Transportation Engineering Commons^™

Connected And Automated Vehicles: Their Implication On Capacity Of A Basic Freeway Section And Impacts On Walkway Safety, Sia Macmillan Lyimo

Dissertations

Autonomous vehicles have recently gained the attention of researchers due to their expected potential benefits on highway traffic streams, such as improving roadway capacity, among others. It is imperative to investigate how these expected benefits can be leveraged in the transportation sector. Understanding the safety and operational benefits helps the concerned transportation agencies and other key stakeholders to make necessary infrastructural and policy adjustments to accommodate such future traffic operation changes. The main goal of this dissertation is to study the impact of connected and automated vehicles on freeway capacity. The simulated environment was created to emulate autonomous vehicle behaviors, …

Relating The Dongre Workability Test To Cold In-Place Recycled Asphalt Pavements, Gus Williams

Civil Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

The Dongre Workability Test (DWT) is a test for determining an asphalt pavement’s relative workability from the stress-strain curve of a sample. While the DWT has seen favorable results with warm mix and hot mix asphalt, Casillas and Braham (2020) attempted to apply this test to cold in-place recycled (CIR) asphalt pavements with limited results. This paper looked at the process of reexamining the DWT method to more favorable results with CIR samples. Phase 1 consisted of defining ten possible metrics from the stress-strain curve and applying them to samples with three different curing conditions. From these preliminary results, the …

Effect Of Various Speed Management Strategies On Bicycle Crashes For Urban Roads In Central Florida, Jorge Ugan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

In recent years, cycling has become an increasingly popular transportation mode around the world. In contrast to other popular modes of transportation, cycling is more economic and energy efficient. While many studies have been conducted for the bicycle safety analysis, most of them were limited in terms of bicycle exposure data and on-street data. This study tries to improve the current safety performance functions for bicycle crashes at urban corridors by utilizing crowdsource data from STRAVA and on-street speed management strategies data. Speed management strategies are any roadway alterations that causes a change in motorists' driving behavior. In Florida, these …

Bridge Load Posting Prediction, Sabarethinam Kameshwar, Md. Manik Mia, Sai Bandaru

Data

There are approximately 13,000 bridges in Louisiana facilitating movement of people, goods, and services. At present, about 12% of the bridges are load posted, i.e., they are deemed to lack the strength to safely carry all legal loads. With time bridges will age and deteriorate; at the same time, legal loads might increase. Load posted bridges disrupt the movement of goods and commerce. Therefore, objective of this research was to estimate the number of load posted bridges in Louisiana over the next 50 years. For this purpose, herein, a data based approach was used. For a given bridge type, the …

Catalyst Regeneration Of Rap-Binder In Asphalt, D. Spivak, Subramanian Balamurugan

Data

Reclaimed Asphalt Pavement (RAP) binders are difficult to reuse because they often contain associated/aggregated molecules with very high molecular weights. This is due to the polarity gained during oxidative aging, causing the aggregation to occur. These high molecular weight components are responsible for RAP binder’s increased viscosity and certain deteriorated rheological properties. One strategy to reuse RAP binder is to mix it with virgin asphalt binder and use this partially recycled mixture in asphalt. The RAP binder is usually improved before mixing by the addition of rejuvenators, softening agents, softer binders, and antioxidants to the asphalt binder mix to rebalance …

Catalyst Regeneration Of Rap-Binder In Asphalt, D. Spivak, Subramanian Balamurugan

Publications

Reclaimed Asphalt Pavement (RAP) binders are difficult to reuse because they often contain associated/aggregated molecules with very high molecular weights. This is due to the polarity gained during oxidative aging, causing the aggregation to occur. These high molecular weight components are responsible for RAP binder’s increased viscosity and certain deteriorated rheological properties. One strategy to reuse RAP binder is to mix it with virgin asphalt binder and use this partially recycled mixture in asphalt. The RAP binder is usually improved before mixing by the addition of rejuvenators, softening agents, softer binders, and antioxidants to the asphalt binder mix to rebalance …

Smart Battery Management System For Electric Vehicles: Selflearning Algorithms For Simultaneous State And Parameter Estimation, And Stress Detection, Avimanyu Sahoo, Samir Ahmed

