Engineering Commons^™

Assessing The Safety And Operational Benefits Of Connected And Automated Vehicles: Application On Different Roadways, Weather, And Traffic Conditions, Md Sharikur Rahman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Connected and automated vehicle (CAV) technologies have recently drawn an increasing attention from governments, vehicle manufacturers, and researchers. Connected vehicle (CV) technologies provide real-time information about the surrounding traffic condition (i.e., position, speed, acceleration) and the traffic management center's decisions. The CV technologies improve the safety by increasing driver situational awareness and reducing crashes through vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I). Vehicle platooning with CV technologies is another key element of the future transportation systems which helps to simultaneously enhance traffic operations and safety. CV technologies can also further increase the efficiency and reliability of automated vehicles (AV) by collecting real-time …

The Use Of 3-D Highway Differential Geometry In Crash Prediction Modeling, Kiriakos Amiridis

Theses and Dissertations--Civil Engineering

The objective of this research is to evaluate and introduce a new methodology regarding rural highway safety. Current practices rely on crash prediction models that utilize specific explanatory variables, whereas the depository of knowledge for past research is the Highway Safety Manual (HSM). Most of the prediction models in the HSM identify the effect of individual geometric elements on crash occurrence and consider their combination in a multiplicative manner, where each effect is multiplied with others to determine their combined influence. The concepts of 3-dimesnional (3-D) representation of the roadway surface have also been explored in the past aiming to …

Quantifying The Impact Of Transportation Network Companies (Tncs) On Traffic Congestion In San Francisco, Sneha Roy

Theses and Dissertations--Civil Engineering

This research investigates whether Transportation Network Companies (TNCs), such as Uber and Lyft, live up to their stated vision of reducing congestion by complementing transit and reducing car ownership in major cities. The objective of this research study is to answer the question: are TNCs are correlated to traffic congestion in the city of San Francisco? If found to be so, do they increase or decrease traffic congestion for the case of San Francisco? If and how TNC pickups and drop-offs impact traffic congestion within San Francisco? And finally, how does the magnitude of this measured command of TNCs on …

Evaluate Probe Speed Data Quality To Improve Transportation Modeling, Fahmida Rahman

Theses and Dissertations--Civil Engineering

Probe speed data are widely used to calculate performance measures for quantifying state-wide traffic conditions. Estimation of the accurate performance measures requires adequate speed data observations. However, probe vehicles reporting the speed data may not be available all the time on each road segment. Agencies need to develop a good understanding of the adequacy of these reported data before using them in different transportation applications. This study attempts to systematically assess the quality of the probe data by proposing a method, which determines the minimum sample rate for checking data adequacy. The minimum sample rate is defined as the minimum …

E-Construction Technologies For Efficient Highway Construction Inspections, Dhaivat Patel

Theses and Dissertations--Civil Engineering

Over recent years, organizations such as the Federal Highway Administration and Departments of Transportation across the United States have showed interest in automating highway construction processes. The addition of e-Construction and other advanced technologies can significantly improve the efficiency and safety of highway paving operations, specifically paving inspections. Activities such as collecting load tickets, tracking pavement lay-down temperatures, and monitoring roller movement are antiquated practices that DOT inspectors perform during paving operations. E-Ticketing, Paver Mounted Thermal Profiling, and Intelligent Compaction were proposed to automate paving inspections and were recently tested in two resurfacing pilot projects in the state of Kentucky. …

Basic Turbo Roundabouts As An Alternative To Conventional Double-Lane Roundabouts: Operational Performance Evaluation, Zuhair Elhassy

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Conventional roundabouts have been prevalent worldwide since the emergence of modern roundabouts in 1966. An innovative design of multilane roundabouts known as turbo roundabouts, however, has been recently introduced as an alternative to conventional multilane roundabouts. Due to several reasons, there has been no general consensus on the operational performance of turbo roundabouts throughout the world. Nationwide, turbo roundabouts have yet to be part of roadway systems, but there is an ongoing project expected to be finished in early 2020. Therefore, this dissertation aims to evaluate the operational performance of a widespread variant of turbo roundabouts, namely basic turbo roundabouts, …

