Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Policy Brief: Evaluation Of The Safety Of Pedestrian Crossing Treatments In Small And Rural Communities, Parsa Pezeshknejad, Dana Rowangould, James Sullivan

University of Vermont Transportation Research Center

TRC Policy Brief: Rural areas often lack adequate pedestrian infrastructure, resulting in elevated safety risks for pedestrians. The combination of higher speed limits and reduced driver awareness amplifies the potential for pedestrian collisions when crossing the roadway.

This study addresses uncertainty about the effectiveness of rectangular rapid flashing beacons (RRFBs) and LED-embedded signs (LESs) as potential safety interventions. RRFBs and LESs are both pedestrian crossing treatments that allow pedestrians to activate lights to alert drivers of their intent to cross. RRFBs include horizontal LED lights mounted to the sign pole, while LESs include LEDs embedded in the edge of the …

Traffic Safety Toolbox - Addressing Speeds: Final Report, James Sullivan, Dana Rowangould

University of Vermont Transportation Research Center

Reducing speeding and aggressive driving is one of seven critical emphasis areas identified in the Vermont Highway Safety Plan, which targets reductions in major crashes on Vermont highways. Vermont towns recognize the need to discourage speeding and implement countermeasures that will bring speeds down to posted speed limits, especially in transition zones from high-speed rural highways to low-speed village streets. Vermont’s villages and towns often lack the resources and capacity needed to select and implement speeding countermeasures that will be effective and appropriate for a particular context. There is a need for targeted, digestible guidance to assist these municipalities. This …

Effectiveness Of Rectangular Rapid Flashing Beacons (Rrfbs) In Small And Rural Communities, Dana Rowangould, James Sullivan, Parsa Pezeshknejad

University of Vermont Transportation Research Center

Ensuring the safety of pedestrians and cyclists in rural and small communities is becoming increasingly important as planners seek to encourage active travel and eliminate traffic-related injuries and fatalities, consistent with Vision Zero. One area of focus is the protection of vulnerable road users such as pedestrians, who face a significant risk of injury or death in a traffic collision. The risks to pedestrians are particularly high when crossing roadways in high-risk areas such as high-speed and low pedestrian-volume rural roads and between intersections where drivers may not expect them. One concern in rural communities is that pedestrians may face …

The Role Of Information And Education On Modifying Support For Gas Tax Alternatives Using An Informed Choice Questionnaire, Clare Nelson, Gregory Rowangould

University of Vermont Transportation Research Center

In the United States, transportation fuel excise taxes commonly referred to as the “gas tax” provide a large share of funding to state agencies for transportation maintenance and construction projects. The revenue generating capacity of the gas tax is threatened by increasing vehicle fuel efficiency, electric vehicles adoption and inflation. Alternative funding schemes are necessary, but public acceptance of tax changes is low. We surveyed residents of Vermont, Maine, and New Hampshire to gauge understanding of and support for a mileage-based user fee and a flat fee as potential replacements for the current gas tax and the potential to modify …

Traffic Safety Toolbox: Speeding Countermeasures Toolbox For Vermont, James Sullivan, Dana Rowangould, Erica Quallen, Danica Dytioco

University of Vermont Transportation Research Center

Reducing vehicle speeds is an important strategy for reducing the risk and severity of collisions and ensuring the safety of drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists, especially in transition zones, where rural highways with higher posted speeds (typically 50 mph) enter a village or town center. This Traffic Safety Toolbox (“Toolbox”) of speeding countermeasures is intended for use by Vermont towns with posted speeds that are not widely adhered to by drivers, whether in a transition zone entering a village or town center (roads with speed limits of 35 mph and above and functional classifications of 3 or 4), or within the …

“That Means Nothing To Me As A Normal Person Who Doesn't Know About Patents”: Usability Testing Of Google Patents And Patent Public Search With Undergraduate Engineering Students, Graham Sherriff, Molly Rogers

