Transportation Engineering Commons^™

2+1 Roadway Design Guidance Update, Jeff Jasper, Jeff Wolfe, Robin Baskette, Paul Ross, Chris Van Dyke

Kentucky Transportation Center Research Report

The frequency and severity of crashes on rural two-lane roadways have increased in the US relative to other road types. This trend can be explained by the growing number of vehicles, higher speeds, narrow shoulders, and vehicle mixes. One solution for improving traffic flow and safety outcomes on rural two-lane roadways is to adopt a 2+1 design, which confers the benefits of four-lane highways but at a lower cost. Transportation agencies throughout Europe — and increasingly the US — have seen good results from 2+1 layouts. Crash data from Sweden, Germany, Finland, and Denmark reveal better safety outcomes following the …

Pedestrian And Bicycle Improvement Scoring Method For Shift–2024, Nikiforos Stamatiadis, Daria Korostina, Teng Wang, Reginald Souleyrette

Kentucky Transportation Center Research Report

State transportation agencies have limited funding to deliver multimodal transportation programs that address the needs of all users. To allocate project funding in an impartial and objective manner, many agencies have adopted data-driven scoring systems that are used to evaluate the merits of proposed capital improvement projects. The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet introduced the Strategic Highway Investment Formula for Tomorrow (SHIFT) for this purpose. Until now SHIFT, has evaluated projects based five core variables — congestion, safety, benefit-cost ratio, asset management, economic growth. To address local needs, SHIFT has also allocated points that Area Development Districts, metropolitan planning organizations, and Cabinet …

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. …

Do Transportation Network Companies Affect Road Safety Outcomes: A Spatially Detailed Analysis In San Francisco, Vedant Shriniwas Goyal

Theses and Dissertations--Civil Engineering

US traffic fatal deaths have steadily risen since 2010, with the past few years witnessing an unusual trend increase. To reverse such a dangerous trend, one must understand how and why road crashes occur and which factors are causing them. Emerging transportation technologies have shown the potential to improve mobility and safety. However, such technologies are not inherently beneficial and could worsen road safety if not effectively implemented. One such transportation technology that warrants investigation is the rise of ridesharing services, also called Transportation Network Companies (TNCs). The primary goal of the dissertation is to explore the statistical relationship between …

Estimating The Effectiveness Of Incentives On The Adoption Of Electric Vehicles, Michelle O. Imarah

Theses and Dissertations--Civil Engineering

This study aims to estimate the effectiveness of incentives in increasing the adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) among households in the near future. Five scenarios were tested using a vehicle type choice model estimated from the 2017 National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) data: (1) increasing the number of EV chargers, (2) reducing the purchase price of EVs based on household income, (3) increasing the number of EV models and makes, (4) increasing the EV range, and (5) all scenarios at once. Results showed that all the scenarios were effective in increasing EV adoption amongst households. Some scenarios were more effective …

Digital Twins For Ancillary Transportation Asset Data Management, Ashtarout Ammar

Theses and Dissertations--Civil Engineering

Transportation Asset Management (TAM) is a data-driven decision-making process to maintain and extend the serviceability of transportation assets throughout their lifecycle. TAM is an extensive data process requiring accurate, high-quality information for better decision-making. A significant challenge that state Departments of Transportation (DOTs) face is allocating limited funds to optimize their assets’ performance. The criticality of this challenge increases when state DOTs need to manage a wide variety of assets distributed along with a vast network; thus, they prioritize the management of high-value assets and visible ones such as bridges, and they pay less attention to ancillary assets even though …

Rollout Of A Digital Comprehensive Safety Management System In A Large Public Agency: A Case Study With Kentucky Transportation Cabinet, Salena Pham

Theses and Dissertations--Civil Engineering

It’s understood that construction is extremely dangerous and highway construction has an added risk that comes from the presence of traffic. Many steps and prevention measures can be taken to reduce the risks to workers’ safety in highway work zones. Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KYTC) realized they had room for improvement and wanted to have a database that would allow for analysis of the common causes of incidents. The new software KYTC wanted to implement is called Origami Risk. Origami Risk is a cloud-based safety management system (SMS) software that offers a huge range of customizable risk management, RMIS, environmental health …