Data

The project proposes to develop parameter-varying SOH-coupled models for lithium-ion battery and self-learning algorithms to learn the model for simultaneous state and parameter estimation and fault detection. The traditional battery models use constant parameters, limiting their accuracy for predicting the state of the charge and health over the complete life-cycle. In practice, the battery parameters vary with the change in the state of charge and state of health. SOH-coupled models can be used to estimate the state of charge and health accurately. Further, obtaining the model parameters is also a challenging task for designing filters or observers for state estimation. …

Expanding The Concept Of Comprehensive Area Ratio Parameter To The South-Central States: Towards Simplifying The Structural Evaluation Of Flexible Pavements At The Network Level, Mena Souliman, Samer Dessouky, Nitish R. Bastola

Data

The surface deflection bowl data collected through falling weight deflectometer (FWD) test is utilized by highway agencies in assessing the performance of the flexible pavement. However, a robust method to evaluate pavement sections utilizing FWD data from all the sensors is seldom developed. There is always a need for DOTs and highway agencies to have a simplified procedure, which can be directly implemented in agencies' databases. This study focuses on expanding and validating the concept of previously developed area ratio parameters towards the pavement section of South-Central States (Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas) in effectively analyzing the pavement …

Field Implementation And Monitoring Of An Ultra-High Performance Concrete Bridge Deck Overlay, Craig Newtson, Brad Weldon, William Toledo, Andres Alvarez, Mark Manning

Data

This project focused on field implementation of an ultra-high performance concrete (UHPC) overlay during rehabilitation of an existing concrete bridge (No. 7032) deck in Socorro, New Mexico, USA. Bridge 7032 is a two-lane bridge that is approximately 300 ft. (91.4 m) long and 54 ft. (16.5 m) in width. Rehabilitation of bridge 7032 included removal of deteriorated concrete from the existing deck, installation of a high-performance deck (HPD) leveling course, and installation of a 1 in. (25 mm) UHPC overlay. An UHPC mixture with a 19.5 ksi (134 MPa) compressive strength developed in previous research was selected for this project. …

Field Implementation And Monitoring Of An Ultra-High Performance Concrete Bridge Deck Overlay, Craig Newtson, Brad Weldon, William Toledo, Andres Alvarez, Mark Manning

Publications

This project focused on field implementation of an ultra-high performance concrete (UHPC) overlay during rehabilitation of an existing concrete bridge (No. 7032) deck in Socorro, New Mexico, USA. Bridge 7032 is a two-lane bridge that is approximately 300 ft. (91.4 m) long and 54 ft. (16.5 m) in width. Rehabilitation of bridge 7032 included removal of deteriorated concrete from the existing deck, installation of a high-performance deck (HPD) leveling course, and installation of a 1 in. (25 mm) UHPC overlay. An UHPC mixture with a 19.5 ksi (134 MPa) compressive strength developed in previous research was selected for this project. …

Measuring Foundation Course Modulus Using Falling Weight Deflectometer, Light Weight Deflectometer, And Dynamic Cone Penetration, Bruce Barrett, Kellie Troxel, Brady Dresselhaus, David Hansen

Nebraska Department of Transportation: Research Reports

Phase I results showed that FWD, LWD, and DCP provided valid results and trended with each other at the stations all three tests were run. This gives confidence that any test method is reliable when used on an exposed bituminous foundation course.

The results of Phase I and Phase II indicate that using FWD testing after concrete is built does not provide an accurate modulus of the foundation course. As demonstrated through the statistical analysis, foundation course moduli cannot be reliably calculated by using FWD on top of doweled concrete pavements and back-calculated using Darwin software or ME Design. Additionally, …

Chasing Target Zero: Contributing Factors Of Fatal Crashes In South Carolina, Matthew Stanley

All Theses

South Carolina consistently ranks in the top-10 in fatal crashes per 100,000 capita and 100 million vehicle miles traveled. This thesis summarizes an analysis of contributing factors for fatal crashes in South Carolina. A primary objective of this thesis is to investigate differences in contributing factors for fatal crashes as compared to all crashes in South Carolina. 2018 South Carolina fatal crashes (N=970) and all crashes (N=152,973) were analyzed and compared using classic Venn diagrams to compare differences in contributing factors between fatal crashes and all crashes. Fatal, non-fatal, and all crashes were aggregated into one of seven possible contributing …

