Digital Commons Network^™

17-08 Transportation Access And Individuals With Disabilities' Community Integration, Keith M. Christensen, Ziqi Song

Transportation Research Center Reports

This study examined the relationship between transit service patterns and the spatial organization of individuals with disabilities’ activities of daily living residing within Utah’s Wasatch Front region to provide recommendations to improve the design, planning, and management of the Utah Transit Authority’s public transportation system. The study objectives included an accessibility Index of Transit Provision to represent fixed-route bus and light-rail service capacity, and an Index of Transit Need representing the spatial organization of individuals with disabilities’ activities of daily living and indicators of transportation disadvantage.

The findings suggest that 58.7% of individuals with disabilities living within the Wasatch Front …

16-06 Vehicle-To-Device (V2d) Communications: Readiness Of The Technology And Potential Applications For People With Disability, Ala Al-Fuqaha, Jun-Seok Oh, Valerian Kwigizile

Transportation Research Center Reports

IEEE 802.11p was developed as an amendment to IEEE 802.11 for wireless access in vehicular environments (WAVE). While WAVE is considered the de facto standard for V2V communications, in the past few years a number of communications technologies have emerged that enable direct device-to-device (D2D) communications. Technologies like Bluetooth Smart, WiFi-Direct and LTE-Direct allow devices to communicate directly without having to rely on existing communications infrastructure (e.g., base stations). More importantly, these technologies are quickly penetrating the smartphones market.

The goal of this research is to conduct extensive simulation and experimental studies to assess the efficacies of utilizing D2D communications …

16-03 The Effects Of High Visibility Enforcement On Driver Compliance To Pedestrian Stop Right-Of-Way Laws In Ann Arbor, Mi, Ron Van Houten, Jun-Seok Oh, De'lon Dixon

Transportation Research Center Reports

The purpose of this study was to replicate the findings of Van Houten et. al. (2013) demonstrating that a multifaceted program could increase the percentage of motorist’s yielding to pedestrians in crosswalks on a community basis in Gainesville, FL, and that these changes actually improved further over a four year follow-up period (Van Houten et. al. (2017). The current study replicated the original findings in a similar sized city in a different region of the US (Ann Arbor, MI). Stopping for pedestrians in Ann Arbor increased from a mean of 28.5% to 65.2% at the treatment sites, which also received …

16-01 Paths To Ada-Compliance: The Performance And Cost Efficiency Of Measurement Technologies That Support Ada-Mandated, Self-Evaluations Of Pedestrian Rights Of Way, Jun-Seok Oh, Jiansong Zhang, Kapseong Ro, Majid Mastali

Transportation Research Center Reports

This study used terrestrial laser scanner and open source processing algorithms to develop an approach to automate the evaluation of transportation infrastructure in public rights of way. We estimated compliance or noncompliance of specific roadway features with the design standards adopted by the US Access Board and required under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) such as minimum sidewalk width, maximum cross slopes and presence/absence of pedestrian connectivity automatically with extracting roadway features from point cloud data (PCD). We then compared the accuracy and cost efficiency of the automated with more conventional evaluative techniques to identify the potential risks, gains …

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 …

15-06 Integrated Crowdsourcing Platform To Investigate Non-Motorized Behavior And Risk Factors On Walking, Running, And Cycling Routes, Ala Al-Fuqaha, Sepideh Mohammadi, Jun-Seok Oh, Valerian Kwigizile, Fadi Alhomaidat

Transportation Research Center Reports

There are several factors on the roads that impact bicyclists’ safety. This research aims to find the most important risk factors on roads, mainly in infrastructure facilities, to improve the safety for walkers, runners, and bicyclists. Most mobile cycling applications currently used by cyclists and runners were reviewed in this study in order to gain insight about the features that users care about. Features, such as speed, cumulative elevation gain, and connectivity to Google Fit, were found to be the most common features in the widely-used cycling apps. In this research, we developed and launched a mobile application for crowd-sourcing …

15-11 Assessing Transit Oriented Development Strategies With A New Combined Modal Split And Traffic Assignment Model, Guangchao Wang, Anthony Chen, Ziqi Song, Songyot Kitthamkesorn

Transportation Research Center Reports

Transit oriented development (TOD) has emerged in recent years as a promising paradigm to promote public transportation, increase active transportation usage, mitigate congestion, and alleviate air pollution. However, there is a lack of analytic studies investigating the benefits of TOD quantitatively. Two major challenges of modeling a multimodal transportation network with TOD areas are: (1) failing to consider differences in feasible travel options available to different households in TOD areas may lead to inaccurate representations of travelers’ mode choice behavior, and (2) route overlapping is one of the major concerns in the route choice models used in the traffic assignment …

15-02 Estimating And Enhancing Public Transit Accessibility For People With Mobility Limitations, Jun-Seok Oh, C. Scott Smith, Rostam Qatra, Mohammad Al-Akash

