Engineering Commons^™

Tra-914: Tdm To Promote Sustainable Commuting – An Employer’S Perspective, Sarah Hanson, Kevin Phillips

Canadian Society for Civil Engineering

There is a comprehensive transportation consulting industry across Canada that provides engineering services for highway and roadway design, environmental assessments, traffic engineering, etc. that all contribute to the development of our transportation infrastructure. However, as leaders in transportation planning and engineering, these transportation consultants must also strive to ‘practice what we preach’ in terms of promoting sustainable transportation solutions in our communities and in our daily lives. The purpose of this presentation is to examine the Travel Demand Management (TDM) initiatives that our AECOM Richmond Hill office has implemented to promote more sustainable work related commuting, and to present a …

Tra-919: A Survey-Based Approach To Understanding Resilience Implications Of Disruption To Transit Operation, Jenessa Man, Aarshabh Misra, Siva Srikukenthiran, Amer Shalaby

Canadian Society for Civil Engineering

Recent surge in academic and industry-related interest in transit resilience can be partly attributed to the occurrence and impact of disruptive events like Hurricane Sandy, Hurricane Katrina and the July 2005 London bombings. Such events have served not only to highlight the vulnerabilities of our public transit systems to natural disasters, targeted attacks and, broadly speaking, unexpected conditions, but also to garner interest in resilience-based approaches to mitigate and recover from the damage caused. In spite of recent gains in developing better understanding of transit resilience, substantial gaps remain in establishing a clear relationship between resilience and transit planning. This …

Tra-927: The Evolution Of Reptile Mitigation Measures On Highway 69, Terri Rogers

Canadian Society for Civil Engineering

MTO is actively expanding Highway 69 from a two-lane rural highway to a four-lane controlled access freeway. This is being completed through the eastern Georgian Bay area, some of the most pristine habitat for numerous species at risk reptiles. MTO obtained a permit under the Endangered Species Act for the project, prescribing extensive mitigation measures, including a requirement to prevent snakes and turtles from accessing the highway while still being able to access habitat on both sides.

To fulfill this condition, MTO is constructing one of the most permeable highways in Canada. At this stage, MTO has completed 13 passage …

Tra-928: Fish Barrier Mitigation Of An Oversteepened Culvert Within Saugeen First Nation Reserve, Robert A. Amos, Courtney Beneteau, Tisha Doucette, Dan Green, Kirstie Houston, Adele Mochrie, Valerie Nantais, Dave Penny, Doran Ritchie

Canadian Society for Civil Engineering

A deteriorated concrete box culvert conveying a tributary of the Saugeen River under Highway 21 in Ontario had reached the end of its lifespan and was in need of replacement. The tributary supports a diverse range of coldwater fish species such as Rainbow Trout; however, fish passage, particularly upstream migration, has been cut off since the culvert and highway were constructed over seventy-five years ago. Specifically, fish passage has been hindered by shallow sheet flow along the sixty metre flat bottom, excessive velocities associated with the smooth, seven percent gradient, and a perched barrier at the downstream outlet. A key …

Tra-929: A Standard Lexicon To Measure The Level Of Service Of Public Transportation Services Through Online Transit-Oriented Discussions, Moein Hosseini, Tamer El-Diraby, Amer Shalaby

Canadian Society for Civil Engineering

Public involvement in operation and planning of transit services is becoming a major focus of public transportation agencies. With the growing population and diversification of ideas, distilling knowledge from public opinion to incorporate into decision support systems is a major challenge for transit agencies. The common practice is to collect information from customers via Customer Satisfaction Surveys (CSat). Although such surveys provide useful insight for transit agencies, their design, data collection, and interpretation is expensive and time consuming. Because of the qualitative nature of the questions in these surveys, inconsistency in respondents’ perception of the survey questions is another challenge. …

Tra-913: Bat Species At Risk And Implications To Infrastructure Projects In Ontario, Melissa Straus, Nicole Kopysh, Andrew Taylor

Canadian Society for Civil Engineering

The Ontario Endangered Species Act (ESA 2007) provides protection of listed bat species and their habitat, including Eastern Small-footed Myotis (Myotis leibii), Little Brown Myotis (Myotis lucifugus), and Northern Myotis (Myotis septentrionalis); all of which have been identified as Endangered. The Tri-coloured Bat (Perimyotis subflavus) is currently under review and may be identified at risk in the near future. Bats are listed as a result of the spread of White-nose Syndrome (WNS), a fungal pathogen that has resulted in mass mortality events within hibernation sites. Through the use of two case studies …