University Libraries Faculty and Staff Publications

Patent searching is an important research tool for undergraduate engineering students, yet it requires special topic knowledge to conduct successfully. Patent database websites have the ability to alleviate or add to the complexity of patent searching, depending on their usability. Prompted by the launch of the US Patent and Trademark Office’s Patent Public Search (PPS) website in early 2022, the authors investigated the usability of PPS and Google Patents. The study's objective was to gain insights into the ways in which the websites of commonly-used patent databases support undergraduate students’ patent searching activities. The study examined students’ performance of typical …

Prior Art Research In The Capstone Design Experience: A Case Study Of Redesigned Online And In-Person Instruction, Graham Sherriff, Dustin Rand

University Libraries Faculty and Staff Publications

Exploration of “prior art”—the state of a technology’s development, as manifested in literature, documentation, and artifacts—has many benefits for engineering students. It expands their understanding of the design problem, reveals a range of possible solutions, and develops research skills important to professional practice. While prior art often includes patents and research literature, it can include any type of publication or document. This paper presents an innovative approach to a prior art review assignment in the capstone course for mechanical, electrical, and biomedical engineering students at the University of Vermont (UVM). The assignment and accompanying instruction were redesigned in 2018–2019 to …

Policy Brief: Mode Constrained Travel At Uvm: Travel Preferences, Barriers, And Policy Implications, Sierra Emma-Leigh Espeland, Dana Rowangould

University of Vermont Transportation Research Center

One of the objectives of the Chittenden Area Transportation Management Association (CATMA) is to encourage commuters to shift from driving to more sustainable travel modes such as walking, bicycling, and public transit. To understand barriers to switching to greener modes among UVM employees, we evaluated CATMA’s 2019 Transportation Survey to compare the modes that UVM employees currently use to the modes that they prefer to use. We also identify barriers to switching to preferred travel modes. The results show untapped potential for divesting from driving, with respondents citing several mitigatable barriers.

Ccrpc Bicycle Count Data Analysis And Count Program Design Strategies, Gregory Rowangould, Eliana Fox, Rose O'Brien, Julia Clarke

University of Vermont Transportation Research Center

In 2017, the Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission (CCRPC) completed the most recent update of the region’s Active Transportation Plan (ATP) with the goal of creating “a safe, comfortable, and connected regional network of pedestrian and bicycle routes that appeal to all ages and abilities”. Developing a “robust” bicycle count program was one of the key non-infrastructure recommendations in the ATP (CCRPC, 2017). The UVM Transportation Research Center (“TRC”) was contracted to evaluate current bicycle data collection efforts in the region, identify gaps and limitations and make recommendations on how to develop a comprehensive bicycle count program that could better …

Data-Driven Analysis Of Rural Equity And Cost Concerns For Mileage-Based User Fees In Vermont, Clare Nelson, Gregory Rowangould

University of Vermont Transportation Research Center

Examining substitutes to the current state and federal gasoline and diesel fuel excise taxes has become a pressing issue, exacerbated by the rise of high efficiency and alternative fuel vehicles threatening the revenue generating capacity of these taxes. A mileage-based user fee has been frequently proposed in the literature as an alternative which would offer greater benefits to rural and low-income populations than to urban and higher income populations. However, most prior analyses relied on small data sets and aggregated data. This study examined the impact of replacing the Vermont state fuels tax with a revenue-neutral mileage-based user fee using …

Comparing Travel Behavior And Opportunities To Increase Transportation Sustainability In Small Cities, Towns And Rural Communities, Erica Quallen, Julia Clarke, Clare Nelson, Gregory Rowangould

University of Vermont Transportation Research Center

The vast majority of travel behavior and sustainable transportation research has focused on urban areas. A rural perspective is lacking. This paper aims to dive deeper into understanding how people travel and their perceptions and opinions about various components of travel in a majority rural state. By speaking directly with Vermonters through in-person interviews, uniquely personal points of view were discovered and analyzed to find commonalities and differences between urban, suburban, and rural Vermonters. Questions on day-to-day challenges of traveling, suggestions for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, responses to fuel prices, and opinions on electric vehicles were asked. Some key findings …

