Engineering Commons^™

Transportation System Performance And Traveler Behavior In The Context Of A Systemwide Shock: Applications Of Data Science Toward A Sustainable Future, A. Latif Patwary

Doctoral Dissertations

The COVID-19 pandemic, a systemwide shock, has left a long-lasting and significant impact on transportation systems. It has contributed to a shift in travel behavior, with many people turning to work from home (WFH) and online shopping. This shift has led to a reduction in vehicular travel. However, the pandemic witnessed increased crash fatalities despite a reduction in overall crashes, disproportionately affecting disadvantaged communities (DACs). The main question arising from these pandemic-related issues is what we can learn to improve transportation systems and shape future travel behavior. Therefore, this dissertation aims to investigate how the transportation system changed during COVID-19 …

Improving Mobility And Safety In Traditional And Intelligent Transportation Systems Using Computational And Mathematical Modeling, Shahrbanoo Rezaei

Doctoral Dissertations

In traditional transportation systems, park-and-ride (P&R) facilities have been introduced to mitigate the congestion problems and improve mobility. This study in the second chapter, develops a framework that integrates a demand model and an optimization model to study the optimal placement of P&R facilities. The results suggest that the optimal placement of P&R facilities has the potential to improve network performance, and reduce emission and vehicle kilometer traveled. In intelligent transportation systems, autonomous vehicles are expected to bring smart mobility to transportation systems, reduce traffic congestion, and improve safety of drivers and passengers by eliminating human errors. The safe operation …

Evaluating Impacts Of Shared E-Scooters From The Lens Of Sustainable Transportation, Nitesh Shah

Doctoral Dissertations

As the popularity of shared micromobility is increasing worldwide, city governments are struggling to regulate and manage these innovative travel technologies that have several benefits, including increasing accessibility, reducing emissions, and providing affordable travel options. This dissertation evaluates the impacts of shared micromobility from the perspective of sustainable transportation to provide recommendations to decision-makers, planners, and engineers for improving these emerging travel technologies.

The dissertation focuses on four core aspects of shared micromobility as follows: 1) Safety: I evaluated police crash reports of motor vehicle involving e-scooter and bicycle crashes using the most recent PBCAT crash typology to provide a …

Fundamental Investigation Of Interaction Between Moisture And Asphalt-Aggregate Systems, Rui Xiao

Doctoral Dissertations

Moisture-induced damage is one of the most common forms of flexible pavement distress which directly causes or exacerbates pavement failure. The intrusion of moisture into the asphalt pavements reduces the overall mechanical properties of the locking structures and gives rise to one or more of the visible forms of distress such as raveling, stripping, permanent deformation and fatigue cracking. This doctoral study is aimed at understanding the detrimental action of water on the asphalt-aggregate systems and the damage mechanism by multi-technique investigation. A thermodynamics framework was considered to characterize the properties of asphalt mix ingredients as well as the engineering …

Emerging Trends In Bus Ridership In The United States, Abubakr Ziedan

Doctoral Dissertations

Public transit ridership in the United States was declining even before the COVID-19 pandemic. Many different factors affect transit ridership levels, and the recent declines in ridership across the country make it critical to assess which factors are causing declines and which may help to increase ridership. Therefore, this dissertation seeks to quantify the impact of three emerging factors on bus ridership: shared electric scooters (e-scooters), new fare payment technologies and policies, and the COVID-19 pandemic.

This dissertation analyzed the impacts of shared e-scooters on bus ridership. This was investigated at the route level in Louisville, KY, and Nashville, TN, …

A Study Of Readiness For Transportation Electrification And Automation Focusing On Safety And Future Adoption, Steve Lee

Doctoral Dissertations

Transportation electrification and automation are growing societal trends and considered promising pathways to enhance the safety, mobility, efficiency, and sustainability of the surface transportation system. At this early stage of transportation electrification and automation, one of the most critical issues is whether and to what extent people are willing to adopt electric vehicle (EV) and automated vehicle (AV) technologies in the future. Another critical issue, especially concerning transportation automation, is how to thoroughly ensure the safety of automated driving performance to resolve safety concerns about AVs, which is one of the key challenges to AV adoption. In this regard, the …

Using Heuristic Methods And Machine Learning To Enhance The Positional Accuracy Of Historical Geospatial Datasets, Pankaj Mani Dahal

