Digital Commons Network^™

Recession Emerges As The Most Like Scenario, Eric Thompson

Business in Nebraska

The U.S. economy faces the prospect of a second recession as the Federal Reserve Bank continues to raise interest rates to confront inflationary forces. These forces include elevated asset prices and a wage-price spiral. Further interest rate increases are likely given a challenging environment to reduce inflation. Challenges include limited migration and a slow-growing labor force, trade restrictions, regulatory restrictions that limit energy production and raise the minimum wage as well as excessive federal government spending. Federal spending through the CARES Act, Coronavirus Supplemental Appropriations Act, American Rescue Plan, and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act continue to fuel excess demand. …

Vulnerable Road User Mobility Assistance Platform (Vru-Map), Justin Owens, Andrew Miller

Center for Advanced Transportation Mobility

This report documents the development of a prototype Vulnerable Road User Mobility Assistance Platform (VRU-MAP), a novel effort to conceptualize and develop a navigation solution directed toward the needs of people with disabilities (PWD). PWD represent about 15% of the world’s population and disproportionately face barriers to transportation, which represents a critical component to daily life, relative to people without disabilities. One barrier to transportation is the lack of dedicated walking navigation solutions; while smartphones and other GPS implementations have made walking directions from location to location nearly universally obtainable, these generally do not provide routing that takes into account …

Addressing Forced Labor In Supply Chains In California, Kezban Yagci Sokat

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Transportation plays a key role in combating human trafficking and California is monumental in understanding this role. This paper presents one element of research undertaken for United States Department of Transportation for understanding the role of transportation in combating human trafficking in California through a survey of multi-disciplinary anti-trafficking practitioners followed by a semi-structured interview. This paper focuses on forced labor and supply chain management. It presents general knowledge on forced labor issues in California and globally, the intersection with transportation, efforts to combat forced labor in the supply chains, and experts’ suggestions on how to address forced labor. The …

Multilevel Correlates Of Domain-Specific Physical Activity Among Rural Adults - A Cross-Sectional Study, Alan M Beck, Natalicio H Serrano, Audrey Toler, Ross C Brownson

2020-Current year OA Pubs

BACKGROUND: Increasing physical activity (PA) in rural communities is a vital prevention tactic in multiple chronic diseases; however, little is known on the multilevel correlates of PA rural areas. A better understanding of domain-specific PA adds context for promoting PA in rural communities. The current study sought to determine factors associated with domain-specific and overall moderate-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) in rural communities.

METHODS: Surveys were conducted across 14 rural mid-Western communities, with the final analytical sample including 1241 adults (ages 19-96, M = 57.0 [SD = 16.7], 67.8% female, 83.8% white). Generalized linear models with negative binomial distributions examined the …

Strengthening The Southern Nevada Workforce Pipeline, Katie M. Gilbertson

Policy Briefs and Reports

This report analyzes the Southern Nevada employment ecosystem by utilizing occupational clusters recognized by the U.S. Department of Labor. The first section examines occupations in the tourism industry using three occupational clusters: hospitality and leisure; arts, audio/video technology and communications; and the transportation, distribution, and logistics. Next, this report utilizes the Las Vegas Global Economic Alliance’s 2022 Workforce Blueprint to identify the top 15 in-demand occupations for Southern Nevada and occupational clusters. A case study of the MGM College Opportunity Program (COP) is presented to demonstrate an existing workforce training program that promotes upward mobility of leisure and hospitality employees …

Transit Equity: Trends In Commuting Among The Employed Population In New York City, 1990-2019, Beiyi Hu

Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies

Introduction:

This report examines key trends in commuting among the employed population in New York City between 1990 and 2019.

Methods:

This report uses the American Community Survey PUMS (Public Use Microdata Series) data for all years released by the Census Bureau and reorganized for public use by the Minnesota Population Center, University of Minnesota, IPUMSusa, (https://usa.ipums.org/usa/index.shtml). See Public Use Microdata Series Steven Ruggles, J. Trent Alexander, Katie Genadek, Ronald Goeken, Matthew B. Schroeder, and Matthew Sobek. Integrated Public Use Microdata Series: Version 5.0 [Machine-readable database]. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 2021.