Travel Behavior, Responses To Fuel Prices, And Barriers To Change In Small And Rural Communities, Erica Quallen

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Travel behavior and the factors which drive it in small and rural communities has been historically understudied in transportation research. By understanding these factors and behaviors, a clearer picture of these regions can be drawn so that meaningful change towards greenhouse gas reductions can be realized. My research aims to examine barriers to making sustainable travel behavior changes such as using multi-modal transportation, reducing overall amounts of travel, or moving to locations closer to necessary services. I do this by first evaluating what “rural” means in terms of existing definitions of the term. The assessment of rural definitions analyzes vehicle …

Exploring Hidden Networks Yields Important Insights In Disparate Fields Of Study, Laurence Clarfeld

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Network science captures a broad range of problems related to things (nodes) and relationships between them (edges). This dissertation explores real-world network problems in disparate domain applications where exploring less obvious "hidden networks" reveals important dynamics of the original network.

The power grid is an explicit network of buses (e.g., generators) connected by branches (e.g., transmission lines). In rare cases, if k branches (a k-set) fail simultaneously, a cascading blackout may ensue; we refer to such k-sets as "defective". We calculate system risk of cascading failure due to defective 2-sets and 3-sets in synthetic test cases of the Polish and …

The Food-Energy-Water Nexus, Embodied Injustices, And Transboundary Sustainability, Sonya Ahamed

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Intersections of food, energy, and water systems (the FEW nexus) pose many sustainability and governance challenges, including risks to ecosystems, inequitable distribution of benefits and harms across populations, and reliance on distant sources for food, energy, and water. Nexus-based approaches can offer more holistic pathways for societal transitions to FEW systems that are just and sustainable, but tend to focus narrowly on inputs (e.g. water ‘for’ energy) in ways that do little to address the historical roots and structural underpinnings of current system inadequacies, thus risking their perpetuation.

This dissertation widens the FEW nexus in two contexts in which the …

Food From Somewhere: Envisioning And Practicing Aspirational Food Systems, Caitlin Morgan

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

This transdisciplinary dissertation explores the connections between material conditions, human engagements, and the social, economic, and ecological contexts in which they exist. It investigates imaginations of a better food system, projects people have already undertaken, and what happens when their visions meet reality.

Chapter 1 weaves together diverse literature: a justification for action-oriented research and a blending of ecofeminist scholarship, agroecology and sustainable agriculture, ecological economics, systems theory and food systems scholarship, and sensory studies. These disciplines tie together through notions of embeddedness, embodiment, and the context for action, which all translate to the dissertation’s methodological approach of mixed qualitative …

Sustainable And Equitable Financing For Sidewalk Maintenance, Alexis Corning Padilla, Gregory Rowangould

University of Vermont Transportation Research Center

In many communities’ sidewalks are discontinuous, inaccessible to those with physical disabilities, and poorly maintained. Correcting these problems would be a first step in providing infrastructure to achieve the active travel and related transportation goals of many communities. One nearly universal challenge to maintaining sidewalks is an adequate, sustainable and equitable source of funding. Municipalities typically maintain and repair their streets; however, most require residents to maintain and repair public sidewalks adjacent to their property. These policies are difficult to enforce and may be at least partly responsible for the poor condition of many sidewalks. They also place a relatively …

Estimating Exposure To Fine Particulate Matter Emissions From Vehicle Traffic: Exposure Misclassification And Daily Activity Patterns In A Large, Sprawling Region, Mohammad Tayarani, Gregory Rowangould

University of Vermont Transportation Research Center

Vehicle traffic is responsible for a significant portion of toxic air pollution in urban areas that has been linked to a wide range of adverse health outcomes. Most vehicle air quality analyses used for transportation planning and health effect studies estimate exposure from the measured or modeled concentration of an air pollutant at a person’s home. This study evaluates exposure to fine particulate matter from vehicle traffic and the magnitude and cause of exposure misclassification that result from not accounting for population mobility during the day in a large, sprawling region. We develop a dynamic exposure model by integrating activity-based …

