Transportation Commons^™

A 3-Step, Open-Data, Ride-Hailing Ridership Model With Pricing Applications, Richard A. Mucci

Theses and Dissertations--Civil Engineering

Researchers and practitioners studied the effects ride-hailing had in cities before the covid-19 pandemic. Previous research found ride-hailing to produce negative externalities, such as reducing transit ridership and increasing congestion in various cities. Since the pandemic, ride-hailing ridership has nearly recovered to pre-pandemic levels in Chicago. Ride-hailing ridership has grown steadily since the pandemic while a rider’s willingness to share their trip stagnated. Ride-hailing ridership nearly recovering to pre-covid levels in Chicago suggests that transportation planners, and policy makers, will need to continue assessing the impacts ride-hailing trips have in their cities.

Pickup and drop off locations in the Chicago …

Analysis Of Traffic Conflicts With Right Turning Vehicles At Unsignalized Intersections In Suburban Areas, Abbas Sheykhfard, Farshidreza Haghighi, Sarah Bakhtiari, Sara Moridpour, Kun Xie, Grigorios Fountas

Civil & Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

Right-turn collisions at intersections are one of the most dominant crash types in suburban areas, especially at unsignalized intersections. There is, however, a lack of comprehensive research on the speed patterns of vehicles during right-turn manoeuvres and their impact on crashes. To provide an in-depth investigation of the factors determining the safety of right-turn manoeuvres, driving behaviour data were collected through an instrumented vehicle study. Using this data, binary logistic regression models were developed to identify the factors affecting the probability of Vehicle-Vehicle (V-V) and Vehicle-Pedestrian (V-P) conflicts at six suburban intersections in Babol, Iran, during right-turn stage manoeuvres. In …

Implications Of Alternative Communications And Sensing Technologies For Implementing Variable Speed Limit Control Through Connected Vehicles: Sag Curve As A Case Study, Reza Vatani Nezafat, Mecit Cetin, Elizabeth Williams, George F. List

Civil & Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

Connected vehicles (CVs) will enable various applications to improve traffic flow. This paper's focus is to investigate how the potential implementation of variable speed limit (VSL) through different types of communication and sensing technologies on CVs makes it possible to mitigate congestion at a sag curve bottleneck. A VSL algorithm is developed and implemented in a simulation environment for controlling the inflow of vehicles to a sag curve to minimize delays and increase throughput. Both vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and infrastructure-to-vehicle (I2V) options for CVs are investigated when implementing the VSL control strategy in a simulation environment. Also, for measuring traffic density …

Characterization Of Recent Wild Pig‑Vehicle Collisions In Georgia, Usa, Jeremiah L. Psiropoulos, Emily Howe, John J. Mayer, Sophie C. Mckee

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Vehicle collisions with wild pigs (Sus scrofa) are reported almost everywhere this species is found. However, this is one of the least studied and characterized forms of damage that these invasive animals cause in the United States (US). We analyzed 518 wild pig-vehicle collisions (WPVCs) that took place statewide in Georgia between 2015 and 2021. From that dataset, we analyzed several parameters in order to better understand and characterize these accidents on a scale that had previously not been done in the US. Wild pig-vehicle collisions were reported from 105 out of the 159 counties in Georgia, increasing …

An Integrated Framework For Establishing Long-Term Transportation Management Strategies Promoting Sustainable Urban Growth, M Imtiaz Rahman

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Urban land areas are experiencing a more rapid expansion compared to their population growth on a global scale. This phenomenon, known as urban sprawl, is characterized by low-density development in the outskirts of cities. This unplanned urban growth leads to changing urban transportation patterns, posing a threat to sustainable development. In response, government agencies implement growth management practices, with transportation management strategies playing a crucial role in achieving sustainable urban growth. However, developing effective growth management strategies is difficult because of several challenges, including limited understanding of the key influencing factors, the complex interdependencies among these factors, and the uncertainties …

A Practical Framework For Component-Level Structural Health Monitoring Of The Gerald Desmond Bridge, Mehran Rahmani, Vesna Terzic, Andrea Calabrese, Brittany Cambell

Mineta Transportation Institute

Bridges serve as critical transportation infrastructure, but traditional maintenance inspection to ensure their safety is time-consuming, costly, and labor-intensive, especially for larger and more complex structures. This study presents a practical framework for the instrumentation, data acquisition, and remote condition assessment of the Gerald Desmond Bridge, California’s largest cable-stayed bridge. The framework aims to establish a foundation for real-time or near real-time remote health monitoring of the bridge’s critical elements. The study highlights the advantages of remote monitoring in terms of efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and early detection of damage.