Theoretical Development And Numerical Validation Of An Asymmetric Linear Bilateral Control Model For An Automated Truck Platoon, M Sabbir Salek

All Theses

In this study, the author theoretically develops and numerically validates an asymmetric linear bilateral control model (LBCM) for an automated truck platoon, in which the motion information (i.e., position and speed) from the immediate leading truck and the immediate following truck are weighted differently. The novelty of the asymmetric LBCM is that using this model, all the follower trucks in a platoon can adjust their acceleration and deceleration to closely follow a constant desired time headway at all times to improve platoon operational efficiency while maintaining local and string stability. The author theoretically proves the local stability of the asymmetric …

Data Driven Methods For Large Scale Network Level Traffic Modeling, Rezaur Rahman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Rapid growth in population along with urban-centric activities impose a massive demand on existing transportation systems, thus increasing traffic congestion and other mobility related challenges. To overcome such challenges, we need network-scale models to accurately predict real-time traffic demand and associated congestion. However, traditional network modeling approaches have shortcomings due to the complexity in traffic flow modeling, limited scope to incorporate real-time data available from emerging data sources and requiring excessive computation time to generate accurate estimation of traffic flows. Advancement in traffic sensing technologies with big data has created a new opportunity to overcome these challenges and implement deployable …

Measuring Foundation Course Modulus Using Falling Weight Deflectometer, Light Weight Deflectometer, And Dynamic Cone Penetration, Bruce Barrett, Kellie Troxel, Brady Dresselhaus, David Hansen

Nebraska Department of Transportation: Research Reports

The purpose of this investigation was to determine the feasibility of measuring bituminous foundation course modulus under concrete roadways by comparing testing results derived before and after paving using FWD, Light Weight Deflectometer (LWD), and Dynamic Cone Penetrometer (DCP). The foundation course modulus was determined using FWD data and Darwin design software (‘93 AASHTO). Results from Phase I data collection, which occurred prior to pavement placement, provided a baseline for comparison. The maximum modulus was 398,000 PSI and the minimum was 85,000 PSI, yielding a range of 315,000 PSI and an average modulus of 123,000 PSI over the length of …

Using Differential Shear Strain Measurements To Monitor Crosstie Support Conditions In Railroad Tracks, D. Kody Johnson

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

This thesis details a comprehensive numerical analysis of load determination, and crosstie support assessment and monitoring using strain gauges to measure differential rail shear strain in ballasted railroad tracks due to applied railcar wheel loads. These differential shear strain measurements can be related to applied wheel loading and crosstie support reactions through the geometric and constitutive properties of a given rail section. The basic theory behind the measurement technique was reviewed and investigated using finite element models of varying complexity. The impact of field conditions such as differential ballast and subgrade support, track stiffness, crosstie spacing, gauge installation location, and …

Data-Driven Operational And Safety Analysis Of Emerging Shared Electric Scooter Systems, Qingyu Ma

Computational Modeling & Simulation Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The rapid rise of shared electric scooter (E-Scooter) systems offers many urban areas a new micro-mobility solution. The portable and flexible characteristics have made E-Scooters a competitive mode for short-distance trips. Compared to other modes such as bikes, E-Scooters allow riders to freely ride on different facilities such as streets, sidewalks, and bike lanes. However, sharing lanes with vehicles and other users tends to cause safety issues for riding E-Scooters. Conventional methods are often not applicable for analyzing such safety issues because well-archived historical crash records are not commonly available for emerging E-Scooters.