Tra-930: Transit User Behaviour In Response To Subway Service Disruption, Teddy Lin, Amer Shalaby, Eric Miller

Canadian Society for Civil Engineering

Disruption of transit service is a common occurrence in many cities around the world, and these incidents may have serious impacts on the transit user’s journey. Transit user behavioural response under disrupted service conditions, specifically how transit riders choose among available mode options to complete their trips, is not well understood. Mode choice studies often lack proper consideration of travel time variability and uncertainty in such situations, neither do they fully account for some options considered by users, such as waiting, taking a shuttle bus, or cancelling the trip. This study aims to investigate transit user mode choice in response …

Tra-931: Using Ground Penetrating Radar (Gpr) To Identify Turtle Nests, Richard Korczak, Matt Bruder, Sean Spisani

Canadian Society for Civil Engineering

Many turtle species are considered species at risk in Ontario and Canada. Legislation and policy protects individuals, habitats and nests. Turtles nest in areas with sand and gravel and other loose substrates, with suitable sunlight and good drainage, including roadsides, and other disturbed areas. The presence of nests may pose constraints to construction and operation of roads and other engineering projects in Ontario.

Throughout Ontario, turtles have been observed to nest in the embankments and gravel shoulders of roadways located near wetlands. The ease of access to these nests enables the use of non-destructive technologies, such as Ground Penetrating Radar …

Tra-932: Planning For Goods Movement: Ontario's Freight-Supportive Guidelines & Off Peak Deliveries Pilot, Robin Kortright, Lucy Kang

Canadian Society for Civil Engineering

As communities grow and change it has become increasingly important to understand, plan and design for the movement of freight in order to maintain goods movement efficiency and the economic competitiveness of communities, while integrating and balancing the needs of other transportation system users and the compatibility of surrounding land uses. The Ontario Ministry of Transportation has developed Freight-Supportive Guidelines to assist municipalities, planners, engineers, developers and other practitioners in creating safe and efficient freight-supportive communities. The Guidelines provide land use planning, site design, road design and operational best practices, examples and implementation tools that are applicable to a wide …

Tra-933: Effects Of Rainfall On Control Delay And Queue At Multilane Roundabout, Stephen Olukayode Ibijola, Johnnie Ben-Edigbe

Canadian Society for Civil Engineering

The main thrust of the study is to investigate the extent of delay induced by rainfall at the roundabouts. Traffic flows at roundabout are continuous in one direction around a central island where entry flows yield to circulating flows. Based on the hypothesis that, rainfall will increase roundabout entry delay, ‘with and without’ rainfall studies were carried out at selected roundabouts in Durban, South Africa. Entry and circulating traffic flow data as well as geometric data were collected continuously at three selected sites during rainfall and dry weather conditions. Three classes of rainfall intensity were used: light rainfall with intensity < 2.5mm/h, moderate rainfall with intensity 2.5 – 10mm/h and heavy rainfall with intensity 10 – 50mm/h. Results show that entry delays increased between 11% and 22% during rainy conditions. The study concluded that heavy rainfall has a significant impact on delays and queues at roundabouts. The delay is not responsive to light and moderate rainfall intensity.

Tra-934: Incorporation Of Roundabouts At Holt Rd Interchange, Michael Weldon, Christopher Schueler

Canadian Society for Civil Engineering

The planned refurbishment of the Darlington Nuclear Generating Station (DNGS) by the Ontario Power Generation (OPG), scheduled to commence in late-2016 and extend until 2026, will result in significant employment growth and increased traffic volumes that cannot be supported by the area’s roadway network. In particular, the original Highway 401/Holt Road interchange, located approximately 40 km east of Toronto and serving as the primary access route for employee traffic into and out of the DNGS, was in need of significant upgrade and improvement in advance of commencing the refurbishment. The original interchange provided partial access to the highway only, while …

Tra-935: Repairing High Volume Hma Highways With Precast Concrete Inlay Panels, Daniel Pickel, Susan L. Tighe, Stephen Lee, Rico Fung, Tom Kazmierowski, Peter Smith, Mark Snyder

