Civil and Environmental Engineering Commons^™

Analysis Of Traffic Collisions In Dublin Using Gis Based System, Jagteshwar Singh, Niamh O' Reilly

Conference papers

This study aims to analyse traffic collisions in the Greater Dublin Region between the period 2006-2012, using GIS to identify hotspots and examine the relationship between collisions and a range of contributory factors including vehicular speeds, traffic volume, road curvature, road category and distance from intersection that could enable prediction of traffic collisions. To this end, Road Safety Authority (RSA) collision data for Dublin Region geocoded as point events, road profiles, traffic flow characteristics on which these occur are spatially merged using ArcGIS and FME software to establish if a significant relationship exists between collision frequencies on road links and …

Study On Ship Emissions And Countermeasures In Shanghai Port, Yunfeng Zhang

Maritime Safety & Environment Management Dissertations (Dalian)

No abstract provided.

Structure Analysis And Governance Strategy Of International Containerized Liner Market Under The Shipping Alliances, Xuming Fan

World Maritime University Dissertations

No abstract provided.

A Barge Fleet Composition For An Industrial Dry Bulk Transportation : Operating Between River Wharf And Coastal Floating Transshipment Platform, Boyu Jin

World Maritime University Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Impact Of Panama Canal Expansion On Container Liner Shipping Industry, Rongrong Xue

World Maritime University Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Models And Policies Of Port Carbon Emission Reduction : A Case Study Of The Port Of Dalian, Jiaqiong Zhao

World Maritime University Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Towards Food Service Sustainability In Suburban Environments By Optimally Locating Shared Anaerobic Digester Units, Rebecca Loraamm, Joni Downs, Robert Alonso Bair, Daniel Yeh

Suburban Sustainability

Anaerobic digestion is an effective method for reducing food waste at the consumer level. Drawbacks associated with this strategy include high construction costs for multiple digester units and limited public awareness of the method’s commercial potential. Given the large scale problem of food waste, an approach establishing community partnerships between local businesses and primary schools is offered to combat the problem of food waste. Optimizing the placement of shared digester units enabling utilization by multiple stakeholders is the suggested mitigation method. This research explores application of the p-median problem to determine the set of optimal sites for shared anaerobic digester …

How Governmental Greenhouse Gas Science Has Been Weathered Through Time And Why It Matters, Christopher Apple

STAR Program Research Presentations

Global consumption of materials and energy is accelerating. The rate of plant and animal species extinction is accelerating. On a finite Earth with a growing population, current consumption cannot continue sustainably. Greenhouse gases (GHGs) tell us an important part of this story. The Global Greenhouse Gas Reference Network, managed by scientists at NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory, is the largest greenhouse gas analysis network in the world. It has been shaped by scientific questions, stagnant funding despite rises in research costs, and the task of understanding how the Earth system will respond to a changing climate. The Network began by …

Remote Sensing Of The Environmental Impacts Of Utility-Scale Solar Energy Plants, Mohammad Masih Edalat

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Solar energy has many environmental benefits compared with fossil fuels but solar farming can have environmental impacts especially during construction and development. Thus, in order to enhance environmental sustainability, it is imperative to understand the environmental impacts of utility-scale solar energy (USSE) plants. During recent decades, remote sensing techniques and geographic information systems have become standard techniques in environmental applications. In this study, the environmental impacts of USSE plants are investigated by analyzing changes to land surface characteristics using remote sensing. The surface characteristics studied include land cover, land surface temperature, and hydrological response whereas changes are mapped by comparing …

Webinar: Land Use Mix And Pedestrian Travel Behavior: Advancements In Conceptualization And Measurement, Steven R. Gehrke

TREC Webinar Series

Smart growth policies have often emphasized the importance of land use mix as an intervention beholding of lasting urban planning and public health benefits. Past transportation-land use research has identified potential efficiency gains achieved by mixed-use neighborhoods and the subsequent shortening of trip lengths; whereas, public health research has accredited increased land use mixing as an effective policy for facilitating greater physical activity.

