Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Cargo Cycles For Local And Last Mile Delivery: Lessons From New York City, Alison Conway

PSU Transportation Seminars

Cities depend on safe and efficient goods movement to support community livability and a healthy economy. However, delivery of goods in an urban environment presents a tremendous challenge. Traditional motorized vehicles used for goods movement – ranging from cargo vans to box trucks - are inherently incompatible with (1) the multimodal street environments of modern cities, with clean, quiet conditions preferred by residents, and (2) larger environmental sustainability goals. As freight flows continue to grow with the demands of global trade, new urban freight and city logistics solutions are needed.

Cargo cycles – human powered cycles equipped with freight carrying …

Three Bridges, Robert Liberty

PSU Transportation Seminars

In the last decade, three important new bridges in the Portland area were the subject of intense discussion and analysis: the Tilikum Crossing, the Sellwood Bridge and the Columbia River Crossing. One of those bridges is completed, the second is under construction and the third one was canceled.

As a Metro Councilor, Robert Liberty was involved in the decision making process for all three projects. The way in which those projects were analyzed and presented to the public revealed to him a great deal about the many weaknesses in the way we make major transportation investment decisions. Those insights are …

Model-Based Analytics And Processes For Transportation Investment Alternatives Analyses: From Least Cost Planning To Multi Criterion Evaluation, Jeff Frkonja

PSU Transportation Seminars

Many public and private organizations that make decisions regarding whether and how to invest in transportation assets or programs do so via a structured decision-support process. This talk will address the technical aspects of the family of such processes that use travel demand model outputs—and other sources of quantified performance data—as inputs to analytic tools including benefit cost analysis (BCA) and multi criterion evaluation. Example applications of this framework have included tolling and pricing studies, capital investment alternatives analyses, and programmatic evaluations. Example processes include "Least Cost Planning" frameworks borrowed originally from the power generation industry.

The talk will also …

Examining The Right To Bicycle: Synergies And Tensions Between Human Rights, Civil Rights, And Planning For Cycling, Aaron Golub

PSU Transportation Seminars

Securing and expanding the broad right to bicycle, including the right to adequate and safe street space and related infrastructure for cycling along with other policies and protections for cyclists, is the obvious goal of cycling advocacy efforts in their various forms. All rights are situated within frameworks for promulgating and insuring they are honored, and the right to cycling is no different. This project investigates how the right to bicycle falls within various rights frameworks, focusing on broad human rights and civil rights frameworks while reflecting as well on traffic safety codes and transportation planning frameworks. While certain aspects …

The Trade-Offs Between Population Density And Households' Transportation-Housing Costs, Haizhong Wang

PSU Transportation Seminars

As metropolitan area governments and others promote density-promoting “smart growth” policies, finer analysis is needed to quantify the impact of such policies on households' transportation and housing costs. Existing research suggests that households in urban areas trade-off between housing costs and transportation costs, but does not explore how policies to increase urban densities might explicitly impact this balance. Furthermore, the research does not adequately distinguish between the effect of urban area density and the effects of other factors associated with urban area density (e.g metropolitan area size and household incomes) on housing costs. This research uses the 2000 Census Public …

The Backstory: How Livablestreets Advocates Changed Boston, Jeffrey Rosenblum

PSU Transportation Seminars

Local grassroots advocacy organizations play a critical role in shaping the future of cities but receive very little attention in research, especially insofar as understanding the most effective tactics that should be used by these organizations to achieve their objectives. When LivableStreets Alliance was founded in 2005, The City of Boston had 3/8 of one mile of bicycle lanes. Over the past decade, we have seen a sea change. Boston has published a nationally-recognized Complete Streets Guide, MassDOT has incorporated cycle-track designs into several federally-funded projects, and highway overpasses are slated for removal. What is LivableStreets’ role in shifting policy, …

Affordable Housing As A Prerequisite For A Safe, Healthy, Equitable Transportation System: Evidence From A Nationwide Evaluation Of Location Efficiency Within The Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (Lihtc) Program, Arlie Steven Adkins

PSU Transportation Seminars

Mountains of research over the last several decades show that how we get around and how much physical activity we get are closely linked with the built environment of the neighborhoods where we live. This means that the health, economic, and environmental benefits associated with active travel and transit are place-based and that affordable housing in walkable, location efficient places needs to be thought of as a critical component of planners’ efforts to provide safe, healthy, and equitable transportation systems. This talk will provide an overview of the links between affordable housing and transportation planning and present research findings from …