Discussion:

Between 1990 and 2019, most of the employed …

Commuting Times To Work In The United States, 1990-2018, Sebastián F. Villamizar Santamaría

Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies

Introduction:

This report documents the evolution of commuting times in the United States between 1990 and 2018, focusing on disparities with respect to race and ethnicity, sex, marital status, income, and poverty status

Methods:

This report uses the American Community Survey PUMS (Public Use Microdata Series) data for all years released by the Census Bureau and reorganized for public use by the Minnesota Population Center, University of Minnesota, IPUMSusa, (https://usa.ipums.org/usa/index.shtml). See Public Use Microdata Series Steven Ruggles, J. Trent Alexander, Katie Genadek, Ronald Goeken, Matthew B. Schroeder, and Matthew Sobek. Integrated Public Use Microdata Series: Version 5.0 [Machine-readable database]. Minneapolis: …

Means Of Transportation To Work In The United States, 1990-2018, Sebastián F. Villamizar Santamaría

Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies

Introduction:

This report examines how people commuted to work in the United States between 1990 and 2018, focusing on disparities with respect to race and ethnicity, sex, marital status, income, and poverty status

Methods:

This report uses the American Community Survey PUMS (Public Use Microdata Series) data for all years released by the Census Bureau and reorganized for public use by the Minnesota Population Center, University of Minnesota, IPUMSusa, (https://usa.ipums.org/usa/index.shtml). See Public Use Microdata Series Steven Ruggles, J. Trent Alexander, Katie Genadek, Ronald Goeken, Matthew B. Schroeder, and Matthew Sobek. Integrated Public Use Microdata Series: Version 5.0 [Machine-readable database]. Minneapolis: …

Law School News: Rewards Of The Road Less Traveled 10-13-2022, Michelle Choate

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Afrc Minutes 10/10/2022, Activity Fee Review Committee

Activity Fee Review Committee

No abstract provided.

Is There A Future For Arrivecan At The Land Border?, Andrzej Jakubowski, Laurie D. Trautman

Border Policy Research Institute Publications

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic led to the introduction of a number of restrictions as governments around the world sought to implement border management tools that could protect public health. One such example was the ArriveCAN app, introduced by the Government of Canada in November 2020. This advanced data submission tool aimed to reduce the spread of COVID-19 by ensuring arrivals were vaccinated and by facilitating contact tracing. This Border Policy Brief provides a summary of the nearly two-year use of ArriveCAN as a border management tool during the pandemic. We consider its impact on passenger flows through the …

The Commuting Patterns Of Older Adults, Yen Cong Wong, Yan Er Tan, Grace Cheong

ROSA Research Briefs

This research brief uses data from the Singapore Life Panel (SLP) and provides a general description of the commuting patterns of older adults in November 2021. By outlining the latter, we aim to provide some indication of whether Singapore’s transport infrastructure adequately supports the commute needs of older adults and how older adults’ commute fares against the Land Transport Authority (LTA) of Singapore’s Land Transport Master Plan (LTMP). Key findings: 1. Self-owned car (32.8%) was the most preferred mode of transport, followed by the public bus (25.3%), MRT (24.4%) and walking (8.3%). 2. In terms of utilization, public bus (50.3%), …

The True Cost Of Auto Insurance In The Mountain West, 2022, Annie Vong, Saha Salahi, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Transportation & Infrastructure

This fact sheet examines data on average annual premiums, percent of income spent on auto insurance, and life events associated with the rising cost of auto insurance in the Mountain West (Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah). The original report includes data on national averages for auto insurance premiums for all fifty states.

Hytch Rewards: Incentivizing Sustainable Behavior, Jeff Cohu

Faculty Publications

Mark Cleveland, Co-founder and CEO of Hytch Rewards, was facing a dilemma. His technology- based startup, Hytch Rewards, was at a critical juncture in the company launch. The company

had just recorded its best quarter in company history, but the pandemic had placed the company’s future in jeopardy. Mark pulled together his team of advisors and investors and asked the question, “Should we pause, pivot, or continue to pursue the launch of the company?”

