Engineering Commons^™

An Application Of Spatially Based Crash Analyses And Road Safety Investigations To Increase Older Driver Safety, Deanna A. Peabody

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

Arguably the greatest issue facing the transportation profession is the ability to provide social equity with regards to both safety and mobility given the aging population. Given the overall dominance of the automobile within the transportation system, the ability to provide feasible alternatives is daunting. This fact, when coupled with the well-documented challenges of older drivers, underscores the need for improved safety features and system-wide safety approaches with a focus on the older driver. This paper describes an application of spatial crash analysis and road safety investigations that were employed in Massachusetts with a direct focus on the older driver. …

Evaluating Alternative Toll-Based Financing Approaches: A Case Study Of The Boston Metropolitan Area, Rosaria M. Berliner

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

The current condition of the nation’s transportation system is of great concern to State Departments of Transportation. Currently, funds in many state transportation budgets are depleting. Nowadays, State DOT officials together with researchers are exploring various transportation financing approaches and they are considering the utility, merits, challenges, and impacts of these approaches.

A major financing approach being considered relies on the collection of tolls on existing toll roads and on roads on which tolls are not presently collected. Recent technology advancements in Open Road Tolling and All-Electronic Tolling have provided State DOTs with the opportunity to consider expanding the use …

Safety And Operational Assessment Of Gap Acceptance Through Large-Scale Field Evaluation, Steven Maxwell Tupper

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

Given that “driver error” is cited as a contributing factor in 93 percent of all crashes, understanding driver behavior is an essential element in mitigating the crash problem. Among the more dangerous roadway elements are unsignalized intersections where drivers’ gap acceptance behavior is strongly correlated to the operational and safety performance of the intersection. While a basic understanding of drivers’ gap acceptance behavior exists, several unanswered questions remain.

Previous work has attempted to address some of these questions, however to date the research has been somewhat limited in scope and scale due to the challenges of collecting high fidelity gap …