Transportation Engineering Commons^™

Sustaining Dockless Bike-Sharing Based On Business Principles, Neil Horowitz

Theses

Currently in urban areas, the value of money and fuel is increasing because of urban traffic congestion. As an environmentally sustainable and short-distance travel mode, dockless bike-sharing not only assists in resolving the issue of urban traffic congestion, but additionally assists in minimizing pollution, satisfying the demand of the last mile problem, and improving societal health. Despite the positives that this new transportation mode provides, currently there are few effective measures in place to make the development of dockless bike-sharing providers more sustainable.

This study endeavors in establishing a foundation for resolving this problem through developing business models of dockless …

Development Of Long-Term Aging Factor For Asphalt Mixtures’ Cracking Resistance, Yucheng Shi

LSU Master's Theses

To characterize the cracking resistance of asphalt mixtures, semi-circular bend (SCB) test has been developed and subsequently accepted as a routine test in mixture design in Louisiana. However, SCB test requires specimens to be aged for five days in laboratory, which makes it not implementable in quality control (QC)/quality assurance (QA).

The primary project objective was to develop an aging factor to transfer the unaged SCB Jc to the aged SCB Jc. Specific objectives were to: (1) investigate the effect of laboratory aging on asphalt mixtures’ cracking resistance and asphalt binders’ rheological and chemical properties, (2) develop an aging …

Safety Ramifications Of A Change In Pedestrian Crosswalk Law: A Case Study Of Oregon, Usa, Yue Ke, Konstantina Gkritza

Lyles School of Civil Engineering Faculty Publications

Pedestrians are some of the most vulnerable road users as they are not protected by safety devices, and must also share the road with vehicles traveling at dangerous speeds, particularly during road crossings. In 2011, the state of Oregon changed their traffic laws to be more accommodating to pedestrians by giving right of way to pedestrians using a crosswalk, regardless if whether the crosswalk is marked or unmarked. This paper estimates a panel logit model to evaluate the efficacy of the law in preventing pedestrian fatalities. Pedestrian fatalities are shown to decrease over time, with smaller likelihood of a fatality …

Analysis And Research Of Cruise Ship Safety At Wusongkou International Cruise Ship Terminal, Zhanglong Wang

Maritime Safety & Environment Management Dissertations (Dalian)

No abstract provided.

Horizontal Integration In The Port Industry In China Challenges And Outlook, Jiren Chen

World Maritime University Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Development Of Self-Healing Mechanisms For Asphalt Pavements, Max Abelardo Aguirre Deras

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Self-healing mechanisms, such as microcapsules or hollow-fibers, filled with an asphalt rejuvenator present an emerging technology that would enhance an asphalt mixture’s resistance to cracking damage caused by vehicular and environmental loading. The objectives of this study were to: (a) Evaluate the effects of asphalt rejuvenators on hot-mix asphalt mixtures in order to test its effects on the fundamental engineering properties of the mixtures at high and intermediate temperatures; (b) Develop a synthesis procedure for production of microcapsules and hollow-fibers containing an asphalt rejuvenator; (c) Evaluate the self-healing efficiency of double-walled microcapsules and hollow-fibers filled with an asphalt rejuvenator, through …

Webinar: Meeting & Exceeding Mobility User Expectations With Real-Time Transit Information, Sean J. Barbeau, Derek Fretheim

TREC Webinar Series

Every day transit riders ask the same question: when’s the next one coming? To answer this question, transit agencies are transitioning to providing real-time transit information through smartphones or displayed at transit stops.

The proliferation of transit planning and real time arrival tools that have hit the market over the past decade is staggering. Yet with transit ridership on the decline, agencies can’t afford to ignore the importance of providing accurate, real time information to their customers. Real-time transit information improves the reliability and efficiency of passenger travel, but barriers have prevented some transit agencies from adopting the GTFSrealtime v1.0 …

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, …

Real-Time Non-Contact Road Defect Detection Using Inexpensive Sensors, Zhao Xing Lim, Mohammad Jahanshahi, Tarutal Ghosh Mondal, Da Cheng, Shutao Wang, Mohammad K. Sweidan, Aanis Ahmad, Omar Hesham Abouhussein, Xi Chen