Reducing Food Scarcity: The Benefits Of Urban Farming, S.A. Claudell, Emilio Mejia

Journal of Nonprofit Innovation

Urban farming can enhance the lives of communities and help reduce food scarcity. This paper presents a conceptual prototype of an efficient urban farming community that can be scaled for a single apartment building or an entire community across all global geoeconomics regions, including densely populated cities and rural, developing towns and communities. When deployed in coordination with smart crop choices, local farm support, and efficient transportation then the result isn’t just sustainability, but also increasing fresh produce accessibility, optimizing nutritional value, eliminating the use of ‘forever chemicals’, reducing transportation costs, and fostering global environmental benefits.

Imagine Doris, who is …

Decoding Usage And Adoption Behavior Of The Low-Carbon Transportation Market: An Ai-Driven Exploration, Vuban Chowdhury

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The transportation sector stands as a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, with its environmental impact steadily escalating over the past few decades. This has prompted government agencies to facilitate the adoption and usage of low-carbon transportation (LCT) options as alternatives to fossil-fuel-powered transportation. LCTs include modes of transportation that minimize the overall carbon footprint of the transportation sector by relying on energy sources that are environmentally sustainable. These sustainable transportation options have also garnered significant interest in the transportation research community. For government agencies and researchers alike, a comprehensive understanding of the adoption and usage …

Fiber-Based Seismic Damage And Collapse Assessment Of Reinforced Concrete Single-Column Pier-Supported Bridges Using Damage Indices, Yu-Fu Ko, Jessica Gonzalez

Mineta Transportation Institute

Near-fault earthquakes can have major effects on transportation systems due to the structural damage they impose on bridges. Therefore, it is imperative to assess the seismic damage of bridges appropriately, and this research focuses on reinforced concrete (RC) bridges. This research advances the seismic performance assessment of RC single-column pier-supported bridges with flexural failure under near-fault ground motion by use of ductility coefficients and damage indices. The methodology included modeling fiber-based nonlinear beam-column elements to simulate the damage development process of RC bridge piers under earthquake loadings, considering the global buckling of longitudinal steel bars, examining the cracking and spalling …

System-Of-Systems Integration For Civil Infrastructures Resiliency Toward Multihazard Events, Vahid Balali

Mineta Transportation Institute

Civil infrastructure systems—facilities that supply principal services, such as electricity, water, transportation, etc., to a community—are the backbone of modern society. These systems are frequently subject to multi-hazard events, such as earthquakes. The poor resiliency of these infrastructures results in many human casualties and significant economic losses every year. An outline of a holistic view that considers how different civil infrastructure systems operate independently and how they interact and communicate with each other is required to have a resilient infrastructure system. More specifically a systems engineering approach is required to enable infrastructure to remain resilient in the case of extreme …

Extending The Service-Life Of Bridges Using Sustainable And Resilient Abutment Systems: An Experimental Approach To Electrochemical Characterization Of Lightweight Mechanically Stabilized Earth, Fariborz M. Tehrani, Kenneth L. Fishman, Farmehr M. Dehkordi

Mineta Transportation Institute

Bridges are critical components of transportation infrastructure. This research addresses the need to extend the service life of bridges by improving the safety and reliability of bridge abutments and reducing their life-cycle cost and footprints. Mechanically stabilized earth (MSE) is a known strategy to enhance the economy and performance of bridge abutments. In addition, the application of rotary-kiln-manufactured lightweight aggregate backfills improves the performance of MSE bridge abutments with a leaner structural system. Such improvements include a reduction of structural demands due to a lower density, free drainage of granular materials, a high internal friction angle, less settlement with no …