Electric Grid Decarbonization Pathways: Landscape Impacts, Policy Interactions, And The Need For Cooperation, Austin Wesley Thomas

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Climate change has motivated governments around the world to ratify aggressive greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets. Meeting these targets will require improved energy efficiency, behavior changes, and energy system decarbonization. Many climate change and energy policy targets imply the deployment of large amounts of low carbon, renewable energy resources like wind turbines and solar photovoltaic (PV) panels but do not specify how these resources will be sited on the landscape. The relationships between weather conditions, terrain, land cover, existing electric grid infrastructure, and electricity consumers will govern how these wind and solar PV infrastructure configurations develop and how quickly they …

Modeling Electric Vehicle Energy Demand And Regional Electricity Generation Dispatch For New England And New York, Sarah E. Howerter

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

The transportation sector is a largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the U.S., accounting for 28.6% of all 2016 emissions, the majority of which come from the passenger vehicle fleet [1,2]. One major technology that is being investigated by researchers, planners, and policy makers to help lower the emissions from the transportation sector is the plug-in electric vehicle (PEV). The focus of this work is to investigate and model the impacts of increased levels of PEVs on the regional electric power grid and on the net change in CO2 emissions due to the decrease tailpipe emissions and the increase in …

An Analysis Of Energy Transitions At Different Scales: Fossil Fuel Divestment In Higher Education And Individual Behavior, Elizabeth Palchak

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

A sociotechnical energy transition requires both a shift to new technologies and attention to social issues like political movements, policy and human behavior. This dissertation investigates social elements of the renewable energy transition occurring at different scales. The core research questions are: How are universities creating and responding to the shifting language of fossil fuel investments? How and for whom do behavioral interventions work? And finally, do in-home displays (IHDs) change behaviors and attitudes of millennial energy users?

The three studies covered here occurred within higher education and reflect the importance of colleges and universities as dynamic players in energy …

Consumer Engagement With Efficient And Renewable Energy Technology: Case Studies On Smart Meter Utilization And Support For A Community Anaerobic Biodigester System In Vermont, Samantha Whitney Lewandowski

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Residential electricity consumption in the United States has many adverse impacts, such as greenhouse gas emissions, dependence on fossil fuels, and costs. Efficient and renewable energy technologies have the potential to help mitigate some of these impacts, but appear to be under-utilized in the United States. One major barrier to expanding the deployment of these kinds of technologies and maximizing the benefits they can provide is a lack of consumer engagement. The overall purpose of this thesis is to better understand the extent to which efficient and renewable energy technologies are being engaged with and what factors may influence such …

A Human Side Of The Smart Grid: Behavior-Based Energy Efficiency From Renters Using Real-Time Feedback And Competitive Performance-Based Incentives, Daniel Fredman

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Our energy system is rapidly transforming, partially due to advances in internet and communications technologies that leverage an unprecedented amount of data. Industry proponents of the so-called “smart grid” suggest these technologies facilitate deeper engagement with end-users of energy (utility customers) that can in turn drive behavior-based changes and accelerate a renewable energy transition. While there has been progress in understanding how these technologies change consumer behavior using, for example, real-time feedback, it’s unclear how specific segments (e.g., renters) respond to these interventions; it’s also unclear why feedback is, or is not, producing changes in energy consumption. The literature suggests …

The Role Of Uncertainty In Categorical Perception Utilizing Statistical Learning In Robots, Nathaniel V. Powell

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

At the heart of statistical learning lies the concept of uncertainty.

Similarly, embodied agents such as robots

and animals must likewise address uncertainty, as sensation

is always only a partial reflection of reality. This

thesis addresses the role that uncertainty can play in

a central building block of intelligence: categorization.

Cognitive agents are able to perform tasks like categorical perception

through physical interaction (active categorical perception; ACP),

or passively at a distance (distal categorical perception; DCP).

