Transportation Engineering Commons^™

Study Of Eco-Driving And Charging Planning In Connected And Automated Vehicles Environment, Pradeep Bhat

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

In this dissertation, the development of eco-driving and charging planning algorithms in the connected and automated vehicle environment (CAV) are presented. CAV technologies provide opportunities for potential energy savings and efficiency improvement of transportation networks, which are explored through multiple research tasks in this study.

The objective of the first study presented in Chapter 2 is to reduce vehicle dynamic losses and required tractive force while completing trip distance within a given travel time. Sequential Quadratic Programming method is employed for this nonlinearly constrained optimization problem. The validation result illustrates the benefits of optimal velocity trajectories. The objective of the …

The Impact Distracted Driving Has On Fatal Crashes, Adam Pohrte

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Distracted driving has been a major problem in the United States and around the globe for quite some time. It is one of the leading causes of fatal car crashes, and its impact on road safety has been the subject of much research and debate. The purpose of this paper is to focus on the driver who was distracted that ended up causing the crash. To obtain precise data and results, all the information about these crashes is from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS). FARS is a nationwide census maintained by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) that …

Powering Electric Vehicles: Are We Ready?, Christian Yoder

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This project will investigate typical power grids and the impacts that electric vehicles have on them. Electric vehicles are rapidly growing in popularity and much of the world is promising to make the switch from combustion engines to EVs. Electric vehicles demand a large amount of electricity. With fast charging becoming available, it is worth asking if the current electrical infrastructure can handle the increase in demand. After talking to a source at FirstEnergy, it seems large electric companies are well aware of areas in need of adjustment and are moving accordingly.

Does The Ite Trip Generation Manual Overestimate The Trip Generation Of Stores In Northeast Ohio?, Shawn Monahan

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This project will examine the use of the Trip Generation Manual to estimate the number of 'trips' per average weekday. A trip is defined as a vehicular movement from one location to another. The Trip Generation Manual will examine the estimated number of trips generated for local discount superstores in the Northeast Region of Ohio. Surveys were completed for local data, supplemented with a vehicle occupancy rate sample. This will provide a baseline that the Trip Generation Manual will be compared to.

An Analysis Of The Influence Of Speed On Fatal Accidents In Ohio, Megan Johnson

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Through data collected by NHTSA and FARS, Ohio crash data resulting in fatalities were analyzed through four different breakdowns to determine variables correlating to the fatalities. The breakdowns include dividing data from overall Ohio data, reports involving speeding, then from there to single-vehicle crashes. That data was divided down to only include male drivers and then finally only motorcycles. This data was analyzed as it was broken down to find trends with each category. Through these analyses, the trends were developed to suggest recommendations to implement through education and laws to help reduce the number of crashes resulting in fatalities.

A Study On Crash Reduction Of A Signalized Intersection Converted To A Multi-Lane Roundabout, Ian Fuller

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

An analysis of traffic patterns and design issues with East Main Street in Kent, Ohio. Including potential improvements.

Urban Freight Transportation: The Interaction Of Home Deliveries In Cities, Carla A. Tejada

Dissertations and Theses

The movement of freight in urban areas is a key factor in the sustainable development of cities. If managed correctly, it can potentiate economic growth and support urban lifestyles. Nevertheless, the movement of goods in cities is usually in conflict with other urban flows and is generally perceived as having more negative externalities, above all for environmental and social sustainability. While the first focuses on measuring the impact on the environment, the latter focuses on measuring the impacts of business decisions on people. The main goal of this dissertation is to study the relationship that urban goods movements, mainly residential …

Are Ride-Hailing Services Safer Than Taxis? A Multivariate Spatial Approach With Accomodation Of Exposure Uncertainty, Guocong Zhai, Kun Xie, Hong Yang, Di Yang