Doctoral Dissertations

The recent availability of multiple geospatial datasets can be attributed to advancements in location-based technologies. The merging of various datasets, commonly known as conflation, is essential to strengthening the content of existing datasets by integrating information from various sources. However, complexities arise when these merged datasets contain distinct representations of the same real-world entities with differing accuracy, projections, data structure, and consideration of details. Although conflation has been an interest to researchers for a long time, the existing methods do not cater to the specific needs of some datasets. For example, historical datasets have lower resolution with richer attribute information, …

Analyzing Appropriate Policy Factors To Stimulate Zero Emission Vehicle (Zev) Population Growth In California To Achieve The State’S Overall Climate And Environmental Goals, Toks A. Omishakin

Doctoral Dissertations

The objective of this dissertation research is to assess critical policy factors that will need to be adjusted to stimulate significant increases in the adoption of Zero-Emission Vehicles (ZEV) in California to support the state's aggressive climate and environmental goals. Currently, California in comparison to the other 49 states has the United States' worst Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GHG) coming from its transportation sector. Also, within the state, transportation is ahead of all other economic sectors, including agriculture, electricity generation, and even industrial pollution in creating poor air quality. California in recent years has set aggressive targets to both decreases GHG’s …

University Of Tennessee Outdoor Cultural And Recreational Center, Meredith King

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

University Of Tennessee Outdoor Cultural And Recreational Center, Meredith King

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Exploring Potential Impacts Of Connected And Automated Vehicle Technologies, Iman Mahdinia

Doctoral Dissertations

Connected and automated vehicle technologies have the potential to significantly improve transportation system performance. In particular, advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS), such as adaptive cruise control (ACC), cooperative adaptive cruise control (CACC), pedestrian crash prevention (PCP) system, and advanced automated collision notification (ACN) system may lead to substantial improvements in performance by decreasing driver inputs and taking over control of the vehicle. The main questions that might arise are 1) how we can quantify the potential environmental and safety impacts of these technologies and 2) what the potential for these technologies is to address some of the important transportation-related problems. Due …

A Multilevel Study Of Driving Behavior And System Performance- Harnessing Large-Scale Naturalistic Driving And Conventional Safety Data, Amin Mohammadnazar

Doctoral Dissertations

The performance of a transportation system highly depends on the drivers’ behavior because driving behavior is one of the main causes of traffic accidents and one of the key factors in fuel consumption and vehicle emissions studies. Specifically, the focus of this dissertation is on aggressive driving who not only put their selves and others at risk but also contribute more to greenhouse gas emissions. Recently, the development of advanced sensors, connected vehicles (CVs), location-based services (LBS) provided unprecedented access to new high-resolution microscopic-level data which can be used to evaluate and monitor instantaneous driving behavior and safety performance of …

Using Survey Data To Understand Ridesourcing In Tennessee: Who, Where, When, And Why?, Cassidy Kilmer Crossland

Masters Theses

With companies like Uber and Lyft leading the way, ridesourcing has grown and continues to grow in popularity in the United States since its introduction just over ten years ago. While research on this new transportation mode has largely focused on national level trends and studies of large metropolitan areas, little has been written about its impacts in smaller and mid-sized cities and states. This paper aims to understand the socioeconomic characteristics and travel behavior trends of those using ridesourcing in less studied regions, using Tennessee as a case study. This thesis has three parts: a literature review of past …

Application Of Crowdsourced Data In Transportation Operations And Safety, Nima Hoseinzadeh

Doctoral Dissertations

Crowdsourcing refers to the acquisition of data from users who contribute their information via smartphone, social media, or the internet. In transportation systems, crowdsourcing turns users into real-time sensors, providing data on traffic speed, travel time, mile traveled, incidents, roadway conditions, weather severity, irregularities in traffic patterns, and hazards. These data can be collected actively or passively in quantitative or qualitative forms. With the emergence of smartphones and navigation apps, crowdsourced data are gaining increased attention in transportation. Crowdsourced data have advantages over traditional fixed-location sensors and camera monitoring: low implementation costs, extended geographic coverage, high resolution, real-time application, increased …

Exploring The Potentials Of Using Crowdsourced Waze Data In Traffic Management: Characteristics And Reliability, Zhihua Zhang