Inventory Of Hazardous Materials Shipments Moving Into Fayette County, Kentucky, Candice Y. Wallace, Bryan Gibson, Steven Douglas Kreis

Kentucky Transportation Center Research Report

Each day, significant quantities of hazardous materials are transported through Fayette County. The bulk of the materials pass through without incident, but some vehicles carrying them are involved in roadway incidents and/or accidents. However, first responders and management personnel lack clear knowledge of what hazardous material commodities are on central Kentucky’s roads. This project was designed to provide a high level analysis of hazardous material commodity flows in Fayette County.

Evaluation Of Shared Space To Reduce Traffic Congestion, Kimley Frosch, David Martinelli, Avinash Unnikrishnan

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Pedestrian and vehicle interactions often lead to conflicts that bring about safety, traffic congestion, and priority or right of way issues. Common methods used in the past to combat said issues have largely relied on the principle of separating the motions of pedestrians and vehicles by means of bridges, tunnels, signals, and access restrictions. A different approach known as shared space aims to solve the same problems with a less structured and defined environment which instead places more reliance on human interaction and perception. Although it has been used in multiple scenarios across Europe with success, instances of shared spaces …

Investigate An Appropriate Spatial Resolution For Large-Scaled Pedestrian Travel Demand Model, Qin Zhang, Kelly Clifton, Rolf Moeckel

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

An appropriate spatial resolution plays a significant role in any travel demand models. It directly impacts the level of detail of model input data, outcomes, and sensitivities (Castiglione et al., 2014; Moeckel and Donnelly, 2015). Compared to motorized or bicycle travel, pedestrian trips occur over a shorter travel distance and they are sensitive to environmental conditions at a much finer grain. Thus, it is important for models to set an appropriate spatial resolution to capture variations in walking conditions, leading to better representation of pedestrian demand over space (Gehrke and Clifton, 2014).

Observational Method And Coding Framework For Analyzing The Functionality Of Unprotected Bicycle Lanes, Cat Silva, Kelly Clifton, Rolf Moeckel

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

This research evaluates how well unprotected bicycle lanes function as dedicated travel lanes for bicyclists. Two types of bicycle lanes are included in this study, including on-street bicycle lanes demarcated with painted lines on the vehicular roadway and bicycle lanes at-grade with, and immediately adjacent to, the pedestrian sidewalk. Specifically, the research is focused on how people behave and interact on street segments with these facilities in place. To assess how, and how well, these types of bicycle lanes function for the bicyclists using them, an observational method is deployed to record, document, and analyze people’s behavior and interactions. A …

An Initial Exploration Of The 2005 Iowa Rural Interstate Speed Limit Increase Using Linear Regression, Thomas Ryan Cook

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Speed limit increases, particularly on interstates have been studied and researched many times over the course of the last 50 years in the United States. These research efforts began after the implementation of the National Maximum Speed Law (NMSL), which reduced all speed limits to a maximum of 55-mph. In the years that followed, this restriction was relaxed to 65-mph with the Surface Transportation and Uniform Relocation Assistance Act (STURAA) and ultimately repealed later by the National Highway System Designation Act (NHSDA). Since the repeal, states reacted in myriad of ways and many studies documented the changes of those reactions. …

Investigating The Use Of In-Place Lateral Pull Off Tests To Determine The Compressive Strength Of Structural Concrete, Charlie Sun

Kentucky Transportation Center Research Report

The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet’s current practice for determining the compressive strength of structural concrete consists of two methods. Both methods require that samples be delivered to an off-site facility for testing. Accordingly, affected parties on the project site must wait for the delivery of samples to the off-site facility, the performance of tests and analysis of test data, and the return of test results to the project site. Analysis of existing structural concrete requires core samples to be taken from the structural element in question. As a result, sample locations must be patched and repaired. Sampling can also potentially damage …