Pavement Condition Survey Using Drone Technology, Lerose Lane, Dingxin Cheng

Mineta Transportation Institute

Timely repairs of pavement defects are essential in protecting both public road and highway systems. Identification of pavement distresses is necessary for planning pavement repairs. This has previously been performed by engineers surveying the roadways visually in the field. As drone usage has progressed, it has become clear that drones are a valuable tool to enhance visual documentation, improve project communication, and provide various data for processing. The use of drone technology has improved both the speed and accuracy of capturing data. Available software has allowed the data to be processed and analyzed in an office environment. This report summarizes …

Historic Downtown Streetscape Plan Price City, Utah, Patricia Beckert

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

The idea of a small-town Main Street has profound meaning within the American culture that has prevailed for the past two centuries. Historically, Main Street serves as the beating heart of a community, a place where economic, social, cultural, and civic activities are centered (Francaviglia, 1996; Main Street America, n.d.). Since the beginning of the 19th century, many factors have led to the decline of Main Streets, and despite a variety of efforts from different stakeholders, that decline has only intensified in recent decades (Isenberg, 2008; Orvell, 2014 Howard, 2015). In 1980, after a three-year project conducted by the National …

Electric Vehicle Routing Problem – Models And Algorithms, Hesamoddin Tahami

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The transportation sector is a major greenhouse gas emitter that is heavily regulated to reduce its dependence on oil. These regulations along with the growing customer awareness of global warming have led to the investigation of new transportation problems that consider using eco-friendly vehicle fleets. Promising alternatives to traditional fleets include alternative fuel vehicles (AFVs) and electric vehicles (EVs). These twenty-first-century vehicles offer an appealing advantage of consistently reducing their environmental impact, but due to the current technology, they exhibit bothersome limitations. The short driving range along with limited charging infrastructure may consequently cause issues related to range anxiety, i.e., …

Smart Transportation In Small- And Medium-Sized Cities In Central California, Hongwei Dong

Mineta Transportation Institute

The research on smart transportation in the United States has centered on large metropolitan areas. The adoption of smart transportation technologies in small-and medium-sized cities outside of large metropolitan areas is less studied and understood. This study examined the adoption of smart transportation technologies in small-and medium-sized cities in Central California. The analysis was based on the online survey responses from 29 transportation officials and professionals who worked for 18 municipal government departments and six metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) in Central California as well as in depth semi-structured interviews with seven of them. The study showed that smart transportation in …

Experimental Investigation Of The Self-Healing Potential Of Bacteria For Sustainable Concrete Structures, Pitiporn Asvapathanagul, Simone Galano, Andrea Calabrese, Mehran Rahmani, Maggie Ly, Daniela Flores, Michael Hernandez, Nicholas Banuelos

Mineta Transportation Institute

Although concrete is the most widely used building material in the world, its limited tensile strength makes cracking a common phenomenon in concrete elements. This study investigates the potential of autonomous self-healing as an eco-friendly and lowcost method to increase the durability of concrete. The crack-healing potential of different types of high-alkaline-tolerant bacteria or calcite-precipitation microorganisms is investigated. High-alkaline-tolerant bacteria and calcite-precipitation microorganisms were used to retrofit lab-fractured concrete samples. The samples healed with each of these bacteria groups were cast and tested under compressive load up to failure to measure the compressive strength of the concrete samples. The outcomes …

Preconstruction Support Cost Hours Estimating On Caltrans Pavement Rehabilitation Projects, Nigel Blampied, Tariq Shehab, Elhami Nasr, Laxmi Sindhu Samudrala

Mineta Transportation Institute

Because the construction phase accounts for the majority of project costs for pavement rehabilitation projects, most research on infrastructure project cost estimating focuses on that phase, rather than on the preconstruction phases. Nevertheless, costs incurred prior to construction, referred to in this report as "preconstruction costs" are significant and worthy of consideration (See Section 2.1 of the report for a more detailed and precise definition of preconstruction). In the 20202021 fiscal year, for instance, the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) spent more than $169 million on preconstruction work for pavement rehabilitation projects. This report presents the results of a study …