Perceiving the growth of such a micro-mobility …

Bridge Load Posting Prediction, Sabarethinam Kameshwar, Md. Manik Mia, Sai Bandaru

Publications

There are approximately 13,000 bridges in Louisiana facilitating movement of people, goods, and services. At present, about 12% of the bridges are load posted, i.e., they are deemed to lack the strength to safely carry all legal loads. With time bridges will age and deteriorate; at the same time, legal loads might increase. Load posted bridges disrupt the movement of goods and commerce. Therefore, objective of this research was to estimate the number of load posted bridges in Louisiana over the next 50 years. For this purpose, herein, a data based approach was used. For a given bridge type, the …

Smart Battery Management System For Electric Vehicles: Selflearning Algorithms For Simultaneous State And Parameter Estimation, And Stress Detection, Avimanyu Sahoo, Samir Ahmed

Publications

The project proposes to develop parameter-varying SOH-coupled models for lithium-ion battery and self-learning algorithms to learn the model for simultaneous state and parameter estimation and fault detection. The traditional battery models use constant parameters, limiting their accuracy for predicting the state of the charge and health over the complete life-cycle. In practice, the battery parameters vary with the change in the state of charge and state of health. SOH-coupled models can be used to estimate the state of charge and health accurately. Further, obtaining the model parameters is also a challenging task for designing filters or observers for state estimation. …

Expanding The Concept Of Comprehensive Area Ratio Parameter To The South-Central States: Towards Simplifying The Structural Evaluation Of Flexible Pavements At The Network Level, Mena Souliman, Samer Dessouky, Nitish R. Bastola

Publications

The surface deflection bowl data collected through falling weight deflectometer (FWD) test is utilized by highway agencies in assessing the performance of the flexible pavement. However, a robust method to evaluate pavement sections utilizing FWD data from all the sensors is seldom developed. There is always a need for DOTs and highway agencies to have a simplified procedure, which can be directly implemented in agencies' databases. This study focuses on expanding and validating the concept of previously developed area ratio parameters towards the pavement section of South-Central States (Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas) in effectively analyzing the pavement …

Modeling Driver Distraction Mechanism And Its Safety Impact In Automated Vehicle Environment., Song Wang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Automated Vehicle (AV) technology expects to enhance driving safety by eliminating human errors. However, driver distraction still exists under automated driving. The Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) has defined six levels of driving automation from Level 0~5. Until achieving Level 5, human drivers are still needed. Therefore, the Human-Vehicle Interaction (HVI) necessarily diverts a driver’s attention away from driving. Existing research mainly focused on quantifying distraction in human-operated vehicles rather than in the AV environment. It causes a lack of knowledge on how AV distraction can be detected, quantified, and understood. Moreover, existing research in exploring AV distraction has mainly …

Best Practices For Performance Measurement In Transportation Operations And Maintenance, Bryan Gibson, Rachel Catchings, Chris Van Dyke, Steve Waddle, Doug Kreis

Kentucky Transportation Center Research Report

Public agencies benefit from measuring their performance as it helps to focus employee and organizational activities. State departments of transportation have become more performance-oriented over the past two decades and routinely collect data on highway safety, infrastructure condition, system operations, project delivery, winter maintenance, transit, bicycle and pedestrian facilities, and customer service. While the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KYTC) use performance measures in a variety of areas, the agency wants to adopt new metrics related to mobility and the responsiveness of maintenance operations. This report documents performance measurement strategies used at state transportation agencies throughout the country and proposes new performance …

What Is An Effective Way To Measure Arterial Demand When It Exceeds Capacity?, Mecit Cetin, Hong Yang, Kun Xie, Giridhar Kattepogu, Behrouz Salahshour

Civil & Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

This project focused on developing and evaluating methods for estimating demand volume for oversaturated corridors. Measuring demand directly with vehicle sensors is not possible when demand is larger than capacity for an extended period, as the queue grows beyond the sensor, and the flow measurements at a given point cannot exceed the capacity of the section. The main objective of the study was to identify and develop methods that could be implemented in practice based on readily available data. To this end, two methods were proposed: an innovative method based on shockwave theory; and the volume delay function adapted from …

Gender And Equality In Transport. Proceedings Of The 2021 Travel Demand Management Symposium, Maria Chiara Leva, Augustus Ababio-Donkor, Ajeni Thimnu, Wafaa Saleh

Books/Book Chapters/ Proceedings

Proceedings of the 10^TH INTERNATIONAL TRAVEL DEMAND MANAGEMENT (TDM) SYMPOSIUM IN CONJUNCTION WITH TINNGO AND DIAMOND FINAL CONFERENCE titled: Gender and Equality in Transport

Determinant Factors Of Bicyclist Injury Severity At Signalized And Unsignalized Intersections, Apy Das