Analysis And Optimization Of Chassis Movements In Transportation Networks With Centralized Chassis Processing Facilities, Timothy Martin Vanderbeek

CGU Theses & Dissertations

This work studies the concept of “Centralized Processing of Chassis,” and its potential impact on port drayage efficiency. The concept revolves around an off-dock terminal (or several off-dock terminals), referred to as Chassis Processing Facilities (CPFs). A CPF is located close to the port, where trucks will go to exchange chassis, thereby reducing traffic at the marine terminals and resulting in reduced travel times and reduced congestion. This work is divided into two major studies: one at the strategic planning level, and one at the operational level for individual trucking companies.

In the first study, an analytical framework for modeling …

Synthesis Of Fault Traces In Se Louisiana Relative To Infrastructure, David Culpepper, Elizabeth Chinn Mcdade, Nancye Dawers, Mark Kulp, Rui Zhang

Data

Corresponding data set for Tran-SET Project No. 17GTLSU12. Abstract of the final report is stated below for reference:

"Geological faulting has been implicated as a contributor to subsidence, coastal land-loss and submergence of marshlands in southern Louisiana. This report reviews whether fault motion, either by slow creep or more sudden slip, can cause deformation of engineered structures resulting in increased infrastructure maintenance and repair costs. The impact of surface, or near-surface, geologic faulting on critical infrastructure is insufficiently documented in southeastern Louisiana, but the state has a vast amount of energy-sector subsurface data that to date has been under-utilized for …

Field And Numerical Study For Deteriorating Precast Double-Tee Girder Bridges, Brian Kidd

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Two deteriorating DT bridges in South Dakota, both over 30-years old, were field tested with a static and dynamic load. From the recorded strain values, the liveload distribution factors (LLDFs) and dynamic load allowance (IM) factors were calculated. The AASHTO LRFD and AASHTO Standard Specifications were compared with the field LLDFs and IMs. It was determined that the AASHTO LRFD Specifications were conservative for deteriorating DT girder bridges, with two exceptions. The AASHTO Standard codified LLDFs were significantly higher than the field LLDFs in all cases. The AASHTO LRFD and AASHTO Standard specifications were conservative when calculating the IM factors …

Deterioration Modelling Of Bridges On Brm 5.2.3, Sudhir Palle, Theodore Hopwood Ii

Kentucky Transportation Center Research Report

The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KYTC) initiated the study KYSPR 17-532, “Deterioration Modelling of Bridges on BrM 5.2.3,” so it could receive assistance identifying and employing bridge deterioration and cost forecast modeling for its bridge maintenance program. The Kentucky Transportation Center (KTC) was to help coordinate KYTC in adapting BrM 5.2.3’s deterioration and cost modelling features and update the existing guide material to reflect all changes for BrM 5.2.3. This study included acquiring access and becoming familiar with AASHTO Bridge Management (BrM 5.2.3) software. It was also to explore opportunities for any training on BrM and BrM 5.2.3’s deterioration and cost …

Kentucky Traffic Collision Facts 2018, Eric R. Green, Paul A. Ross, Christopher L. Blackden, Kentucky State Police

Kentucky Transportation Center Research Report

KENTUCKY’S TRAFFIC COLLISION FACTS report is based on collision reports submitted to the Kentucky State Police Records Branch. As required by Kentucky Revised Statutes 189.635, “every law enforcement agency whose officers investigate a vehicle accident of which a report must be made...shall file a report of the accident...within ten days after investigation of the accident upon forms supplied by the bureau.” The stated purpose of this requirement is to utilize data on traffic collisions for such purposes as will improve the traffic safety program in the Commonwealth. Data contained in this report are based solely on the observations and judgements …

Validation Of The Highway Capacity Manual Urban Street Travel Time Reliability Methodology Using Empirical Data, Ernest Tufuor, Laurence Rilett

