead to a collapse of the bridge. However, a number of such bridges with either a partial or full-depth crack in one girder have been reported and are still providing service without collapsing. The main objective of this research project is to understand the behavior of twin steel box-girder bridges and to develop methods for evaluating their redundancy level in the event of the …

Extending Use Of Simple For Dead Load And Continuous For Live Load (Sdcl) Steel Bridge System To Seismic Areas, Ramin Taghinezhadbilondy

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The steel bridge system referred to as Simple for Dead load and Continuous for Live load (SDCL) has gained popularity in non-seismic areas of the country. Accordingly, it results in many advantages including enhanced service life and lower inspection and maintenance costs as compared to conventional steel systems. To-date, no research studies have been carried out to evaluate the behavior of the SDCL steel bridge system in seismic areas. The main objective of this research was to extend the application of SDCL to seismic areas.

The concept of the SDCL system was developed at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and a …

A System-Of-Systems Framework For Assessment Of Resilience In Complex Construction Projects, Jin Zhu

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Uncertainty is a major reason of low efficiency in construction projects. Traditional approaches in dealing with uncertainty in projects focus on risk identification, mitigation, and transfer. These risk-based approaches may protect projects from identified risks. However, they cannot ensure the success of projects in environments with deep uncertainty. Hence, there is a need for a paradigm shift from risk-based to resilience-based approaches. A resilience-based approach focuses on enhancing project resilience as a capability to cope with known and unknown uncertainty. The objective of this research is to fill the knowledge gap and create the theory of resilience in the context …

Database-Assisted Analysis And Design Of Wind Loads On Rigid Buildings, Filmon Fesehaye Habte

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The turbulent nature of the wind flow coupled with additional turbulence created by the wind-building interaction result in highly non-uniform, fluctuating wind-loading on building envelopes. This is true even for simple rectangular symmetric buildings. Building codes and standards should reflect the information on which they are based as closely as possible, and this should be achieved without making the building codes too complicated and/or bulky. However, given the complexity of wind loading on low-rise buildings, its codification can be difficult, and it often entails significant inconsistencies. This required the development of alternative design methods, such as the Database-Assisted-Design (DAD) methodology, …

Multi-Resolution Modeling Of Managed Lanes With Consideration Of Autonomous/Connected Vehicles, Somaye Fakharian Qom

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Advanced modeling tools and methods are essential components for the analyses of congested conditions and advanced Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) strategies such as Managed Lanes (ML). A number of tools with different analysis resolution levels have been used to assess these strategies. These tools can be classified as sketch planning, macroscopic simulation, mesoscopic simulation, microscopic simulation, static traffic assignment, and dynamic traffic assignment tools. Due to the complexity of the managed lane modeling process, this dissertation investigated a Multi-Resolution Modeling (MRM) approach that combines a number of these tools for more efficient and accurate assessment of ML deployments.

This study …

Analyzing Decision Making In Alternative Contracting For Highway Pavement Rehabilitation Projects, Mohamed Ibrahim

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The negative impacts associated with highway pavement rehabilitation projects drove state highway agencies (SHAs) towards increased adoption of alternative contracting methods (ACMs) to accelerate the construction of such projects; hence, reducing these impacts on the travelling public. However, the application of such methods showed mixed results due to the lack of specific guidelines addressing the adoption of such methods and the selection of the best ACM for each project. This lack of guidelines stems from the lack of research studies examining the impact of each of these methods on the time/cost trade-off relationship in highway rehabilitation projects. Existing literature includes …

Hydrogeochemical Modeling Of Saltwater Intrusion And Water Supply Augmentation In South Florida, Yonas T. Habtemichael

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Biscayne Aquifer is a primary source of water supply in Southeast Florida. As a coastal aquifer, it is threatened by saltwater intrusion (SWI) when the natural groundwater flow is altered by over-pumping of groundwater. SWI is detrimental to the quality of fresh groundwater sources, making the water unfit for drinking due to mixing and reactions with aquifer minerals. Increasing water demand and complex environmental issues thus force water utilities in South Florida to sustainably manage saltwater intrusion and develop alternative water supplies (e.g., aquifer storage and recovery, ASR).

The objectives of this study were to develop and use calibrated …

A Study On The Dissolution Of Autunite Minerals By Facultative Bacteria In Bicarbonate Media, Sandra C. Herrera Landaez

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Uranium (U) is a key contaminant at the Hanford site. The formation of uranyl-phosphate bearing minerals such as autunite as a result of tripoliphosphate injections has been used as a U immobilization strategy. Bacteria are known as key factors governing the fate and transport of soil contaminants. This research evaluated the interaction of facultative bacteria Shewanella Oneidensis MR-1 with autunite mineral in bicarbonate-amended media solutions. The concentration of several elements such as U, calcium (Ca) and phosphorous (P) released as a result of autunite mineral biodissolution were determined as a function of time; changes in cell density and protein assay …

Corrosion Behavior Of Steel In Deficient Grout With Enhanced Sulfate Ion Concentrations, Krishna Vigneshwaran Konda Krishnamurthy

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Recent corrosion failures of tendons in Florida post-tensioned (PT) bridges utilizing low bleed specified grout products have shown the need for better understanding of the mechanisms that cause corrosion and to determine the extent of the problem in PT tendons with similar materials. Those deficient grouts in the tendons showed low chloride content below commonly assumed threshold limits for corrosion initiation, but they showed higher concentrations of sulfate ions, high pore water pH and higher moisture content. The role of enhanced sulfate ion concentrations in the development of steel corrosion in deficient grout has not been elucidated, but the role …

On The Role Of The Pore Water Chemistry Of Deficient Post-Tension Grout To Promote Steel Corrosion, Samanbar Permeh

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Corrosion failure of post-tension tendons with pre-packaged thixotropic grout was documented in Florida Bridges in less than 10 years of service. Analysis of deficient grout in Florida post-tensioned (PT) bridges where severe corrosion developed indicated enhanced sulfate ion concentration, high pore water pH, enhanced moisture and low chloride content. The corrosion wasn’t consistent with the conventional causes of steel corrosion such as bleed water accumulation in grout void spaces, chloride contamination and pore water carbonation. Corrosion development was associated with deficient grout with enhanced sulfate levels. However, limited information is available on the corrosion behavior of PT strand in grout …

Maximizing Environmental Sustainability And Public Benefits Of Highway Construction Programs, Charinee Limsawasd

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Transportation agencies face a challenging task to repair damaged roads in an aging transportation network with limited funding. In addition, the funding gap is forecasted to continue widening, which has direct impacts on the performance of surface transportation networks and the nation’s economy in the long run. Recently, transportation agencies were required by a newly enacted law to include national performance-based goals, such as environmental sustainability, in their programming and planning efforts for highway repair and rehabilitation. Therefore, the current practice in the area of highway rehabilitation planning is inadequate to handle this task and new practices are needed to …

Impacts Of User Heterogeneity And Attitudinal Factors On Roadway Pricing Analysis - Investigation Of Value Of Time And Value Of Reliability For Managed Lane Facilities In South Florida, Md Sakoat Hossan

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Managed lane refers to the application of various operational and design strategies on highway facilities to improve system efficiency and mobility by proactively allocating traffic capacity to different lanes. One of the key elements to understand the behavior changes and underlying causalities in user responses to managed lanes is to examine the value of time (VOT) and value of reliability (VOR). The breadth of this dissertation encompasses two major dimensions of VOT and VOR estimation – distributions or variations across different users and under different circumstances; and influences of unobserved attitudinal characteristics on roadway pricing valuation.

To understand travelers’ choice …