It is possible that the former scaffolds the learning of

the latter. However, it is unclear whether DCP indeed scaffolds

ACP in humans and …

Factors Influencing Mode Choice For Intercity Travel From Northern New England To Major Northeastern Cities, Sean Patrick Neely

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Long-distance and intercity travel generally make up a small portion of the total number of trips taken by an individual, while representing a large portion of aggregate distance traveled on the transportation system. While some research exists on intercity travel behavior between large metropolitan centers, this thesis addresses a need for more research on travel behavior between non-metropolitan areas and large metropolitan centers. This research specifically considers travel from home locations in northern New England, going to Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC. These trips are important for quality of life, multimodal planning, and rural economies. This research …

Teenagers' Mode Choice To And From School And Technology Use For Transportation: Analysis Of Students From Five High Schools In Vermont And California, Paola Rekalde Aizpuru

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

The carhops and drive-ins of the 1950s are symbolic of the freedom that the automobile has granted Americans. What the general public has gained from the automobile, however, may come at the expense of independent mobility and choices for today's adolescents, particularly those not yet old enough to drive or those from lower income families. Sprawl land use development patterns and limited transportation choices in most American cities often hold teenagers and their chauffeuring parents captive to the automobile. At the same time, information and communication technology is fast evolving and changing the ways in which teenagers live, interact, and …

Characterization Of Real-World Particle Number Emissions During Re-Ignition Events From A 2010 Light-Duty Hybrid-Electric Vehicle, Matthew Beach Conger

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Despite the increasing popularity of hybrid-electric vehicles (HEVs), few studies have quantified their real-world particle emissions from internal combustion engine (ICE) re-ignition events (RIEVs). RIEVs have been known to occur under unstable combustion conditions which frequently result in particle number emission rates (PNERs) that exceed stabilized engine operation. Tailpipe total PN (5 to 560 nm diameter) emission rates (#/s) from a conventional vehicle (CV) and hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) 2010 Toyota Camry were quantified on a 50 km (32 mi) route over a variety of roadways in Chittenden County, Vermont using the Total On-board Tailpipe Emissions Measurement System (TOTEMS). While …

Organic Chemical Characterization Of Primary And Secondary Biodiesel Exhaust Particulate Matter, John Kasumba

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Biodiesel use and production has significantly increased in the United States and in other parts of the world in the past decade. This change is driven by energy security and global climate legislation mandating reductions in the use of petroleum-based diesel. Recent air quality research has shown that emission of some pollutants such as CO, particulate matter (PM), SO2, hydrocarbons, and carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) is greatly reduced with biodiesel. However, studies have also shown that some unregulated emissions, such as gas-phase carbonyls, are increased with biodiesel combustion. Very limited research has been done to investigate the particle-phase carbonyl …

2013 Annual Report Of Uvm Extension And The Vermont Agricultural Experiment Station, Uvm Extension And Vermont Agricultural Experiment Station

Annual Reports

2013 Annual report of outreach and research from UVM Extension and Vermont Agricultural Experiment Station.

Ofdm Coupled Compressive Sensing Algorithm For Stepped Frequency Ground Penetrating Radar, Mohamed Metwally

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Dating back to as far as 1940, the US road and bridge infrastructure system has garnered quite the status for strategically connecting together half a continent. As monumental as the infrastructure's status, is its rate of deterioration, with the average bridge age coming at a disconcerting 50 years. Aside from visual inspection, a battery of non-destructive tests were developed to conduct structural fault assessment and detect laminations, in order to preemptively take preventive measures.

The mainstream commercially favored test is the impulse time domain ground penetrating radar (GPR). An extremely short, high voltage pulse is used to visualize cross-sections of …

Exploring Relationships Between Building And Transportation Energy Use Of Residents In U.S. Metropolitan Regions, Timothy Pede

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

There is much potential to decrease energy consumption in the U.S. by encouraging compact, centralized development. Although many studies have examined the extent to which built environment and demographic factors are related to household energy use, few have considered both building and transportation energy together. We hypothesized that residents living further from city centers, or urban cores, consume more energy for both purposes than their inner city counterparts, resulting in a direct relationship between building and transportation energy usage. This hypothesis was tested with two case studies.

The first focused on New York City. Annual building energy per unit of …