Canadian Society for Civil Engineering

The pavements which make up Canada’s high volume highways are subjected to some of the most demanding conditions in the world. They must structurally be capable of supporting significant traffic loading, which can exceed an average of 30,000 trucks per day. They must be capable of supporting these loads throughout the wide variety of environmental conditions to which they are exposed, ranging from hot summers to cold winters. In order to achieve service lives which do not necessitate frequent maintenance and repair activities, these pavement structures are required to be very resilient. A complication to constructing the resilient pavement structures …

Tra-938: A Parkway In A Prairie: The Rt. Hon. Herb Gray Parkway, Joel Foster

Canadian Society for Civil Engineering

Can a new international trade corridor successfully co-exist with one of the world’s most threatened ecosystems? Through careful design and innovative mitigation, the Rt. Hon. Herb Gray Parkway (the Parkway) was built with sensitivity to the adjacent tallgrass prairie. The Parkway was approved under the Ontario Environmental Assessment Act and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act as the new freeway connection between Highway 401 and a new crossing of the Detroit River between Windsor, Ontario and Detroit, Michigan.

Tallgrass prairie ecosystems are one of the most endangered vegetation communities on Earth and home to many rare species. The Parkway's ecological approach …

Tra-936: Modifying Signal Control At Intersections Under Adverse Weather Conditons, Zhengyang Lu, Liping Fu, Tae J. Kwon

Canadian Society for Civil Engineering

Adverse winter weather has always been a cause of traffic congestion and road collisions. To mitigate the negative impacts of winter weather, transportation agencies are under increasing pressure to introduce weather responsive traffic management strategies such as adaptive control of signalized intersections and variable speed limits. Currently, most traffic signal control systems are designed for normal weather conditions and are therefore suboptimal in terms of efficiency and safety for controlling traffic during winter snow events due to the changing traffic patterns and driver behavior. The main objective of this research is to explore how to modify traffic signal control under …

Tra-939: Re-Establishing Community Connections: The Rt. Hon. Herb Gray Parkway, Joel Foster

Canadian Society for Civil Engineering

The Rt. Hon. Herb Gray Parkway (the Parkway) is the Canadian access road portion of a new end-to-end transportation system for the Windsor-Detroit corridor. The Parkway was identified through the Detroit River International Crossing (DRIC) study, one of the most extensive environmental assessments ever undertaken by Ontario. The Parkway was approved under the Ontario Environmental Assessment Act and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act in 2009 and construction began in 2011.

Windsor-Detroit is the busiest land border crossing in Canada. More than 9,000 transport trucks per day travel the corridor from Highway 401 to border crossings in Windsor. Prior to construction, …

Tra-940: Assessing Current And Future Mackenzie River Freight Volumes In The Context Of Climate Change Impacts, Yunzhuang Zheng, Amy Kim, Qianqian Du

Canadian Society for Civil Engineering

The Mackenzie River is a major freight transportation route that connects many remote communities in the Northwest Territories and parts of Nunavut to southern Canada’s transportation network. The river is only navigable during the summer months, from mid-June until sometime in late-September to mid-October, when it is clear of ice. However, the water conditions of the river have changed significantly in recent years. Although water levels always decrease as the delivery season moves into fall, these reductions have been occurring much faster, in turn reducing barge loading capacities as well as operational speeds. In addition, based on simulations of ice …

Tra-941: Effectiveness Of Variable Message Signs In Improving The Road Network Through Route Guidance, Ahmed Kamal Mostafa, Dalia G. Said, Omar Osman Omar, Ahmed Atef Gadallah

Canadian Society for Civil Engineering

Variable Message Signs (VMS) are a means of providing valuable information to roadway users and enhancing the performance of the road network. The main objective of this research was to analyze the effectiveness of the use of VMS in improving the efficiency of the road network. This was implemented through a number of case studies under different conditions and different designs of the VMS. As this is a unique traffic guidance method to Egypt, the different factors that may affect the effectiveness of the sign to divert drivers was studied to fully understand the benefits of implementing VMS in Egypt. …

Tra-942: Imputation Of Missing Classified Traffic Data During Winter Season, Hyuk-Jae Roh, Satish Sharma, Prasanta K. Sahu

Canadian Society for Civil Engineering

Highway agencies collect traffic data to calculate traffic parameters such as Annual Average Daily Traffic (AADT), Design Hourly Volume (DHV) and then to use as input in the planning, operation and management of their highway systems. The traffic data are usually collected through traffic monitoring programs. In particular, the Weigh-in-Motion (WIM) system is one of data collection systems to capture configuration patterns of vehicle travelling on the detection area. It is learned from literatures that traffic monitoring devices are prone to be in malfunctioning and, consequently, providing erroneous or missing traffic data due to the adverse weather conditions in which …