Transportation Research Center Reports

This two-part study employs fine-scale performance measures and analytical techniques designed to evaluate and improve transit services for people experiencing disability. Part one puts forth a series of time-sensitive, general transit feed system (GTFS)-enhanced employment accessibility models that account for multiple transportation modes, categories of functional limitation and design characteristics of existing public transit infrastructure. Model results shed light on the degree to which a medium-size city’s public transit system addresses the gap between a theoretical continuum of rider capacities and the physical demands required to achieve mobility and access to employment. Our research finds that an individual’s combined physical …

15-09 Impact Of Access Management Practices To Pedestrian Safety, Deo Chimba, Henry Ajieh

Transportation Research Center Reports

This study focused on the impact of access management practices to the safety of pedestrians. Some of the access management practices considered to impact pedestrian safety included limiting direct access to and from major streets, locating signals, limiting the number of conflict points and separating conflict areas, removing turning vehicles from through traffic lanes, using nontraversable medians to manage left-turn movements and providing a supporting street and circulation system. The study evaluated through statistical modeling the correlation between access management practices to pedestrian crashes. Focused on the impacts of access management on pedestrian crashes, eight (8) major roadway corridors were …

14-03 Transportation System And Its Association With Human Health - A Review And Modeling Approach, Jun-Seok Oh, Valerian Kwigizile, Ali Hamzah Hussein Alzuhairi, Fnu Zahid

Transportation Research Center Reports

Transportation systems constitute of infrastructure, commute modes, land use and other policies. The purpose of transportation is to provide easy access to goods and services. While attaining this purpose, impacts of transportation on human health and well-being have been ignored to some extent. Recently, studies have begun analyzing the impact of transportation systems on quality of life and health disparities. While many studies have discussed the impact of the transportation system on individual factors from health, a very limited number of studies have focused on the impact of multiple factors associated with multiple morbidity and mortality forms. The focus of …

15-13 Exploring Bicycle Route Choice Behavior With Space Syntax Analysis, Zhaocai Liu, Anthony Chen, Seungkyu Ryu

Transportation Research Center Reports

Cycling provides an environmentally friendly alternative mode of transportation. It improves urban mobility, livability, and public health, and it also helps in reducing traffic congestion and emissions. Cycling is gaining popularity both as a recreational activity and a means of transportation. Therefore, to better serve and promote bicycle transportation, there is an acute need to understand the route choice behavior of cyclists.

This project explored the applicability of using space syntax theory to model cyclists’ route choice behavior. In addition, several bicycle-related attributes were also considered as influential factors affecting cyclists’ route choice. A multiple regression model was built and …

14-06 Development Of Safety Performance Functions And Other Decision Support Tools To Assess Pedestrian And Bicycle Safety, Timothy J. Gates, Peter T. Savolainen, Steven Stapleton, Trevor Kirsch, Santosh Miraskar

Transportation Research Center Reports

A field study was performed at 40 uncontrolled midblock crosswalks and 26 signalized intersections on low-speed roadways selected from the areas surrounding three major urban college campuses across lower Michigan. An array of existing traffic control devices existed at the study sites, including various crosswalk marking strategies, along with additional treatments, such as pedestrian hybrid beacons (PHBs), rectangular rapid-flashing beacons (RRFBs) and single in-street R1-6 signs. The sites also collectively included a diverse set of roadway and traffic characteristics, including crossing widths, number of lanes, and median presence, along with vehicular, pedestrian, and bicyclist volumes. Three primary evaluations were performed …

15-04 Travel Behavior Of Blind Individuals Before And After Receiving Orientation And Mobility Training, Dae Shik Kim, C. Scott Smith, Elyse Connors

Transportation Research Center Reports

In this pilot study, we devised, tested, and refined a protocol for evaluating the travel behavior of blind individuals. Preliminary analyses of our pilot study data suggest that our new method involving Global Positioning Systems (GPS), accelerometers, and Geographic Information Systems (GIS), will enable us to collect objective, quantitative, and valid measures of blind individuals’ travel behavior and Orientation and Mobility (O&M) training’s effectiveness. Preliminary analysis results from a small sample of blind travelers describe the individuals’ trip distances, trip frequencies, trip destinations, trip modes, travel times, whether assisted or not, and perceived ability to get around. With the completion …

15-08 Community-Aware Charging Station Network Design For Electrified Vehicles In Urban Areas: Reducing Congestion, Emissions, Improving Accessibility, And Promoting Walking, Bicycling, And Use Of Public Transportation, Ratna Babu Chinnam, Alper E. Murat

Transportation Research Center Reports

A major challenge for achieving large-scale adoption of EVs is an accessible infrastructure for the communities. The societal benefits of large-scale adoption of EVs cannot be realized without adequate deployment of publicly accessible charging stations due to mutual dependence of EV sales and public infrastructure deployment. Such infrastructure deployment also presents a number of unique opportunities for promoting livability while helping to reduce the negative side-effects of transportation (e.g., congestion, emissions, and noise pollution). In this phase, we develop a modeling framework (MF) to consider various factors and their associated uncertainties for an optimal network design for electrified vehicles. The …