Civil & Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

Despite many research efforts on ride-hailing services and taxis, limited studies have compared the safety performance of the two modes. A major challenge is the need for reliable mode-specific exposure data to model their safety outcomes. Moreover, crash frequencies of the two modes by injury severities tend to be spatially and inherently correlated. To fully address these issues, this study proposes a novel multivariate conditional autoregressive model considering measurement errors in mode-specific exposures (MVCARME). More specially, a classical measurement error structure is used to accommodate the uncertainty of mode-specific exposures estimated, and a multivariate spatial specification is adopted to capture …

Sustainable Transportation: Behavioral Analysis Of Working-From-Home And Electric Vehicles Adoption, Zeinab Bayati

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Sustainable transportation plays a crucial role in mitigating environmental impacts, and this study examines two key aspects, namely working from home (WFH) and the adoption of electric vehicles (EVs), in the context of promoting sustainable practices.

The first part of this thesis focuses on how people's perceptions towards working from home have changed as a result of their experiences during COVID-19. To analyze these changes, a random parameter logit (RPL) model is developed based on a nationwide public dataset collected during the pandemic in the United States. Dependent variable of the model is constructed through comparing data from the first …

Quantifying Geogrid Reinforcement Mechanism In Roadway Performance Using Cyclic Plate Load (Cpl) Test, G.S. Ellithy, A. Crippa

Publications

For decades, geogrids have been used successfully to improve performance in both paved and unpaved roadway construction. Even though the current state of practice differentiates between the design methodology incorporating geogrids in paved and unpaved roadways, the true improvement contribution of geogrids is to the base layer, or to the layer that is placed directly on top of it. It has been established that the three reinforcement mechanisms by which geogrids enhance roadway performance are: lateral restraint, bearing capacity increase and membrane tension support. In order to quantify these mechanisms and their contribution to the roadway performance improvement, two Cyclic …

Multiscale Evaluation Of The Effect Of Deicing Agents And Environmental Conditions On The Performance Of Asphalt Pavements In Cold Regions, Maryam Mihandoust

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

An Analysis Of The Effect Of Temperature On Asphalt Paving In South Dakota, S M Rahat Rashedi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Temperature is an important parameter to consider for asphalt paving since this work is generally susceptible to weather due to outdoor construction. The South Dakota Department of Transportation (SDDOT) developed working day weather charts in 1998 to address the expected adverse weather days. This thesis investigated the effect of temperature on adverse weather days for asphalt paving and compared them to the value reported in the 1998 SDDOT study. Moreover, the thesis also examined how closely the maximum temperature data from project sites' weekly progress reports (WPR) matched the data from the closest weather stations. When the maximum temperature (TMAX) …

Extracting Road Surface Marking Features From Aerial Images Using Deep Learning, Michael Kimollo

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The traffic and roadway safety agencies spend significant efforts each year collecting roadway data, including lane configurations and other road surface marking data, such as areas with school zone markings, sidewalks, left turns, right turns, bicycle lanes, etc., for safety analysis and planning purposes. The current manual data collection methods pose significant operational and quality control challenges as they are costly and prone to errors. In addition to that the manual data collection is labor intensive and takes too much time involving high equipment costs, questionable data accuracy guarantees, and concerns about the safety of the crew.

This study aims …

Exploring Of User Experience And Evaluating Mobility Benefits Of Micromobility Systems And Golf Carts: Case Study Of Florida, Kabhabhela C. Bukuru

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Micromobility devices and golf carts (GCs)/Low speed vehicles(LSVs) are urban transportation solutions that provide short-distance travel options, including first- and last-mile trips. They mostly operate at speeds of 15 mi/h to 35 mi/h. The micromobility devices include e-scooters and e-bikes. The micromobility devices and golfcarts are increasing rapidly in the transportation system, and thus, it is necessary to explore their various factors. The objective of this study is to explore the user experience and evaluate the mobility benefits of the micromobility systems in Florida.