Evaluation Of A Shared Space Alternative In Morgantown, Wv, Avinash Unnikrishnan

PSU Transportation Seminars

Pedestrian and vehicle movement conflicts and the associated safety and efficiency issues have always been addressed in traffic engineering based on the principle of separation through bridges, tunnels, or signals. Pioneered by Hans Monderman, shared space is a new approach in transportation design which inverts this paradigm of separation and designs streets with no demarcations or access restrictions. Shared space has been implemented in a number of cases in Europe with improved efficiency and safety. This research focuses on a specific case study for analyzing the possible implementation of shared space in the United States on the West Virginia University …

The Green Loop Swpdx Workshop Project, Brian Gunn, Kate Washington, Jake Adams, Ashley Eaton, Mohd Meidiansyah

PSU Transportation Seminars

The Bureau of Planning and Sustainability proposes the construction of the Green Loop, a 10-mile linear public open space proposed in the West Quadrant Plan update that will further link the east and west sides of the Central City. In addition to physically affirming both sides of the river as part of the Central City, the Green Loop is expected to create a second ring of pedestrian and bicycle access, much like the East Bank Esplanade and Tom McCall Waterfront Park, that will draw activity to retail further from the river.

The Green Loop addresses both the City of Portland’s …

Transforming A Historic Highway In Small Town Mosier Into A Vibrant Main Street, Amanda Davidowitz, Kaleidoscope Student Planners

PSU Transportation Seminars

Kaleidoscope Student Planners, a group of six students in the Master’s of Urban and Regional Planning program at Portland State University, are working with Mosier, Oregon’s City Council to develop the Slow Mo’ Main Street Concept Plan. The goal for the project is to develop conceptual designs and programmatic recommendations for historic Highway 30 (which runs through the town), to help ensure that Mosier’s Main Street reflects community priorities, supports a thriving downtown, and creates a safe and inviting corridor for people traveling on foot, by bike and by motor vehicle. During this seminar we will reflect on our process …

New Fhwa Vmt Forecasts Implications For Local Planning, Andrew Mortensen

PSU Transportation Seminars

A summary of FHWA’s new national traffic trends assessment will be presented, including discussion of varied factors influencing forward-thinking forecasts. Examples of Oregon statewide vehicle miles travelled (VMT) and historic traffic trends from ATR stations in the Portland urban region and greater Willamette Valley will be highlighted. VMT, population and income data will be noted with implications on local transportation planning.

Development Of A Pedestrian Demand Estimation Tool: A Destination Choice Model, Christopher D. Muhs

PSU Transportation Seminars

There is growing support for improvements to the quality of the walking environment, including more investments to promote pedestrian travel. Planners, engineers, and others seek improved tools to estimate pedestrian demand that are sensitive to environmental and demographic factors at the appropriate scale in order to aid policy-relevant issues like air quality, public health, and smart allocation of infrastructure and other resources. Further, in the travel demand forecasting realm, tools of this kind are difficult to implement due to the use of spatial scales of analysis that are oriented towards motorized modes, vast data requirements, and computer processing limitations.

To …

Lighten Everyone's Load: Lidar Applications To Support Engineers, Planners, Scientists And More, Michael J. Olsen

PSU Transportation Seminars

Light detection and ranging (LIDAR) technology is reshaping the civil engineering profession and offers many unique advantages. National efforts such as the 3D Elevation Plan (3DEP) are helping increase the availability of LIDAR data. LIDAR is one of the crucial technologies that is transitioning the world of civil and construction engineering from 2D paper-based design to 3D digital design. The high spatial resolution and accuracy capabilities of LIDAR have led to increased efficiencies, improved analyses, and more informed decision making.

A further advantage of this dataset is that multiple people can use the same dataset for a variety …

Travel Decisions & Their Implications For Urban Transportation: From Campus Transportation To Statewide Modeling, Gulsah Akar

PSU Transportation Seminars

The ability to forecast future transportation patterns under a particular land-use scenario or urban form is key to making informed decisions at the local and regional levels.

Although several researchers have explored the links between the built environment, socio-demographics and travel behavior, a consensus is not reached.

This talk highlights two recent projects. The first project focuses on individuals’ attitudes towards transportation, neighborhood characteristics and their effects on campus commuters’ transit use, and addresses the question whether attitudes, the built environment or a combination of both explains the resulting transit use better.