Understanding Changes In Land Use Patterns At A Parcel Level In Central Florida Counties (Orange, Seminole, Osceola), Youssef Mohamed Abdelaziz Elsebaie

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

In Florida, a state with significant population growth, it is essential to understand how land use change and transportation interact. Understanding these interactions between land use and transport is useful for transportation planners and land use modelers. Hence, in this research, we attempt to quantify the impact of the transportation system on land use and vice-versa. The research, using high-resolution land use data from 2011 to 2019, builds a binary logistic regression model of land use change. The model accounts for various independent variables, including socio-demographic attributes, built environment characteristics, and transportation network variables. The data set covers GIS data …

Enabling Large-Scale Transportation Electrification For Shared And Connected Mobility Systems, Md Rakibul Alam

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation 2023-2024

Owing to advancements in technology, substantial investments within the automotive industry, and the formulation of supportive state policies, the future landscape of the transportation sector is poised to witness a shift from traditional internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs) to electric vehicles (EVs). While EVs have made inroads in the market, they still face significant hurdles in the form of range anxiety and prolonged charging durations, inhibiting their widespread adoption. To tackle these challenges, a comprehensive approach to smart transportation electrification is proposed, emphasizing the pivotal roles of infrastructure development, particularly in the allocation of charging stations, and strategic operational decisions, …

Assessment Of Midblock Pedestrian Crossing Facilities Using Surrogate Safety Measures And Vehicle Delay, Nafis Anwari

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation 2023-2024

This dissertation has contributed to the pedestrian safety literature by assessing and comparing safety benefits and traffic efficiency among midblock Rectangular Rapid Flashing Beacon (RRFB) and Pedestrian Hybrid Beacon (PHB) sites. Video trajectory data were used to calculate pedestrian Surrogate Safety Measures (SSMs) and vehicles' delay. Regression models of SSMs and vehicles' delay revealed that PHB sites offer more safety benefits, at the expense of increased vehicles' delay, compared to RRFB sites. The presence of the PHB, weekday, signal activation, lane count, pedestrian speed, vehicle speed, land use mix, traffic flow, time of day, and pedestrian starting position from the …

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 …

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 …

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 …

Time-Specific Safety Performance Functions For Different Advanced Traffic Management Strategies, Jingwan Fu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Time-specific Safety Performance Functions (SPFs) were proposed to achieve accurate and dynamic crash frequency predictions and bridge the gap between annual crash frequency prediction and real-time crash likelihood prediction. This research proposed time-specific SPFs considering the temporal variation in crashes and traffic characteristics. Firstly, the developed time-specific SPFs that include different ATM strategies (i.e., HOV, merge, diverge and reversible lanes segments) were investigated in this study. The results indicate that the traffic turbulence during specific hours would relate to crash occurrence. Further, the variables that represent the speed and occupancy differences between the HOV lanes/reversible lanes and general-purpose lanes were …

Quantifying The Impact Of Wide Base Tires On Pavement Performance In Michigan, Lei Yin

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

This study aimed to investigate the use of wide base tires (WBT) in Michigan to quantify the effect of different percentages of WBT loads on flexible and rigid pavements. Surveys and field investigations were conducted to quantify the WBT usage in Michigan. The JULEA (for flexible pavements) and Illislab (for JPCP) software programs were used to calculate the mechanical response between dual tire (DT) and WBT loads, while the Mechanical-Empirical (ME) pavement design process was utilized for damage accumulation and pavement distress analysis. Investigation results rationalized the assumption of WBT proportion for design purposes as 10% currently and up to …

The Rhetorical Art Of Risk Assessment: Lessons From Risk Management In Rural And Tribal Communities, John L. Velat

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Risk assessment, mitigation, and communication rely on data from multiple sources to form a complete understanding of hazards and how to manage them. Experts can use these data to make informed decisions about the nature and extent of risks and inform the public to protect health, the environment, and economic welfare. However, in an effort to objectively make decisions, technical experts and policymakers increasingly rely on quantitative data as the most important determiner of risk, which can alienate the public, limit risk understanding, and delay or miss obvious signals of impending catastrophe. I examine several cases based on my experiences …

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 …

Stochastic Optimization To Reduce Aircraft Taxi-In Time At Igia, New Delhi, Rajib Das, Saileswar Ghosh, Rajendra Desai, Pijus Kanti Bhuin, Stuti Agarwal

International Journal of Aviation, Aeronautics, and Aerospace

Since there is an uncertainty in the arrival times of flights, pre-scheduled allocation of runways and stands and the subsequent first-come-first-served treatment results in a sub-optimal allocation of runways and stands, this is the prime reason for the unusual delays in taxi-in times at IGIA, New Delhi.