However, despite the celebrated transportation, land use, and health benefits of improved land use mixing and the extent of topical attention, no consensus has been reached regarding the conceptualization and measurement of this key smart growth principle …

Autonomous Vehicles: An Empirical Assessment Of Consumers’ Perceptions, Intended Adoption, And Impacts On Household Vehicle Ownership, Nikhil Menon

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Emerging automotive and transportation technologies have provided revolutionary possibilities in the way we might travel in the future. Major car manufacturers and technology giants have demonstrated significant progress in advancing and testing autonomous vehicles in real-life traffic conditions. Governmental agencies are grappling with how to plan transportation systems for a world with autonomous vehicles. Past research has shown that not all technologies are immediately welcomed by the public. Autonomous Vehicles would have to likely go through a similar phase, and would need to overcome not just technological challenges but also social barriers for successful penetration into the marketplace. Most previous …

Introduction To Signal Timing & Traffic Control, Sarah V. Hernandez, Mariah Crew, Karla Diaz-Corro, Taslima Akter

Civil Engineering Teaching and Learning

The purpose of these lesson plans is to introduce students to traffic signalization basics. Students will be lead through a series of mini-lectures on traffic control and signalization including a discussion on the limitations and benefits of traffic signalization. The lesson plans compliment a computer simulation “game” in which students act as manual operators for a single up to four by four gridded intersection. Students attempt to control the progression of signals to understand the relationship between signal timing and user delay. Through experimentation with the simulation, students generate a presentation discussing the benefits and drawbacks of signal timing and …

Book Review - Dixie Highway: Road Building And The Making Of The Modern South, 1900-1930, Rebecca Rose

Georgia Library Quarterly

No abstract provided.

A Simulator-Based Analysis Of Engineering Treatments For Right-Hook Bicycle Crashes At Signalized Intersections, Jennifer Warner, David S. Hurwitz, Christopher M. Monsere, Kayla Fleskes

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

A right-hook crash is a crash between a right-turning motor vehicle and an adjacent through-moving bicycle. At signalized intersections, these crashes can occur during any portion of the green interval when conflicting bicycles and vehicles are moving concurrently. The objective of this research was to evaluate the effectiveness of four types of engineering countermeasures – regulatory signage, intersection pavement marking, smaller curb radius, and protected intersection design – at modifying driver behaviors that are known contributing factors in these crashes. This research focused on right-hook crashes that occur during the latter stage of the circular green indication at signalized intersections …

Time Varying Parameter Models For Catchments With Land Use Change: The Importance Of Model Structure, Sahani Pathiraja, Daniela Anghileri, Paolo Burlando, Ashish Sharma, Lucy Marshall, Hamid Moradkhani

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Rapid population and economic growth in South-East-Asia has been accompanied by extensive land use change with consequent impacts on catchment hydrology. Modelling methodologies capable of handling changing land use conditions are therefore becoming ever more important, and are receiving increasing attention from hydrologists. A recently developed Data Assimilation based framework that allows model parameters to vary through time in response to signals of change in observations is considered for a medium sized catchment (2880 km²) in Northern Vietnam experiencing substantial but gradual land cover change. We investigate the efficacy of the method as well as the importance of the chosen …

Algorithms For Constructing Vehicle Trajectories In Urban Networks Using Inertial Sensors Data From Mobile Devices, Umana Ahmed

Computational Modeling & Simulation Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Vehicle trajectories are an important source of information for estimating traffic flow characteristics. Lately, several studies have focused on identifying a vehicle’s trajectory in traffic network using data from mobile devices. However, these studies predominantly employed GPS coordinate information for tracking a vehicle’s speed and position in the transportation network. Considering the known limitations of GPS, such as, connectivity issues at urban canyons and underpasses, low precision of localization, high power consumption of device while GPS is in use, this research focuses on developing alternate methods for identifying a vehicle’s trajectory at an intersection and at a urban grid network …

