Urban Studies and Planning Commons^™

Relationship Between Road Network Characteristics And Traffic Safety, Hatim Sharif, Samer Dessouky

Publications

The Transportation and Capital Improvement of the City of San Antonio, Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) and other related agencies often make several efforts based on traffic data to improve safety at intersections, but the number of intersection crashes is still on the high side. There is no one size fits all solution for intersections and the City is often usually confronted with doing best value option analysis on different solutions to choose the least expensive yet more advancements. The goal of this project was to obtain the relationship between road network characteristics and public safety with a focus on …

Prioritizing Suitable Locations For Green Stormwater Infrastructure Based On Social Factors In Philadelphia, Zachary Christman, Mahbubur Meenar, Lynn Mandarano, Kyle Hearing

School of Earth & Environment Faculty Scholarship

Municipalities across the United States are prioritizing green stormwater infrastructure (GSI) projects due to their potential to concurrently optimize the social, economic, and environmental benefits of the “triple bottom line”. While placement of these features is often based on biophysical variables regarding the natural and built environments, highly urbanized areas often exhibit either limited data or minimal variability in these characteristics. Using a case study of Philadelphia and building on previous work to prioritize GSI features in disadvantaged communities, this study addresses the dual concerns of the inequitable benefits of distribution and suitable site placement of GSI using a model …

Evaluation Of The Erodibility Of Soft Clays And The Influence Of Biopolymers, Pamela Judge

Doctoral Dissertations

Erosion of silts and clays is less well understood than erosion of sands. Further, current and anticipated climate change impacts along coastlines compel consideration of new approaches to coastal protection measures; seawalls and breakwaters designs now include natural and nature-based measures. The first research topic consists of the Adaptive Gradients Framework which was a theoretically-informed facilitation tool. The framework was intended to aid a collaborative and interdisciplinary decision-making process to encourage inclusion of natural and nature-based measures in coastal protection planning and design. This research is the culmination of a series of workshops and fieldtrips executed by the Sustainable Adaptive …

Webinar: Addressing Bicycle-Vehicle Conflicts With Alternate Signal Control Strategies, Sirisha Kothuri

TREC Webinar Series

There is nationwide interest in supporting sustainable and active transportation modes such as bicycling and walking due to the many benefits associated with them, including reduced congestion, lower emissions and improved health. Although the number of bicyclists is increasing, safety remains a top concern. In urban areas, a common crash type involving bicycles at intersections is the “right hook” where a right-turning vehicle collides with a through bicyclist. While geometric treatments and pavement markings have been studied, there is a lack of research on signal timing treatments to address right-hook bicycle-vehicle conflicts.

Addressing Bicycle-Vehicle Conflicts with Alternate Signal Control Strategies …

Data From: Market Segment Prediction Tool, Philip L. Winters, Amy Lester

TREC Datasets and Databases

Social marketing seeks to develop and integrate marketing concepts with other approaches to influence behaviors that benefit individuals and communities for the greater social good. Social marketing is a useful transportation demand management (TDM) planning approach to promote travel-behavior change, and combines at least seven distinguishing features that sets it apart from other popular, behavior-change planning approaches, such as education and mass media campaigns. These seven features include a focus on socially beneficial behavior change; a strong consumer orientation; the use of audience segmentation techniques and the selection of target audiences; the use of marketing’s conceptual framework (marketing mix and …

Measuring Landscape Performance: Case Study Investigation, Hannah Michelle Lopresto, Brandon Zambrano, Catherine De Almeida

UCARE Research Products

Participating in the Landscape Architecture Foundation’s 2018 Case Study Investigation has been an incredibly informative experience for our research team at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. We are eager to shine a spotlight on the landscape performance of two Great Plains projects: P Street Corridor, a revitalized downtown streetscape in Lincoln, Nebraska, and Tom Hanafan River’s Edge Park, a waterfront redevelopment in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Working on the post-occupancy study of both projects has been extremely beneficial in understanding how reclaiming underutilized sites can create high-performing landscapes. Both are public projects in urban settings with primary goals of transforming formerly unpleasant, …

Connected Autonomous Vehicles: Capacity Analysis, Trajectory Optimization, And Speed Harmonization, Amir Ghiasi

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Emerging connected and autonomous vehicle technologies (CAV) provide an opportunity to improve highway capacity and reduce adverse impacts of stop-and-go traffic. To realize the potential benefits of CAV technologies, this study provides insightful methodological and managerial tools in microscopic and macroscopic traffic scales. In the macroscopic scale, this dissertation proposes an analytical method to formulate highway capacity for a mixed traffic environment where a portion of vehicles are CAVs and the remaining are human-driven vehicles (HVs). The proposed analytical mixed traffic highway capacity model is based on a Markov chain representation of spatial distribution of heterogeneous and stochastic headways. This …