The second part presents the Regional Land Use …

Using Multimodal Performance Measures To Prioritize Improvements On Us 101 In San Luis Obispo County, Jessica Berry

PSU Transportation Seminars

The US 101 Corridor Mobility Master Plan in San Luis Obispo was a two-year planning effort that evaluated the 70 mile corridor on 12 performance measures. This collaborative effort was led by the San Luis Obispo Council of Governments (SLOCOG).

Performance based planning is becoming more important for agencies receiving State and Federal funding. Smaller, rural regional agencies will have to find ways to collect, report, and use performance metrics with limited resources. SLOCOG's first performance-based planning effort was the US 101 Corridor Mobility Master Plan, funded through a State grant.

Funding for this project came from a …

Dash: The Portland Region's Next-Generation Activity-Based Model, Richard Walker

PSU Transportation Seminars

DASH is the next generation activity based model being developed by the Metro Research Center. Upon completion, it will be one of the most advanced in the nation. This model will be used extensively in estimating the activity and travel response of individuals to policies and infrastructure investments. Compared to past models, it will include enhanced consideration of the socio-economic roles of individuals, discrete temporal dynamics, and intra-household dependencies.

Geometric Design, Speed, And Safety, Richard J. Porter

PSU Transportation Seminars

In this seminar, Dr. Porter will explore the interactions of geometric design decisions, speed, and safety. A performance-based approach to this topic will be considered given the availability of several key documents, including the Highway Safety Manual and TRB's Modeling Operating Speed: Synthesis Report as well as a significant body of published research. A historical look at the design speed concept will show that while the design speed definition has changed on more than one occasion, the same basic but flawed philosophy that relates design speed to a “safe speed” is still reflected in supplemental guidance related to design speed …

The Sfpark Pilot: Using Data To Make Cities Better, Kathryn Doherty-Chapman

PSU Transportation Seminars

SFpark was a federally-funded pilot program of a new approach to managing parking in San Francisco. It utilized real time data to identify parking availability, and demand-responsive parking pricing to help make parking easier to find. Parking management is an invaluable transportation demand management tool and the SFpark pilot demonstrated how data can help cities make smarter decisions. Come hear about the pilot evaluation results from a former SFpark staffer and PSU alum.

Self-Organizing Signals: A Better Framework For Transit Signal Priority, Peter G. Furth

PSU Transportation Seminars

Actuated traffic signal control logic has many advantages because of its responsiveness to traffic demands, short cycles, effective use of capacity leading to and recovering from oversaturation, and amenability to aggressive transit priority. Its main drawback has been its inability to provide good progression along arterials. However, the traditional way of providing progression along arterials, coordinated-actuated control with a common, fixed cycle length, has many drawbacks stemming from its long cycle lengths, inflexibility in recovering from priority interruptions, and ineffective use of capacity during periods of oversaturation. This research explores a new paradigm for traffic signal control, “self-organizing signals,” based …

Empirical Evaluation Of Transit Signal Priority Through Fusion Of Heterogeneous Transit And Traffic Signal Data And Novel Performance Measures, Wei Feng

PSU Transportation Seminars

Transit signal priority (TSP) is designed to reduce delay for transit vehicles through signalized intersections. For an existing TSP system, it is important to assess how timely and effective TSP phases are granted to buses that request priority. It is also necessary to evaluate the time savings and delays for buses and other vehicles as a result of TSP phases. However, due to the lack of disaggregated and integrated transit, traffic and signal phase data, previous studies have not investigated the TSP performance at the phase level. This study collects and integrates three archived databases: bus automatic vehicle location (AVL) …

Active Transportation Research At Northern Arizona University, Edward J. Smaglik

PSU Transportation Seminars

Dr. Smaglik is currently working on three separate transportation research projects at Northern Arizona University. This talk will touch briefly on each of the three projects, the concepts behind them, workplans, and expected deliverables. The projects include work with the Oregon DOT on the impact of less than optimal vehicle detection on adaptive control algorithms, development of a ped priority algorithm through a NITC project (as a Portland State subcontractor), and internally funded work on a power harvesting traffic sensor.