Dissertations and Theses

Bicycling is becoming increasingly popular in Oregon and the US in general due to its environment friendliness as well as health benefits. With Oregon's population projected to increase by more than 30% over the next 30 years, improving the safety of the transportation network for persons on bicycles is important. In Oregon, majority of the bicyclist crashes occur at intersections. This thesis seeks to identify the determinant factors that significantly impact bicyclist crash injury severity at intersections. A mixed logit framework that accounts for any unobserved heterogeneity in the data and allows the estimated parameters to randomly vary across observations …

Driver Perceptions On Taxi-Sharing And Dynamic Pricing In Taxi Services: Evidence From Athens, Greece., Christina Milioti, Konstantinos Kepaptsoglou, Konstantinos Kouretas, Eleni Vlahogianni

Journal of Public Transportation

The taxi industry has changed dramatically during the last decade, as ride-sourcing applications, ride-sharing and alternative pricing schemes have emerged, either as complementing or competitive services and strategies. After some years of familiarity with such trends, it is interesting to explore where the taxi industry stands with respect to possible service innovations. This paper explores behavioral patterns of drivers, focusing on issues such as their preferred way of conducting business, and their views on introducing taxi-sharing and dynamic pricing. Data collected from a face-to-face questionnaire survey in Athens, Greece are exploited, and appropriate econometric models are developed for the purposes …

Durability Of Concrete Produced With Alternative Supplementary Cementitious Material, Craig Newtson, Brad Weldon, Judit Garcia, Seyedsaleh Mousavinezhad, William Toledo

Data

Historically, Class F fly ash has been chosen as a supplementary cementitious material (SCM) in concrete for its ability to mitigate alkali-silica reaction (ASR). However, future availability of fly ash is uncertain because the energy industry has been investing in renewable energy production and removing coal burning generating stations from operation. Consequently, there is a growing need to find new, cost effective and environmentally friendly alternatives to fly ash. This study investigated a locally available natural pozzolan mined from a pumicite deposit near Espanola, NM for its ability to mediate ASR. Concrete and mortar mixtures included SCM contents ranging from …

The Race To Fifty Feet: An Effort To Determine The Benefits Of Deepening The Mississippi River, Brian Miles

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This research examined the benefits and drawbacks of deepening the Lower Mississippi River to fifty feet. It established that the deepening of the Lower Mississippi River will impact not only the local area but also the inland regions that rely on the river systems and lower river ports for product movement. The perspectives of vessel operators, maritime industry experts and charterers are provided to offer insight. The sources for the research include educational literature, maritime research and interviews of industry experts. Based on this research, it is clear that this project will benefit many parties. The beneficiaries will include both …

A Review Of Kentucky’S Extended-Weight Hauling Programs, P. Gayle Marks, Jon Wilcoxson, Bryan Gibson, Chris Van Dyke, Andrew Martin, Jennifer Walton, Doug Kreis

Kentucky Transportation Center Research Report

Kentucky established its Extended Weight Coal or Coal By-products Haul Road System (EWCHRS) to increase the state’s competitiveness within the coal industry and reduce financial burdens on coal haulers. A new extended-weight haul system for unrefined petroleum products will come online in 2022. To facilitate enforcement of weight limits throughout Kentucky, this report surveys literature on how overweight vehicles affect roads and bridges, describes statutes and regulations governing weight limits in the state, discusses policies and strategies used throughout the US to handle overweight vehicles, and makes recommendations for improving extended-weight policies in Kentucky. It is apparent that pavements and …

Assessment Of Deteriorated Structural Concrete To Provide Durable Repairs, Theodore Hopwood, Christopher Goff, Sudhir Palle

Kentucky Transportation Center Research Report

Most of the structural elements on Kentucky bridges are made of reinforced concrete. Many of these elements deteriorate as a result of corrosion of the reinforcing steel caused by carbonation and — primarily — applications of chlorides by the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KYTC). Corrosion of reinforcing steel is reviewed along with assessment procedures that leverage nondestructive evaluation (NDE) methods and related laboratory and field tests. Several maintenance procedures are discussed, including the application of sealers and coatings, patch and major concrete repairs, and electrochemical methods. Incorporating NDE and test results into maintenance procedure selection is discussed. Recommendations are provided on …