The team came back equally divided among the three options. “Some of our group said we should stop development work and place the company on hold …

Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning For Traffic Signal Control Through Universal Communication Method, Qize Jiang, Minhao Qin, Shengmin Shi, Weiwei Sun Sun, Baihua Zheng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

How to coordinate the communication among intersections effectively in real complex traffic scenarios with multi-intersection is challenging. Existing approaches only enable the communication in a heuristic manner without considering the content/importance of information to be shared. In this paper, we propose a universal communication form UniComm between intersections. UniComm embeds massive observations collected at one agent into crucial predictions of their impact on its neighbors, which improves the communication efficiency and is universal across existing methods. We also propose a concise network UniLight to make full use of communications enabled by UniComm. Experimental results on real datasets demonstrate that UniComm …

Blockchain And Distributed Autonomous Community Ecosystems: Opportunities To Democratize Finance And Delivery Of Transport, Housing, Urban Greening And Community Infrastructure, William Riggs, Vipul Vyas, Menka Sethi

Mineta Transportation Institute

This report investigates and develops specifications for using blockchain and distributed organizations to enable decentralized delivery and finance of urban infrastructure. The project explores use cases, including: providing urban greening, street or transit infrastructure; services for street beautification, cleaning and weed or graffiti abatement; potential ways of resource allocation ADU; permitting and land allocation; and homeless housing. It establishes a general process flow for this blockchain architecture, which involves: 1) the creation of blocks (transactions); 2) sending these blocks to nodes (users) on the network for an action (mining) and then validation that that action has taken place; and 3) …

Phased Construction Bridges: Monitoring And Analysis For Traffic-Induced Vibration, Khalid Al-Kady, Christine E. Wittich, Richard L. Wood, George Morcous

Nebraska Department of Transportation: Research Reports

Phased construction is a common technique utilized to allow bridges to remain partially open to traffic throughout the construction process. The segment of the bridge deck that is constructed second cures under the effect of traffic-induced vibration transmitted from the adjacent bridge-deck segment, which is open to traffic. However, subjecting bridge decks to traffic-induced vibration during early-age curing raises concerns about the durability of the decks. The primary goal of this study is to generate a fundamental understanding of the transmission of traffic-induced vibration, the extent of degradation on phased construction bridge decks, and the impact of potential mitigation measures. …

Midweek Memo, Georgia Southern University

Midweek Memo

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Transportation Utility Fee To Fund Transit In California, Shishir Mathur, Ralph Robinson

Mineta Transportation Institute

Public transit is a key tool to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to combat climate change; improve safety for pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers; and expand accessibility and mobility for all. However, we can only realize this potential by making sufficient investments to provide transit service levels that attract and retain greater ridership. To help with this needed investment, a handful of local governments have turned to transportation utility fees (TUFs), primarily collected as a monthly charge on customers' utility bills or property tax bills. While more widely used to support street maintenance, this study identifies six case studies where TUF …

Midweek Memo, Georgia Southern University

Midweek Memo

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Nevada Economic Development And Public Policy 2022-2026: A Sustainable Future For All Nevadans, The Lincy Institute, Brookings Mountain West

Policy Briefs and Reports

This report evaluates economic development efforts in the State of Nevada since the 2011 publication of Unify, Regionalize, Diversify: An Economic Development Agenda for Nevada; assesses demographic and economic trends for Nevada and its regions; examines how state and federal actions since the onset of COVID-19 can position Nevada and its regions to address long-standing economic, educational, and social deficits; and offers policy recommendations to be implemented in the next four years to facilitate a sustainable future for all Nevadans.

Understanding Of Public Discuss On Equity Issues In Transportation Electrification Using Social Media Crowdsourcing Data, Anusha Sarraf

Discovery Undergraduate Interdisciplinary Research Internship

The Electric Vehicle industry has experienced recent sharp growth and expects to continue that. The primary goal of this project is to measure their popularity across different groups spread throughout the United States. The initial steps involved deciding the classification criteria, collecting data from over 250 public Twitter accounts using Twitter's API, and building a data set of those accounts. As the process continues, more data was added to establish uniformity in the data set and to reduce bias in the under-represented categories. This happend mainly because the number of private person accounts were greater in number than accounts from …

Transportation Equity Curriculum: Guidance Document, Tia Boyd, Kristine M. Williams, Carolyn Mcandrews, Yicong Yang, Anurag Pande, Shams Tanvir

Transportation Planning, Policy, and Processes (TP3) Final Reports

Transportation is needed to access jobs, food, health care, recreational and open spaces, and other important services and destinations. Equity in transportation planning helps to ensure equal access to affordable and reliable transportation, as well as fairness in the distribution of its benefits and burdens. Without inclusive processes, transportation planning can overlook the needs of and negatively impact low-income communities, minorities, persons with disabilities, older adults, children, and other traditionally underserved populations.