Mid-America Transportation Center: Final Reports and Technical Briefs

The 6th edition of the Highway Capacity Manual (HCM-6) includes the concept of travel time reliability (TTR), which attempts to determine the distribution of average trip travel times over an extended period. TTR is an inherent part of travelers’ route choice decisions and is used by traffic managers to better quantify operations rather than simply using average travel times. The focus of this paper is on the HCM-6 urban street TTR methodology contained in Chapter 17. The approach uses historical data (e.g., weather and volume fluctuations) and simple empirical data (e.g., 1-day volume count) to provide the user with average …

Reports From The United States Of North America On Railroads, Steamship Travel, Banks And Other Public Undertakings By Franz Anton Ritter Von Gerstner And Description Of A Journey Through The United States Of North America By Clara Von Gerstner, Née Von Epplen-Härtenstein Translated, With An Introduction, By Steven Rowan, Steven Rowan, Franz Anton Ritter Von Gerstner, Clara Von Gerstner, Née Von Epplen-Härtenstein

History Faculty Works

What follows contains a translation of the Berichte aus den Vereinigten Staaten von Nordamerika… [= Reports from the United States of North America] by Franz Anton Ritter von Gerstner, published in Leipzig in August 1839, and posted on the website of “austrian literature online.” It is the companion piece to two other classics of contemporary travel literature, one of them Ritter von Gerstner’s massive description of the transportation system of the United States published by F. A. von Gerstner’s assistant, Ludwig Klein,1 as well as the touching detailed travel narrative of his widow, Clara von Gerstner, Beschreibung einer Reise durch …

Redefining Construction “As-Built” Plans To Meet Current Kentucky Transportation Cabinet Needs, Victoria Lynn Lasley

Theses and Dissertations--Civil Engineering

As-built drawings are the traditional method used by the construction industry to record changes made during construction. As-builts provide valuable information for new design projects as well as rehabilitation and remediation projects. The completeness and accuracy of these plans are essential for transportation industries and their success. While the importance of as-builts is widely recognized, the process of creating them has proven to be difficult. It is a time consuming process and entities often lack the resources necessary to complete accurate and detailed as-builts. After an investigation of current as-built operations within State Transportation Agencies, recommendations have been made to …

An Assessment Of Historical Traffic Forecast Accuracy And Sources Of Forecast Error, Jawad Mahmud Hoque

Theses and Dissertations--Civil Engineering

Transportation infrastructure improvement projects are typically huge and have significant economic and environmental effects. Forecasts of demand of the facility in the form of traffic level help size the project as well as choose between several alternatives. Inaccuracy in these forecasts can thus have a great impact on the efficiency of the operational design and the benefits accrued from the project against the cost. Despite this understanding, evaluation of traffic forecast inaccuracy has been too few, especially for un-tolled roads in the United States. This study, part of a National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) funded project, bridges this gap …

Connected And Autonomous Vehicles Effects On Emergency Response Times, Austin William Obenauf

Theses and Dissertations--Civil Engineering

Emergency response times have been shown to be directly correlated with mortality rates of out-of-hospital patients. Studies have been conducted to show the relationship between time and mortality rates until patients receive the proper treatment. With more cardiac arrests and other life threatening illnesses occurring in the United States, more emergency calls will be required as well. As of today, technological advancements have been made to reduce response times, but human factors still require certain procedures, causing delays in the run time and increasing the rate of mortality. Here we show the results of emergency response times with the market …

Adapting Crash Modification Factors For The Connected And Autonomous Vehicle Environment, Federico Valentin Lause Iii

Theses and Dissertations--Civil Engineering

The Crash Modification Factor (CMF) clearinghouse can be used to estimate benefits for specific highway safety countermeasures. It assists safety professionals in the allocation of investments. The clearinghouse contains over 7000 entries of which only 446 are categorized as intelligent transportation systems or advanced technology, but none directly address connected or autonomous vehicles (CAVs). Further, the effectiveness of highway safety countermeasures is assumed to remain constant over time, an assumption that is particularly problematic as new technologies are introduced. For example, for the existing fleet of human-driven vehicles, installation of rumble strip can potentially reduce “run-off-road” crashes by 40%. If …