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Road defects such as potholes, humps, and road cracks have become one of the main concerns for road and traffic safety worldwide. Pavement defect detection is crucial to ensure road safety. However, current solutions to this problem are either too time-consuming or too expensive to be employed large-scale. We propose a novel approach which has the ability to autonomously detect potholes in real-time using cost-effective sensors. Inexpensive sensors are mounted on a vehicle and a deep learning algorithm is used to identify road defects. The detection system is paired with a GPS and positional sensors to map the location of …

Development Of Iowa Dot Combination Bridge Separation Barrier With Bicycle Railing, Chaz M. Ginger

Department of Engineering Mechanics: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The Iowa Department of Transportation typically builds separation barriers between vehicle and pedestrian/bicycle facilities when sidewalks or trails are present on vehicular bridges. Currently, Iowa DOT employs a combination bridge rail that utilizes a concrete parapet that previously had been successfully evaluated to National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Report 350 Test Level 4 (TL-4) criteria for these situations. While the parapet had been successfully evaluated, the combination bridge rail system as a whole had not been evaluated to any crash test standards. Iowa DOT desired that researchers at Midwest Roadside Safety Facility (MwRSF) design and test a combination bridge …

Evaluation Of Roadway Lighting Practices, Brian K. Howell, William Nicholas Staats, Austin William Obenauf, Jerry G. Pigman

Kentucky Transportation Center Research Report

Adequate roadway lighting allows better driver visibility during nighttime conditions. Research studies show that lighted roadways on average experience 28 percent fewer vehicles crashes on all roadway types. Most state DOTs have historically used High-Pressure Sodium (HPS) lights for their roadside lighting programs due to their wide availability and relatively low purchase costs. However, the short lifespan of HPS results in frequent replacement, leading to high life cycle costs. Light-Emitting Diode (LED) lights consume less energy, demonstrate improved performance, and require less overall maintenance due to their longer lifespans. Over time, this translates into maintenance cost savings for stateDOTs. In …

Feasibility Of Aerial Tramway At Boise State University, Majed Alsaqyani

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

The use of aerial tramways is becoming common in cities as a way to provide reliable, safe, sustainable, and cost-effective mass transportation. The aerial tramway is especially effective in the most congested areas of major cities. The growth of Boise State University (BSU) and downtown Boise makes this location especially attractive for a tramway. Moreover, based on data collected for this analysis, it is clear that the BSU community is open to using the tramway instead of more traditional modes of transportation.

The viability of the tramway is further enhanced because the computer science department has moved to City Center …

A Framework For Assessing Sustainability Impacts Of Truck Routing Strategies, Haluk Laman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The impact of freight on our transportation system is further accentuated by the fact that trucks consume greater roadway capacity and therefore cause more significant problems including traffic congestion, delay, crashes, air pollution, fuel consumption, and pavement damage. Assessing the actual effects of truck traffic is a growing need to support the ability to safely and efficiently move goods and people in areas where roadway expansion is not the best option. On one hand, trucks need to efficiently serve commerce and industry, while at the same time their activities need not contribute to a decline in the quality or public …

Evaluation And Development Of Cpt Based Pile Design In Nebraska Soils, Alex Silvey

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Cone penetration testing (CPT) is a well established geotechnical subsurface investigation technique commonly used for site characterization and soil classification. The CPT gives real time end resistance, side friction, and pore pressure readings. Axially loaded piles also share these two resistance mechanisms, suggesting the cone can be considered similar to a miniature pile. This study focused on evaluating eight CPT methods prediction of pile bearing capacity. The Nebraska Department of Roads (NDOR) conducts dynamic load tests (PDA) of driven pile to verify pile capacity for bridge foundations. 91 comparisons of CPT logs and PDA data were evaluated. CPT prediction methods …

Barge Prioritization, Assignment, And Scheduling During Inland Waterway Disruption Responses, Liliana Delgado-Hidalgo

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Inland waterways face natural and man-made disruptions that may affect navigation and infrastructure operations leading to barge traffic disruptions and economic losses. This dissertation investigates inland waterway disruption responses to intelligently redirect disrupted barges to inland terminals and prioritize offloading while minimizing total cargo value loss. This problem is known in the literature as the cargo prioritization and terminal allocation problem (CPTAP). A previous study formulated the CPTAP as a non-linear integer programming (NLIP) model solved with a genetic algorithm (GA) approach. This dissertation contributes three new and improved approaches to solve the CPTAP.