The Cost Of Jaywalking On Traffic Congestion In An Intersection In Greater Cairo: A Case Study, Hussein Gawdat

Theses and Dissertations

There have been many studies focusing on different types of traffic delays, pedestrians’ interaction at signalized intersections and economic losses as a result of these delays. However, there is a huge gap in the current literature, regionally and globally, in studying the traffic delays associated with jaywalking. In Egypt, jaywalking is considered a common phenomenon, however, population increased drastically over the past decades in Greater Cairo leading to more congested streets. This research provides a case study that investigates the economic effect of jaywalking on traffic flow in Mashaal, a sample location in Greater Cairo, due to traffic congestion. The …

Desalination Concentrate Disposal: Ecological Effects And Sustainable Solutions, Ryan Hanley

Global Honors Theses

Freshwater availability is a growing global concern, and desalination is often presented as the solution, but from this important technology comes issues of toxic waste. Ecosystems are delicate areas that contain species adapted to that specific location, and any chemical or physical changes can disrupt the fitness of species. The concentrate byproduct waste from desalination plants is toxic to species if the concentrate is not compatible with the receiving water body. A critical review of scientific articles, industry-leading books, conversations with industry experts, and information from the American Membrane Technology Association conference was used to analyze the current knowledge. Species …

A Survey Of Ride-Hailing Passengers, Steven Gehrke

PSU Transportation Seminars

In less than a decade, the ride-hailing industry, led by Uber and Lyft, has dramatically transformed the way we travel in our metro regions. Rider adoption of these on-demand mobility services has proceeded much quicker than our understanding of their impacts to our urban transportation systems. Planning for this transformation in personal mobility, which will have unintended consequences, has been made more difficult by the scarcity in meaningful data made available by these ride-hailing companies. Public agencies responsible for managing congestion and transit services are hindered in their ability to successfully plan for the integration of this emergent travel mode …

Comparative Study: Reducing Cost To Manage Accessibility With Existing Data, Claire Chu, Bill Kerneckel, Eric C. Larson, Nathan Mowat, Christopher Woodard

SMU Data Science Review

“Project Sidewalk” is an existing research effort that focuses on mapping accessibility issues for handicapped persons to efficiently plan wheelchair and mobile scooter friendly routes around Washington D.C. As supporters of this project, we utilized the data “Project Sidewalk” collected and used it to confirm predictions about where problem sidewalks exist based on real estate and crime data. We present a study that identifies correlations found between accessibility data and crime and housing statistics in the Washington D.C. metropolitan area. We identify the key reasons for increased accessibility and the issues with the current infrastructure management system. After a thorough …

Fhwa Guidebook For Measuring Multimodal Network Connectivity, Joseph Broach

PSU Transportation Seminars

In 2016 the United States Department of Transportation (USDOT) Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) published a Guidebook for Developing Pedestrian and Bicycle Performance Measures that presents methods for measuring walking and bicycling performance and activities and embedding them into the transportation planning and decisionmaking process (U.S. Department of Transportation 2016). Building on the 2016 guidebook, this resource focuses on pedestrian and bicycle network connectivity and provides information on incorporating connectivity measures into state, metropolitan, and local transportation planning processes.

Connectivity measures can help transportation practitioners identify high priority network gaps, implement cost-effective solutions that address multiple needs, optimize potential co-benefits, and …

Analyzing The Life-Cycle Of Unstable Slopes Using Applied Remote Sensing Within An Asset Management Framework, El Hachemi Y. Bouali

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

An asset management framework provides a methodology for monitoring and maintaining assets, which include anthropogenic infrastructure (e.g., dams, embankments, and retaining structures) and natural geological features (e.g., soil and rock slopes). It is imperative that these assets operate efficiently, effectively, safely, and at a high standard since many assets are located along transportation corridors (highways, railways, and waterways) and can cause severe damage if compromised. Assets built on or around regions prone to natural hazards are at an increased risk of deterioration and failure. The objective of this study is to utilize remote sensing techniques such as InSAR, LiDAR, and …

Stormwater Capture In The Built Watershed: Fostering Public Awareness Of Water Conservation Through A Parcel-Level Approach To Stormwater Management, Benjamin Rigby

Pitzer Senior Theses

As California contends with climate change and more extreme cycles of drought and deluge, water management agencies and conservation groups are looking towards solutions to the decreasing reliability of imported water supplies. Stormwater has historically been perceived as a threat to development but when captured properly, it presents a resource that can augment local water supplies. Solutions to water supply issues in California have traditionally employed technical and centrally controlled methods for importing water, but there is a growing understanding that parcel-level capture through vegetated swales presents an opportunity for reducing the impact that development has on California’s hydrology. Vegetated …

Engineering Standards In Highway Design Litigation, Michael Lewyn

Michael E Lewyn

Engineering Standards In Highway Design Litigation, Michael Lewyn

Michael E Lewyn