We simulated the arrival pattern of aircraft and utilized stochastic optimization to arrive at the best runway-stands allocation for a day. Optimization is done using a GRG Non-Linear algorithm in the Frontline Systems Analytic Solver platform. We applied this model to eight representative scenarios of two different days. Our results show that without …

A Comparative Analysis Of Coastdown Testing Methods From An Electric Drive Unit Engagement Perspective Using A Student-Designed Parallel Hybrid Electric Vehicle, Dawson Everett Dunnuck

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Coastdown testing and road load determination are pivotal parts of the automotive design process. Vehicle manufacturers and independent companies perform and analyze road loads determined through a coastdown or similar method to determine a vehicle’s road load for modeling and EPA certification. For a traditional coastdown, the vehicle’s drivetrain must be disconnected through a clutch between the engine and the transmission while traveling at a high rate of speed to place the vehicle in neutral. This changes for hybrid and electric vehicles. Some hybrid, and most electric, vehicles delivered to customers do not have this clutch action to grant the …

Automating Intersection Marking Data Collection And Condition Assessment At Scale With An Artificial Intelligence-Powered System, Kun Xie, Huiming Sun, Xiaomeng Dong, Hong Yang, Hongkai Yu

Civil & Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

Intersection markings play a vital role in providing road users with guidance and information. The conditions of intersection markings will be gradually degrading due to vehicular traffic, rain, and/or snowplowing. Degraded markings can confuse drivers, leading to increased risk of traffic crashes. Timely obtaining high-quality information of intersection markings lays a foundation for making informed decisions in safety management and maintenance prioritization. However, current labor-intensive and high-cost data collection practices make it very challenging to gather intersection data on a large scale. This paper develops an automated system to intelligently detect intersection markings and to assess their degradation conditions with …

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 …

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.

Implementation Of Ground Penetrating Radar (Gpr) And Complementary Non-Destructive Testing On Concrete Structures, Macy Spears

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

This study analyzes the application and practicality of different non-destructive testing (NDT) methods for the inspection of reinforced concrete. There are two studies discussed in this paper. The first one is a laboratory investigation, utilizing ground penetrating radar (GPR) on concrete slabs that consisted of simulated defects to mimic those found in real concrete structures. This served as a preliminary experiment to verify the GPR data with the design of the slabs. The following study describes a field investigation on an old bridge deck, which involved multiple testing methods. The techniques used were GPR, impact echo (IE), ultrasonic pulse echo …

Spatial Ensemble Distillation Learning Based Real-Time Crash Prediction And Management Framework, Md Rakibul Islam

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation 2023-2024

Real-time crash prediction is a complex task, since there is no existing framework to predict crash likelihood, types, and severity together along with a real-time traffic management strategy. Developing such a framework presents various challenges, including not independent and identically distributed data, imbalanced data, large model size, high computational cost, missing data, sensitivity vs. false alarm rate (FAR) trade-offs, estimation of traffic restoration time after crash occurrence, and real-world deployment strategy. A novel spatial ensemble distillation learning modeling technique is proposed to address these challenges. First, large-scale real-time data were used to develop a crash likelihood prediction model. Second, the …

Safety Considerations For Setting Variable Speed Limits On Freeways, Md Tarek Hasan

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation 2023-2024

This thesis focuses on evaluating the appropriate speed at which vehicles should travel under different traffic conditions on freeways and its impact on crash frequency. The common belief is that the lower speed results in fewer crashes as reduced speed provides drivers with more time to react effectively and avoid collisions. However, this perspective overlooks the interplay among traffic speed, average spacing between consecutive vehicles, and the distance available for stopping a vehicle. Hence, we propose a safety parameter termed ‘Safety Correlate' (SCORE), which is defined as the proportion of average spacing relative to the stopping distance. To determine the …

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 …