Everglades Drainage District: Biennial Report 1927-1928 To The Board Of Commissioners Of Everglades Drainage District, F C. Elliot

City and Regional Planning -- Florida

Everglades Drainage District report 1927-1928

An Expert System For Local Flood Response Coordination And Training, Xiaoyin Zhang, Gary Moynihan, Andrew Ernest, Joseph Gutenson

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications

Flood response is an essential component of flood management to rescue people, reduce property loss, and limit the impact to the environment. Effective flood response depends on a sound coordination structure with unified responsibilities, smooth communications, and scalable response plans. An efficient coordination system, including command and management structures, is built on a thorough understanding of the responsibilities and actions of each role for delivering the response core capabilities. Collecting, sharing, using, and handling the knowledge require great efforts in knowledge management. To further enhance such efforts, an expert system for local flood response coordination and training (LFRS) was developed …

China's Motorization Wave And The Place Of Emerging Technologies, Christopher Cherry

PSU Transportation Seminars

E-bikes, E-Cars, Carshare, Bikeshare, and Micro-EVs in China have shaken up the traditional motorization pathways that have occurred in developing countries in the past. The combination of emerging vehicle technologies, urban and environmental constraints, and heavy-handed policy make China's motorization processes unique in the world—but how China motorizes has far-reaching impacts based on sheer volume of vehicles and population.

This seminar discusses the results of a six-year NSF CAREER project to explore China's motorization processes, combining behavioral and environmental modeling approaches to assess the impacts of emerging vehicle technologies on motorization and ultimately environmental sustainability. The focus is mostly on …

Focusing On Equity In Regional Plans, Kristine M. Williams

TREC Project Briefs

Metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) have long been required to consider the equity implications of their regional transportation plans and processes.

Geometry-Based Mass Grading Of Mango Fruits Using Image Processing, M. A. Momin, Md Towfiqur Rahman, M. S. Sultana, C. Igathinathane, A. T. M. Ziauddin, T. E. Grift

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

Mango (Mangifera indica) is an important, and popular fruit in Bangladesh. However, the post-harvest processing of it is still mostly performed manually, a situation far from satisfactory, in terms of accuracy and throughput. To automate the grading of mangos (geometry and shape), we developed an image acquisition and processing system to extract projected area, perimeter, and roundness features. In this system, images were acquired using a XGA format color camera of 8-bit gray levels using fluorescent lighting. An image processing algorithm based on region based global thresholding color binarization, combined with median filter and morphological analysis was developed …

Land Use And Active Travel: A Complex Relationship, Steven R. Gehrke

TREC Project Briefs

While it’s accepted that mixed-use development promotes active travel, researchers don’t have a consensus on exactly how land use determines people’s travel patterns.

Walking Behavior Of Individuals With And Without Disabilities At Right-Angle Turning Facility, Nirdosh Gaire, Mohammad Sadra Sharifi, Keith M. Christensen, Anthony Chen, Ziqi Song

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

To accommodate the needs of pedestrians, urban designers need to carefully consider pedestrian walking behavior in different walking environments. Detailed studies of the walking behavior of pedestrians have been conducted and used for pedestrian simulation models. A right-angle turning facility (RATF) is found in many built environments. Hence the study of pedestrians' walking behavior in RATFs is important to build pedestrian simulation models. Previous studies have failed to address the walking behavior of individuals with visual and mobility disabilities even though they comprise a significant portion of the population in the United States. The purpose of this paper is to …

Network Congestion Effect Of E-Hailing Transportation Services, Xuegang Ban

PSU Transportation Seminars

E-hailing plays a key role in emerging transportation services such as ridesourcing, ridesharing and taxis, among others. This seminar will present a general economic model to analyze the congestion effect of e-hailing services in a transportation network.

The model can help analyze customers’ choices of different modes, based on their value of time and the charging schemes of different services, as well as the overall impact of the services to network level congestion.