Crowdsourcing Cycling Safety And Route Data With The “Orcycle” Smartphone App, Miguel Figliozzi

PSU Transportation Seminars

ORcycle is a new smartphone application (for both Android and iOS) developed by Transportation, Technology, and People (TTP) lab researchers at Portland State University as part of an Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) research project. ORcycle collects user, route, infrastructure, crash, and safety data. ORcycle was successfully launched in early November 2014 and presents many improvements over existing or similar apps. Initial data findings and insights will be presented. Lessons learned as well as opportunities and challenges associated with smartphone data collection methods will be discussed. More information about the app can be found here: http://www.pdx.edu/transportation-lab/orcycle.

Transportation System Impacts On Bicyclists' Air Pollution Risks: Considerations For System Design And Use, Alexander Y. Bigazzi, Miguel Figliozzi, James F. Pankow, Wentai Luo

PSU Transportation Seminars

Health risks associated with air pollution uptake while bicycling are often cited as a potential drawback to increased bicycling in cities. This seminar will provide an overview of how roadway and travel characteristics impact bicyclists' uptake of traffic-related air pollution. Specific considerations for planners and designers of urban transportation systems to mitigate risks for travelers will be discussed. In addition, the extent to which bicyclists themselves can unilaterally reduce their pollution uptake will be described. This seminar synthesizes findings from a recently completed doctoral dissertation at Portland State University and from the broader literature.

Factors Associated With The Bicycle Commute Use Of Newcomers: Analysis Of The 70 Largest U.S. Cities, Ryan Dann

PSU Transportation Seminars

Bicycling is known to produce benefits for cities, in regards to reducing levels of congestion, generating positive health outcomes, and providing affordable transportation options to low-income families. Conventional analysis of urban bicycle commuting does not currently consider the importance of separating migrant, or “newcomer,” bicycle commute use from pre-existing resident bicycle commute use. The goal of this paper is to provide additional information on individual, social, and environmental factors that influence newcomer bicycle use for commuting purposes. This cross-sectional study used data from the 2007-2011 American Community Survey (5-year Estimates) to analyze the bicycle commute use of newcomers in the …

The Theory Of Travel Decision-Making: A Conceptual Framework Of Active Travel Behavior, Patrick Allen Singleton

PSU Transportation Seminars

We present a unifying conceptual framework of active travel behavior called the theory of travel decision-making. It integrates seminal travel-related concepts from economics, geography, and psychology with active travel behavior theories and empirical research. The framework abstracts an individual’s thought process around short-term travel decisions and explains the roles of activities, built environment factors, socio-demographics, attitudes and perceptions, and habit. Our primary objective is to inform travel behavior research by meeting the need for a theoretical framework capable of guiding studies on active transportation. The framework could also support active transportation planning and analysis methods by informing the development of …

Who Uses Peer-To-Peer Carsharing? Early Exploration, Anaïs Mathez

PSU Transportation Seminars

Peer-to-peer (P2P) carsharing is a system where a facilitating company connects car owners to car renters. Such systems are relatively new in the U.S. This paper aims to understand who is participating in P2P carsharing as a renter (as opposed to as an owner), why they join, whether and how often they rent vehicles, and why. Exploring these questions may provide insight on the potential for P2P carsharing to meet public policy objectives of reducing the impacts of personal vehicle ownership and use and providing mobility options for underserved populations. The analysis is based on 465 study participants who enrolled …

Leveraging Signal Infrastructure For Non-Motorized Counts In A Statewide Program: A Pilot Study, Bryan Philip Blanc

PSU Transportation Seminars

Transportation agencies are beginning to explore and develop non-motorized counting programs. This paper presents the results of a pilot study testing the use of existing signal infrastructure – 2070 signal controllers with advanced software to log pedestrian phase actuations and detections from bicycle lane inductive loops – to count pedestrians and bicycles. The pilot study was conducted at a typical suburban signalized intersection with heavy motorized traffic that was instrumented on all four approaches with pedestrian push buttons and advance inductive loops in the bicycle lane for signal operation. One day (24 hours) of video data were collected as ground …

Influential Vectors In Fuel Consumption By An Urban Bus Operator, João De Abreu E Silva

PSU Transportation Seminars

In an era of reduced government funding, transit operators struggle to reduce operating costs and increase revenues. Energy costs account for an important share of the total costs of urban and suburban bus operators. Using a case study of one operator in Lisbon, Portugal, this talk will expand upon the empirical research on bus transit operation costs and identify the key factors that influence the energy efficiency of the overall bus fleet. Our results of a multivariate analysis find the following dimensions influence transit energy efficiency: vehicle type, commercial speed, road grades and bus routes; and to a lesser extent …