Doctoral Dissertations

Real-time traffic information is essential to a variety of practical applications. To obtain traffic data, various traffic monitoring devices, such as loop detectors, infrastructure-mounted sensors, and cameras, have been installed on road networks. However, transportation agencies have sought alternative data sources to monitor traffic, due to the high installation and maintenance cost of conventional data collecting methods. Recently, crowdsourced traffic data has become available and is widely considered to have great potential in intelligent transportation systems. Waze is a crowdsourcing traffic application that enables users to share real-time traffic information. Waze data, including passively collected speed data and actively reported …

Faith Promise Lane: From Cherahala Boulevard To Tn-162 Mp 1.9, Zachary W. Jerome

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Investigating The Addition Of Suicide Prevention Barriers To The Natchez Trace Parkway Bridge, Jaideep Thota, Nancy Abdo, Payne Susong, Connor Campbell, Joseph Allston, Meet Patel

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Physical Information Incorporated Clustering Techniques And Their Applications In Transportation Information System, Yang Zhang

Doctoral Dissertations

Massive data from different sources are becoming available in transportation field, and spurring new research on utilizing these data to nurture new intelligent transportation information systems. Clustering algorithms are among the methods that are being applied to the domain but facing challenges. Classical clustering algorithms work fine with \point" based data, which are homogeneous and have no extra constraints. Data in transportation are sometimes involved with specific geometric shapes, have underlying constraints, and can be heterogeneous. There has been no clustering algorithm dedicated to these situations.

In this dissertation, we re-examine the mathematical foundation and underlying philosophy of hierarchical, density …

Evaluation Of Increased Targeted Enforcement And Community-Based Outreach And Education Programs To Increase Nighttime Seatbelt Use In East Tennessee, Kwaku Frimpong Boakye

Doctoral Dissertations

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death among people aged 1-54 in the United Sates. In 2015, the number of motor-vehicle deaths on U.S. roadways totaled 35,092, a 7% increase from 2014 (32,744). Though lower gas prices and increased vehicle mileage combined with risky driving behaviors (e.g. speeding, driving while texting) account for the increased fatality rate, seatbelt non-use has been a significant contributory factor. It is estimated that nearly half (48%) of passenger vehicle occupants involved in fatal crashes each year are unrestrained.

In a recent 2014 report …

Role Of Multiagency Response And On-Scene Times In Large-Scale Traffic Incidents, Xiaobing Li, Behram Wali

Faculty Publications and Other Works -- Civil & Environmental Engineering

Traffic incidents, often known as nonrecurring events, impose enormous economic and social costs. Compared with short-duration incidents, large-scale incidents can substantially disrupt traffic flow by blocking lanes on highways for long periods. A careful examination of large-scale traffic incidents and associated factors can assist with actionable largescale incident management strategies. For such an analysis, a unique and comprehensive 5-year incident database on East Tennessee roadways was assembled to conduct an in-depth investigation of large-scale incidents, especially focusing on operational responses, that is, response and on-scene times by various agencies. Incidents longer than 120 min and blocking at least one lane …

Using Naturalistic Data For Bicycle Safety Analysis: An Application Of Cyclephilly Data To Assess Wrong-Way Riding, Nirbesh Dhakal

Masters Theses

This study focuses on wrong-way riding and associated route-choice determinants of wrong-way riding. I present this application as a case study of the many types of analysis that are possible with emerging naturalistic datasets that are not limited to conventional methods (e.g., vehicle counters). I used a dataset generated from a smartphone application, CyclePhilly, that measures rider location second-by-second in Philadelphia. The dataset covers 12,202 trips by 300 unique CyclePhilly users collected from May 2014 through April 2016. The data also includes information on socio-economics of the rider, as well as cycling experience. I merged this dataset with complementary network …

Enhancing License Plate Matching Algorithm: A New Evaluation Measurement And Threshold Determination, Brandon Cole Whetsel

Masters Theses

The process of license plate matching has continued to improve over the last decade, moving from manually intensive to automated. The text-mining technique of edit distance has been crucial to this improvement. Edit distance is not without limitations, such as determining a threshold, intuitiveness of the measurement, and character length issues.