Improving Bicycle Infrastructure With The Use Of Bicycle Share Travel Data, Jennifer Mintao Weast

Theses and Dissertations--Civil Engineering

Bicycling as a mode of transportation has been increasing in recent years due to its environmental and health benefits. The availability of bicycles through bicycle share programs has made bicycling a more viable option. With this increase, there is a need for complementary improvements of bicycle infrastructure. Many local and regional transportation agencies are recognizing this need and developing a master plan or safety action plan to improve the city’s bicycle and walking facilities. This study examines bicycle travel demands and travel patterns in Lexington, Kentucky as generated by SPIN bicycle share users. It is hypothesized that the SPIN users …

Investigation Of The Effect Of Vehicle Color On Safety, Deogratias Eustace, Fayez Khalaf Alanazi, Peter W. Hovey

Civil and Environmental Engineering and Engineering Mechanics Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Safety, Operational, And Design Analyses Of Managed Toll And Connected Vehicles' Lanes, Moatz Saad

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Managed lanes (MLs) have been implemented as a vital strategy for traffic management and traffic safety improvement. The majority of previous studies involving MLs have explored a limited scope of the impact of the MLs segments as a whole, without considering the safety and operational effects of the access design. Also, there are limited studies that investigated the effect of connected vehicles (CVs) on managed lanes. Hence, this study has two main objectives: (1) the first objective is achieved by determining the optimal managed lanes access design, including accessibility level and weaving distance for an at-grade access design. (2) the …

Development Of Decision Support System For Active Traffic Management Systems Considering Travel Time Reliability, Whoibin Chung

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

As traffic problems on roadways have been increasing, active traffic management systems (ATM) using proactive traffic management concept have been deployed on freeways and arterials. The ATM aims to integrate and automate various traffic control strategies such as variable speed limits, queue warning, and ramp metering through a decision support system (DSS). Over the past decade, there have been many efforts to integrate freeways and arterials for the efficient operation of roadway networks. It has been required that these systems should prove their effectiveness in terms of travel time reliability. Therefore, this study aims to develop a new concept of …

A System Dynamics Approach On Sustainability Assessment Of The United States Urban Commuter Transportation, Tolga Ercan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Transportation sector is one of the largest emission sources and is a cause for human health concern due to the high dependency on personal vehicle in the U.S. Transportation mode choice studies are currently limited to micro- and regional-level boundaries, lacking of presenting a complete picture of the issues, and the root causes associated with urban passenger transportation choices in the U.S. Hence, system dynamics modeling approach is utilized to capture complex causal relationships among the critical system parameters affecting alternative transportation mode choices in the U.S. as well as to identify possible policy areas to improve alternative transportation mode …

Developing A Traffic Safety Diagnostics System For Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Usingdeep Learning Algorithms, Ou Zheng

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents an automated traffic safety diagnostics solution using deep learning techniques to process traffic videos by Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). Mask R-CNN is employed to better detect vehicles in UAV videos after video stabilization. The vehicle trajectories are generated when tracking the detected vehicle by Channel and Spatial Reliability Tracking (CSRT) algorithm. During the detection process, missing vehicles could be tracked by the process of identifying stopped vehicles and comparing Intersect of Union (IOU) between the tracking results and the detection results. In addition, rotated bounding rectangles based on the pixel-to- pixel manner masks that are generated by …

Effect Of Moisture Condition On Concrete Core Strengths, Wally Heyen, Lieska Halsey

Nebraska Department of Transportation: Research Reports

The main purpose of this study was to determine if there would be any major differences between curing methods of cores taken for acceptance testing from a highway slab on a project. The comparison provided data to determine the effect of the moisture gradients created by these different curing treatments on core strength and core permeability. The strengths were measured of moist cured cores and sealed plastic bag cured cores from the day cores were obtained (14, 21 and 26 days) until they reached 28 days. Permeability was also measured at 26, 28 and 32 days. According to ASTM C42, …