The first approach is a decomposition …

Understanding Asphalt Concrete Aging Using Nanoindentation, Hasan M. Faisal

Civil Engineering ETDs

Asphalt concrete (AC) is created by mixing liquid asphalt binder with solid aggregates. When asphalt binder is mixed with aggregates, it creates a thin film (about 7-16 microns thick) around the aggregate surface. Fine aggregate (smaller than 0.075 mm size) get entrapped within the binder film or mixed with the binder, and create a phase called mastic. Both asphalt film and mastic play significant roles in aging of asphalt pavement. To this day, tests were performed mainly on the bulk liquid asphalt, but not on the film or mastic. In this study, for the first time, nanoindentation tests were done …

Automated Merging Control Algorithm: A Cooperative Approach For Connected Automated Vehicles In Platoons, Sogand Karbalaieali

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Transportation systems are being transformed by advanced vehicular connectivity and automation. Human-driven vehicles are being replaced by Connected Automated Vehicles (CAV). The US Department of Transportation’s (DOT) Intelligent Transportation System Joint Program Office (ITS JPO) promotes automated vehicle research which encourages the development and deployment of automated vehicles by infrastructure-based solutions. Advancements in traffic design and operation can offer solutions to the challenges that CAVs face. An example of these challenges is merging on highways where traffic operation could be enhanced by the use of Vehicle to Infrastructure (V2I) communication between the onramp and the mainline vehicles and roadside units …

Cyclists' Queue Discharge Characteristics At Signalized Intersections, Kirk Thomas Paulsen

Dissertations and Theses

Wider bike facilities intuitively accommodate a greater number of cyclists in the same amount of time, but specific queue discharge characteristics associated with varying widths and/or types of bike facilities have not been thoroughly documented.

The focus of this research analyzed queues of cyclists at four signalized intersections in Portland, OR with varying widths on the approach and downstream intersection legs. A total of 2,820 cyclists within 630 groups of queued cyclists were observed at five different intersection layouts in Portland, Oregon. The layouts consisted of: a standard bike lane six feet wide connecting bicyclists to a standard bike lane …

Data-Driven Development Of A Roadside Safety Marketing Campaign For Tree Removal – Phase I, Cody S. Stolle, Thomas Ammon, Chris M. Vargas, Ronald K. Faller, Karla A. Lechtenberg, Erin L. Urbank

Nebraska Department of Transportation: Research Reports

Since the 1970s, tree crashes have been one of the most common and deadly fixed-object fatal crash types, resulting in more than 3,000 fatal crashes and 3,500 fatalities each year. While fatal tree crashes could be prevented by removing trees adjacent to the roadway, an extensive national tree removal project would be unnecessary, cost-prohibitive, and would experience significant political resistance.

The Midwest Pooled Fund Program jointly funded a research study to develop marketing methods and approaches which would focus on tree removal, replacement, or relocation in the most critical areas. Researchers conducted an extensive background investigation into tree crashes, other …

16-09 Transportation Mobility Among Low-Income, Transportation Disadvantaged Older Adults Living In A Low Density Urban Environment Using Innovative Data Collection Methods, Noelle Fields, Courtney Cronley, Stephen Mattingly, David Levine, Vivian J. Miller, Erin R. Murphy, Marcus Crawford, Lubia Gwak, Saeed Reza Ramezanpour Nargesi, Ziaur Rahman, Meenakshi Balasubramanian

Transportation Research Center Reports

This study investigates the transportation disadvantage that low-income, older adults face on an individual basis. To accomplish this, research team members custom designed an innovative “travel diary” app, MyAmble, which tracks planned, completed, failed/uncompleted trips, and unserved trips in its Trip Planner module. In addition to the typical transportation planning data (e.g. origin, destination, mode), MyAmble collects data related to the completed or failed/uncompleted trip’s impact on the participant’s mood and quality of life. MyAmble utilizes 3 additional modules (Challenge Logger, Travel Buddy, and Travel History) to collect qualitative data related to the role that transportation plays in the participant’s …