This paper proposes an alternative evaluation method for determining plate matches. The method utilizes conditional probability rules to calculate the likelihood that two plates are a match. The alternative method is not a replacement for the traditional edit distance calculation, but rather an additional tool for practitioners. Depending on …

Errors And Truths From Transportation Data Aggregation: Some Implications For Research And Practice, Hyeonsup Lim

Doctoral Dissertations

Data aggregation, which is a process to combine information by defined groups for statistical analysis, summary, data size reduction, or other purposes, has fundamental challenges, such as loss of the original information. Improper data aggregation, such as sampling bias or incorrect calculation of average, may cause misreading of information. In first chapter, it is revealed that the harmonic mean, which is used to calculate space mean speed for fixed segment, has a sampling bias, i.e., overestimation with small samples. The several impact analyses show that the sampling bias is affected by sampling rate, time interval, segment length, and distribution type. …

Evaluation Of The Hot Mix Asphalt Compactability Utilizing The Impact Compaction Method, Pawel Andrzej Polaczyk

Masters Theses

This study investigates possibility of utilizing an accelerometer to evaluate compactability of Hot Mix Asphalt compacted with an impact hammer. For over 50 years Marshall Asphalt Mix Design has been the principal choice for asphalt mix designers around the world. Although the United States has almost entirely moved to Superpave Mix Design, the rest of the world nations still choose the Marshall Method. The investigation was conducted with the accelerometer placed on the falling mass of the Marshall Hammer and acceleration data was stored and analyzed. Data obtained from the accelerometer was filtered and the asphalt mix response after each …

Sidewalk Infrastructure Improvements Design For Calhoun, Tn, Liam Marten Weaver, Bailee Young, Brian Walker, Mark Nichols, Marquise Webb, Trenton Smith

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Sidewalk Infrastructure Improvements Design For Calhoun, Tn, Bailee Young, Mark Nichols, Trenton Smith, Brian Walker, Liam Weaver, Marquise Webb

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

The Economic Implications Of Evolving Aviation Funding Policy In Tennessee, Hunter Pressley Mccracken

Masters Theses

The majority of state funding for capital improvements at Tennessee’s general aviation and commercial airports comes through grants awarded from the Tennessee Transportation Equity Trust Fund (TETF). Through a 4.5 percent sales and use tax on the consumption of aviation fuel, users help to fund the continued improvement and maintenance of aviation facilities around the state. Aircraft refueling operations associated with the FedEx “SuperHub” in Memphis were responsible for two-thirds of the TETF’s revenue for Fiscal Year 2014. In response to speculation that FedEx would relocate its refueling operations to reduce its fuel tax liability, the Tennessee General Assembly passed …

Modeling Route Choice Of Utilitarian Bikeshare Users From Gps Data, Ranjit Khatri

Masters Theses

This research examines the behavior of bikeshare users from Grid Bikeshare Program in Phoenix, Arizona under two behavioral frameworks: facility usage assessment and route choice assessment. The analysis is performed for the two different categories of subscribers: registered and casual subscribers. This is the first study that uses the real-time GPS data from bikeshare users to model their route preferences. The data used for this study were obtained from 9,101 trips made by 1,866 bikeshare. An important aspect of this bikeshare is that it allows non-station origin and destinations. The GPS points collected from the trips made by bikeshare users …

Non-Residential Pedestrian Access To Transit Systems: A Gis Modeling Application, Luis Miguel Taboada

Masters Theses

The success of a city’s urban transit system relies on the efficacy of its pedestrian infrastructure. A functional and access-oriented pedestrian network translates into safer pedestrian travel, increased demand in transit ridership, increases in commerce patronage, and reduced motorized travel (i.e., less congestion, and less vehicle emissions). Prioritization and allocation of sidewalk construction improvements are not always done in conjunction with transit service provisions. As a result, potential destinations are left inaccessible to pedestrians using the transit system. This study is motivated by concurrent research involving sidewalk improvement prioritization methods, within the scope of home-based work pedestrian transit trips. This …

Cleveland Sidewalk Studies: Plan For Blythe Avenue Area Sidewalk Extension To 20th Street Se And Plan For Neighborhood Connector Sidewalks To Wildwood Avenue, Thuy Trieu, Kelly Nicholas, Scott Rice, Michael Williams, Heath Sain, Jonathan Reagan

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.