A survey was conducted in various cities with a substantial user base of micromobility devices. Various …

Visual Sensing For Comprehensive Granular Traffic Data Collection In Support Of Intelligent Transportation Applications, Linjun Lu

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Comprehensive granular traffic data collection has been identified as one of the most essential tasks in the development of intelligent transportation systems (ITS). With the recent advances in electro-optical sensors and computational capacities, machine vision is regarded as cost-efficient for traffic data collection. However, the existing vision-based methods are only applicable for collecting limited types of traffic data, and a unified method allowing for comprehensive traffic data collection is still missing in the existing literature. Moreover, there are still challenges that exist for the use of the existing vision-based methods in real settings, including low accuracy and compromised applicability due …

Evaluation Of Nanoclay Additives For Improving Resistance To Moisture Damage In Hot Mix Asphalt (Hma), Amro El Badawy, Ashraf Rahim

Mineta Transportation Institute

Transportation has an enormous impact on the U.S. economy and on the lives of all Americans. Many modes of transportation rely on pavement, but pavement conditions deteriorate over time because of the combined effects of traffic and climate. Exposure to moisture often causes premature failure of asphalt pavements as it reduces the stiffness of the asphalt and enables stripping of the asphalt from the aggregate. This research evaluates the effectiveness of clay nanomaterials (i.e., nanoclays) in improving the resistance of hot mix asphalt (HMA) to moisture damage and compares the enhancement results to anti-stripping additives commonly used in pavement construction. …

Assessment Of Regional Bike And Pedestrian Equity In Transportation Plans, Drew Reiter

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

While community involvement is legally required as a crucial part of the planning process, historically the traditional state-centric approaches to transportation planning have led to the underrepresentation of transportation-disadvantaged individuals in the process and, thus, to automobile-oriented regions. Planning practices for small urban and rural areas especially, which often lack funding and other resources, have generally overlooked accessible pedestrian, bicycling, and multimodal infrastructure and facilities, resulting in underdeveloped and poorly connected networks. I conducted a social equity evaluation of the regional planning, investment prioritization, and programming processes for pedestrian and bicycling infrastructure using the case study of Monongalia County, West …

Understanding Emerging Travel Behavior In New York City, Md Amdad Hossen

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Many large cities face significant challenges in providing safe, economical, equitable, reliable, and efficient mobility services. Moreover, mobility service options have been changing unprecedentedly due to the advent of emerging mobility services. Understanding the impacts of emerging mobility services (e.g., for-hire vehicles, bike sharing) on other travel modes (e.g., transit, non-motorized modes, personal car) and evolving travel behavior is critical to promote sustainable modes for urban residents and reduce auto-dependency. New York City (NYC) has been conducting annual mobility survey since 2017 to understand the emerging travel behavior and mode choice characteristics. This dataset presents a unique opportunity for conducting …

Spatial Analysis Of Bike-Sharing Station Usage And Placement: Redefining Bike-Share Planning For Equity, Sydney E. French

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Historically, bike share system (BSS) station locations have been guided by potential economic and environmental benefits associated with increased bike share usage per station. For example, a typical location identification approach may attempt to maximize demand per station based on population size or activity and area characteristics. Such identification methods often result in an unequal representation of specific population groups among the systems’ users, thus hindering the potential sustainability-related benefits. To address these disparities, some bike share organizations have started developing and implementing equity-oriented programs focusing on expanding their reach to underserved communities. Nevertheless, the effectiveness of such programs has …

Efficient Maritime Object Detection And Validation For Enhancing Safety Of Uncrewed Marine Systems, Ahmed Saglam, Yiannis Papelis

VMASC Publications

Safe operation of uncrewed maritime systems is a major concern in the presence of other vehicles or obstacles. Typically, perception algorithms utilize sensor data to identify obstacles that must be avoided, and AI algorithms are used to interpret raw sensor data for use in navigation and object avoidance algorithms. However, perception algorithms are typically computationally expensive. In this paper, we present an efficient method for detecting obstacles using raw lidar data in the form of range or Point Cloud, employing computationally efficient techniques that do not depend on trained models or AI matching. The approach
converts the sensor readings into …