Tra-946: Comparing Crash Estimation Techniques For Ranking Of Sites In A Network Screening Process, Lalita Thakali, Liping Fu, Tao Chen

Canadian Society for Civil Engineering

Network screening, a process for an effective and efficient management of road safety programs, relies on crash prediction techniques to quantify the relative risks of given sites. The two most commonly used statistical approaches are- cross-sectional model-based approach and Empirical Bayesian (EB) approach as they are known for reducing regression-to-mean bias problem of a simple crash history-based method. Meanwhile, relatively the EB approach is known to be a robust technique as it accounts for a site-specific risk level while still incorporating the risk estimates obtained from a cross-sectional model. Common to both the approaches is they are relatively convenient to …

Tra-944: Union Pearson Express Spur And T1 Station, Srdjan Brasic, Andrew Barr

Canadian Society for Civil Engineering

The Union Pearson Express Spur and station in Terminal 1 is a Design-Build-Finance pursuit by Infrastructure Ontario on behalf of the client/owner, Metrolinx. The rail passenger service line branches off the existing GO Georgetown Rail corridor and connects to Toronto Pearson International Airport with a new passenger station at Terminal 1. The Spur alignment is elevated over its entire length and crosses above major existing airport access roads and existing bridges, and connects to a new UP Express Terminal 1 Station in-line with the existing Automated People Mover Station.

The Spur Elevated Guideway is a 3 km long, multi span …

Tra-950: A Dynamic Programming Approach For Arterial Signal Optimization In A Connected Vehicle Environment, Gang Liu, Tony Z. Qiu

Canadian Society for Civil Engineering

Within the Connected Vehicle (CV) environment, vehicles are able to communicate with each other and with infrastructure via wireless communication technology. The collected data from CVs provide a much more complete picture of the arterial traffic states and can be utilized for signal control. Based on the real-time traffic information from CVs, this paper enhances an arterial traffic flow model for arterial signal optimization. Then a dynamic programming optimization model is created to solve the signal optimization application. A real-world arterial corridor is modeled in VISSIM to validate the algorithms. This approach is shown to generate good results and may …

Tra-951: The Importance Of Integrated Corridor Management At Borders And Their Surrounding Communities, Ben Plested

Canadian Society for Civil Engineering

The Transportation field is moving forward with an Integrated Corridor Management (ICM) approach whose aim is to manage the highway corridors as a multimodal system, and allows professionals to introduce operational decisions for the benefit of the corridor as a whole. Through this approach, travelers will be able to make educated decisions in choosing their method and route of travel, allowing highway corridors to realize significant improvements in the efficient movement of people and goods.

Border crossing locations are receiving attention from various stakeholders and partnerships, and substantial funding is being provided with the aim of implementing an Integrated Corridor …

Tra-952: Enhancing Resilience Of Traffic Networks With Connected Vehicles, Ata M. Khan, Matthew Whelen, Naser Snobar, Omar Elsafdi, Brooke Jones, Patricia Arnold

Canadian Society for Civil Engineering

Improving resilience of transportation infrastructure is a multifaceted subject. One of these addresses the traffic serving capability of the transportation system. As the profession progresses in finding ways to improve infrastructure resilience in physical terms, an associated thought process is underway to enhance the adaptive capacity in traffic networks with intelligent systems and advanced related methods in order to cope with shocks in the traffic environment caused by nature-induced or other events. This paper reports research in-progress on measures for enhancing the resilience of road traffic networks with applications of connected vehicles. The need for resilient road traffic networks is …

Tra-953: Automation In Driving For Enhancing Resiliency In Transportation System, Ata M. Khan, Matthew Whelen, Omar Elsafdi, Naser Snobar, Brooke Jones, Patricia Arnold

Canadian Society for Civil Engineering

The ability of the transportation system to continue to serve traffic under disruptive conditions is a resilience characteristic of infrastructure and traffic management. In the context of this research, resilience is defined as the ability to resist the loss of traffic-serving capability by using traffic (including geometric) and control system design advances (i.e. the inherent resilience) and by activating capacity-enhancing measures (i.e. the dynamic resilience). Vulnerabilities in road traffic networks cause the loss of capability to serve demand overloads. On the other hand, intelligent technology and associated methodology can potentially prevent or reduce this loss of capability. An outstanding research …