Many agencies and communities across the nation are seeking to address equity concerns and encourage livability, economic growth, and active transportation. Planning and transportation professionals must understand how …

City Planning For Sustainability, Lang Ng

Perspectives@SMU

Singapore strikes a balance between competing needs to address climate change challenges

Infrastructure Development And Gentrification: A Case Study Of The 2017 Q Line Extension In New York City, Harrison Shoaf

Honors College Theses

An examination of the 2017 Q Line subway extension in New York City and the potential causal relationship between its implementation and rental rates and gentrification in the surrounding area. Analysis of data covering the timeframe from 2007 to 2019 allows for utilization of OLS regression to determine if the area subject to the implementation experienced a change in rental rates and instigation of gentrification afterward compared to areas that were not subject to the implementation. Results indicate a decrease in rental rates (and by extent, no instigation of gentrification) in the area subject to the extension after it was …

An Investigation Of Water Obstructions And Related Weather Conditions For Nebraska Roadways, Logan Bundy

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Roadway resilience across the 10,000 miles of road and 3,500 bridges in Nebraska is critical to the economic success of production and logistics. In a state where historical flooding scenarios, such as the one in March 2019 that caused $150 million in damage, could potentially be increasing, it has become essential to understand the spatial and temporal distribution of high-frequency water obstruction areas on roadways. Using Nebraska Department of Transportation (NDOT) historical water obstruction data from June 2016 through August 2021, statistical and spatial analyses were conducted to quantify the relationship between water obstructions and their associated meteorological conditions, and …

Electric Vehicle (Ev) Infrastructure In The Mountain West, 2020-2021, Olivia K. Cheche, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Transportation & Infrastructure

This fact sheet highlights data on electric vehicles (EVs) and EV charging stations, as originally reported by Zutobi in The 2022 EV Charging Station Report. This report examines the presence of EV infrastructure across the United States. The Mountain West states of Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah are considered here.

The Rise Of Southern Nevada As A Cluster For Metropolitan Transit Technology Innovations, Arthur C. Nelson

Policy Briefs and Reports

Southern Nevada is emerging as the nation’s leader in private sector-driven innovations in transportation technologies. From the humble beginnings of a monorail system serving a portion of major hotel and gaming venues along the Las Vegas Strip, now supplemented by an array of people movers, Southern Nevada continues to attract transit innovations in tunneling, Hyperloop, and driverless vehicle delivery technologies. The region may soon anchor a high-speed rail system connecting Southern Nevada to Los Angeles. The purpose of this briefing paper is to frame the nature of this emerging transportation cluster and the opportunities this creates for Southern Nevada to …

Ccrpc Bicycle Count Data Analysis And Count Program Design Strategies, Gregory Rowangould, Eliana Fox, Rose O'Brien, Julia Clarke

University of Vermont Transportation Research Center

In 2017, the Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission (CCRPC) completed the most recent update of the region’s Active Transportation Plan (ATP) with the goal of creating “a safe, comfortable, and connected regional network of pedestrian and bicycle routes that appeal to all ages and abilities”. Developing a “robust” bicycle count program was one of the key non-infrastructure recommendations in the ATP (CCRPC, 2017). The UVM Transportation Research Center (“TRC”) was contracted to evaluate current bicycle data collection efforts in the region, identify gaps and limitations and make recommendations on how to develop a comprehensive bicycle count program that could better …

Which Transportation Technologies Do We Want?, Michael Lewyn

Scholarly Works

A review of Todd Litman's book, New Mobilities- Smart Planning for Emerging Transportation Technologies