Pavement Surface Distress Detection, Assessment, And Modeling Using Geospatial Techniques, Su Zhang

Civil Engineering ETDs

Roadway pavement surface distress information is essential for effective pavement asset management, and subsequently, transportation agencies at all levels dedicate a large amount of time and money to routinely collect data on pavement surface distress conditions as the core of their asset management programs. These data are used by these agencies to make maintenance and repair decisions. Current methods for pavement surface distress evaluation are time-consuming and expensive. Geospatial technologies provide new methods for evaluating pavement surface distress condition that can supplement or substitute for currently-adopted evaluation methods. However, few previous studies have explored the utility of geospatial technologies for …

Behavior-Based Freight Modeling At Metro, Chris Johnson, Bud Reiff

PSU Transportation Seminars

Chris Johnson and Bud Reiff will present on a behavior-based freight model being used at Oregon Metro. This model will replace Metro’s current truck model with a hybrid freight model that both represents multi-modal freight flows through elements of national and regional supply chains and simulates the movement of individual trucks and shipments on local networks. Model estimation and calibration will also require collection of behavioral data from shippers and receivers representing a wide range of industries, common and contract freight carriers, business that operate non-freight commercial vehicles, warehouse managers, and logistics agents.

Key project objectives:

• Develop tools to enable …

Gis Internship At Tighe And Bond, Yuanting Qu M.S.

Sustainability and Social Justice

I started working as GIS Intern at Tighe and Bond Worcester Office on May 11, 2016. I was given a multitude of civil engineering related projects to edit, verify, do analysis and process data. I was able to apply my computer programming skills to help the GIS team develop a useful script tool set that will improve efficiency work. This internship provided me insight into how GIS operate as a part of engineering project on a day-to-day basis. Working background, my responsibilities and what I have learned from this internship is discussed in this report.

Peer-To-Peer Carsharing: Short-Term Effects On Travel Behavior In Portland, Or, Jennifer Dill, Nathan Mcneil, Steven Howland

TREC Final Reports

Peer-to-peer (P2P) carsharing is a relatively new concept in the U.S. Enabled by recent internet and mobile technology development, P2P carsharing generally involves a facilitating company connecting private vehicle owners to people who are interested in renting a vehicle. P2P carsharing has many things in common with business-to-consumer (B2C) carsharing services. Consumers join the service to rent vehicles on a short-term basis from locations dispersed throughout a certain area. Both services may allow households to reduce their private car ownership. However, P2P carsharing differs substantially from other models in that there are two distinct sets of consumers: those who rent …

Narratives Of Marginalized Cyclists: Understanding Obstacles To Utilitarian Cycling Among Women And Minorities In Portland, Or, Amy Lubitow

TREC Final Reports

Research has demonstrated that everyday or utilitarian forms of cycling are most likely to generate positive population-level health impacts (Garrard et al., 2012), yet significant deterrents to routine cycling remain, particularly for women and minorities. The primary aim of this project was to conduct a qualitative interview study that generated rich, narrative data regarding obstacles to routine or utilitarian cycling for women and minorities who already see biking as a viable form of transit, but who make relatively few bike trips. A secondary aim of the project was to develop a set of specific interventions that have the potential to …

Development Of A Multiband Remote Sensing System For Determination Of Unsaturated Soil Properties, Cyrus D. Garner

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A multiband system including active microwave sensing and visible-near infrared reflectance spectroscopy was developed to measure unsaturated soil properties in both field and laboratory environments. Remote measurements of soil volumetric water content (θv), soil water matric potential (ψ), and soil index properties (liquid limit [LL], plastic limit [PL], and clay fraction [CF]) were conducted. Field-based measurement of θv was conducted using a ground-based radar system and field measurements within 10 percentage points of measurements acquired with traditional sampling techniques were obtained. Laboratory-based, visible and near infrared spectroscopy was found to be capable of obtaining empirical, soil specific regression functions (partial …