Tra-954: Solution Model For Urban Traffic Congestion: Egyptian Case Study, Mary E. Soliman, Romany E. Bassily, Safwan A. Khedr, Maram M. Saudy, Ezzat H. Fahmy, Omar I. Khalil

Canadian Society for Civil Engineering

Traffic congestion is a major problem in many cities around the world resulting in massive delays, increased fuel wastage, environmental impact and other negative consequences affecting the daily life of each individual. From a transportation engineering point of view, making the correct decision to eliminate such congestion problems can be very difficult for decision-makers who carry the burden of analyzing large quantities of data which could be vague and conflicting in nature. Therefore, an effective and consistent system is required to simplify the decision-making process of the traffic congestion control. Traffic simulation could be that tool.

The seriousness of traffic …

Tra-956: Improving Intersection Throughput Using Connected Vehicles, Jiangchen Li, Jie Gao, Tony Z. Qiu

Canadian Society for Civil Engineering

This paper proposes a connected vehicle based approach to improve the throughput at signalized intersections and ultimately increase the mobility of a transportation system. Connected vehicle technology demonstrates tremendous potential for improving safety and mobility, as it enables the real-time sharing of vehicle data, including position, speed, acceleration, etc., not only among vehicles but also between vehicles and infrastructure. The proposed approach takes advantage of such real-time data to develop a strategy that maximizes throughput of an isolated intersection locally. Accordingly, the problem is formulated as a two-step centralized optimization. There are two main processes in this method: optimization for …

Tra-957: London On Bikes – London’S Cycling Master Plan Strategic Changes To Improve London’S Cycling Culture & Infrastructure, Douglas W. Macrae, Claire A. S. Basinski

Canadian Society for Civil Engineering

The City of London, Canada has been implementing cycling infrastructure since the 1980s. The City’s formal cycling master planning efforts to improve the cycling culture within the City were successfully “launched” in 2005 with the development and adoption of the City’s first Cycling Master Plan. The first master plan was followed by a strategic implementation plan which was completed in 2007 and used to guide planning, design and engineering efforts by City staff. The completion and adoption of both of these plans has led to the development of comprehensive off-road network of cycling facilities along the City’s premier Thames River …

Tra-958: A Methodology For Integrating Asset Valuation In Transportation Asset Management, Zaid Alyami, Susan L. Tighe

Canadian Society for Civil Engineering

Asset valuation is an essential component of effective asset management. It is an important method to demonstrate proper management of public assets and effective utilization of government’s budgets. In addition, it allows agencies to demonstrate justifications of funds needed to preserve its assets. Asset valuation is used in standard reporting, depreciation schedules, auditor requirements and condition assessments. Several government regulatory bodies mandate agencies to report their Capital Tangible Assets’ (CTA) values within their annual statement. For example, the Canadian Public Sector Accounting Board (PSAB), the Governmental Accounting Standard Board (GASB) and the New Zealand International Financial Reporting Standards (NZ IFRS) …

Tra-960: Field Evaluation Of Passing Sight Distance Parameters, Udai Hassein, Said Easa

Canadian Society for Civil Engineering

Drivers require a sufficient distance on a two-lane highway to ensure that they can safely maneuver past an impeding vehicle. The passing behaviour of drivers is an important element of safe passing maneuvers. In this paper, field studies were conducted in different countries to determine the passing behaviour of drivers. The study involved participants of both genders in different age groups. A passing profile was established using experimental data collected by Dual Camera Car DVRs and a GPS data logger device that records the instantaneous speeds and positions of different passing vehicles. Using the collected data, linear regression models were …

Tra-961: Foam Glass Lightweight Aggregate: The New Approach, Yassaman Yousefi, Adam C. Schneider, Hassan Baaj, Susan L. Tighe, Abbas Youssefi

Canadian Society for Civil Engineering

Foam glass lightweight aggregate (LWA) derived from mixed waste and recycled glass has great potential for use as an alternative material for several applications in building and other industrial applications. Despite the significant superior features of the current product, there is still room for further research to improve the structural performance of newly developed foam glass and foam glass-ceramics produced from waste and recycled materials. Improvements may be achieved through controlling microstructures and the distributions of pore sizes and shapes, altering chemical and phase compositions, creating reinforced structures by the inclusion of other fibrous materials as well as adding colour …