14-07 Development Of Decision Support Tools To Assess Pedestrian And Bicycle Safety: Focus On Population, Demographic And Socioeconomic Spectra, Deo Chimba, Abram Musinguzi

Transportation Research Center Reports

Despite the increase of these non-motorized trips, bicyclists and pedestrians remain vulnerable road users that are often over represented in traffic crashes. While the currently used methods that identify hazardous locations serve their purpose well, majority represent a reactive approach that seeks improvement after crashes happen. This research addressed these issues and proposed decision support tools to aid the implementation of bicycle and pedestrian safety strategies. This work developed an access based tool to predict the expected number of crashes at different neighborhood levels. This tool combines the traditional methods such as those provided in the Highway Safety manual to …

14-10 Innovative Park-And-Ride Management For Livable Communities, Ziqi Song, Yi He

Transportation Research Center Reports

Park-and-ride (P&R) has been recognized as an effective way to tackle the challenge of the last-mile problem in public transportation, i.e., connecting transit stations to final destinations. Although the design and operations of P&R facilities have been extensively investigated, there is a pressing need for a theoretically sound methodology for planning and managing P&R facilities. It is critically important to investigate where P&R facilities should be strategically located and how often transit service should be provided such that the net social benefit can be maximized.

This project proposes an integrated planning methodology for locating P&R facilities and designing transit services …

14-04 Conditions That Influence Drivers' Yielding Behavior At Uncontrolled Crossings And Intersections With Traffic Signal Controls, Robert Wall Emerson, Eugene Bourquin, Dona Sauerburger, Janet Barlow

Transportation Research Center Reports

There is a dearth of studies on how pedestrian who are blind might positively influence driver yielding in different travel situations. This project assessed common pedestrian behaviors (head turning, holding a cane, taking a step, holding up a hand, exaggerated cane movement, standing without a cane) on yielding rate for right turning traffic at lighted intersections as well as at entry and exit lanes at roundabouts. Data replicated previous findings on yielding rates for displaying a cane (about 60%), holding up a hand (65% to 80%), or taking one step into the roadway (80% to 100%) and also showed that …

14-11 Travel In Adverse Winter Weather Conditions By Blind Pedestrians, Dae Shik Kim, Robert Wall Emerson, Dave Guth, Richard Long

Transportation Research Center Reports

Winter weather creates many orientation and mobility (O&M) challenges for people who are visually impaired. Getting the cane tip stuck is one of the noticeable challenges when traveling in snow, particularly when the walking surface is covered in deep snow. We compared four different cane tips: 1) metal glide, 2) marshmallow roller, 3) roller ball, and 4) bundu bahser. There was a statistically significant difference in frequency of sticking among the different cane tips. Post hoc analyses revealed that the sticking frequency for the metal glide tip was significantly higher than that for the roller ball tip, for the bundu …

14-01 Exploring The Equity Dimensions Of Us Bicycle Sharing Systems, C. Scott Smith, Jun-Seok Oh, Cheyenne Lei

Transportation Research Center Reports

Research over the past several decades has made it increasingly clear that livable communities are inextricably linked with the provision of opportunities for active and/or non-motorized transportation; i.e., walking, cycling and their variants. An emerging phenomena that is working within the broader movement of active transportation is public bicycle sharing systems (BSS). Such systems have grown considerably in the US in recent years and, in some cases, are dramatically changing the ecology of urban transport. Alongside celebrations of the early successes of US BSS, have been criticisms that these systems have not been adequately integrated into lower-income communities; a pattern …

14-12 Capacity Analysis Of Pedestrian Facilities Involving Individuals With Disabilities, Mohammad Sadra Sharifi, Keith Christensen, Anthony Chen

Transportation Research Center Reports

Walking facilities are important infrastructures that must be designed to accommodate the behavior of pedestrians in order to be effective. Heterogeneity in pedestrian composition is one important factor generally overlooked in walking facility design guidelines. Particularly, individuals with disabilities are often ignored due to lack of available data on their pedestrian behaviors. A controlled, large-scaled walking experiment involving individuals with disabilities was conducted at Utah State University to observe individual pedestrian behaviors in various walking facilities; these facilities include passageway and bottleneck formations. The purpose of this report is twofold: (1) to model time headway between different individual types using …

2015 Annual Report Transportation Research Center For Livable Communities, Western Michigan University, University Of Texas Arlington, Wayne State University, Utah State University, Tennessee State University

Transportation Research Center Reports

Table of Contents

• Messages from the Director and Representatives
• TRCLC Mission and Objectives
• Center Personnel
• Research Investigators
• Consortia
• Our Research
• List of Research Projects
• Highlighted Projects
• Technology Transfer and Outreach Activities
• Student Awards
• Upcoming Events