Modeling And Evaluating Alternatives To Enhance Access To An Airport And Meet Future Expansion Needs, Srinivas S. Pulugurtha, Abimbola Ogungbire, Chirag Akbari

Mineta Transportation Institute

The continued growth of air travel calls for the incessant construction effort at many airports and their surroundings. Thus, there is a need to determine how airports can better manage existing infrastructure to accommodate this growth. This study, therefore, focuses on (1) investigating how changes in transportation infrastructure have affected travel time reliability (TTR) of the surrounding road network within the airport vicinity over time, and, (2) exploring selected unconventional intersection designs and proposing new inbound/outbound access routes from the nearby major roads to the airport. The efficiency of road networks that surrounds large airports is discussed using Charlotte Douglas …

Using Thermal Remote Sensing To Quantify Impact Of Traffic On Urban Heat Islands During Covid, My-Thu Tran, Bo Yang

Mineta Transportation Institute

A three-month lockdown in the U.S. at the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020 greatly reduced the traffic volume in many cities, especially large metropolitan areas such as the San Francisco Bay Area. This research explores the impact of transportation on climate change by using remote sensing technology and statistical analysis during the COVID-19 lockdown. Using thermal satellite data, this research measures the intensity of the urban heat island, the main driver for climate change during the urbanization process. The research team acquired morning and afternoon MODIS data in the same periods in 2019 before the pandemic and 2020 …

Planning For Pedestrians And Bicyclists During Construction Projects, John Habermann, P.E.

Purdue Road School

This session will explore how the Texas Department of Transportation Waco District addressed pedestrian/bicyclist safety and mobility during a multi-year construction project along I-35. This presentation will demonstrate the value of online tools, field implementations, and data collection. Attendees will learn the value of assembling a stakeholder steering committee; counting pedestrian and bicyclists before, during, and after construction; effectively using pavement clings; and using a webpage dedicated to pedestrian/bicyclist updates.

See A Sign? Make A Call, John Habermann, P.E.

Purdue Road School

DOT staff and technology resources have the proven potential to help combat human trafficking if DOT employees know the indicators of human trafficking and how to cooperate with requests from agencies for information that can be derived from DOT assets. The Texas A&M Transportation Institute, NCHRP, and the Heart of Texas Human Trafficking Coalition will discuss the intersection of human trafficking with the transportation sector. Attendees will also learn the main components of human trafficking, the basic signs of human trafficking on DOT facilities, and resources to use in their own states.

Evaluating Automated Truck Platoon (Atp) Deployment For The Los Angeles–Inland Empire Trade Corridor Enhancement, Shailesh Chandra, Aastha Chaudhary, Prakhar Srivastava, Jose Torres-Aguilera

Mineta Transportation Institute

The California Freight Mobility Plan 2020 lists the Los Angeles-Inland Empire trade corridor region as a prominent industrial hub experiencing an increase in freight flows. The California Freight Mobility Plan also regards automated truck platoon (ATP) as an emerging opportunity to minimize congestion on the trade corridor routes. Percentage change in accessibility from 2022 (“without” ATP) to 2040 (“with” ATP) is calculated for the eighteen industry sectors of the Los Angeles-Inland Empire trade corridor. The application of the accessibility formulation was carried out with data on travel time from I-710 and I-10 within Los Angeles County. The findings suggest that …

Evaluation, Comparison, And Improvement Recommendations For Caltrans Financial Programming Processes And Tools, Wenbin Wei, Nigel Blampied, Raajmaathangi Sreevijay

Mineta Transportation Institute

The California Transportation Improvement Program System (CTIPS) is the main tool used by Caltrans’ Division of Financial Programming to support the business of transportation programming. It is a multi-agency joint-use project programming database system applied to develop and manage various state and federal transportation programming documents. The goal of this project is to evaluate CTIPS and explore various new options that will maintain the current functionality of CTIPS, meet legislative guidelines for ADA compliance, ensure security of the system, and have sufficient scalability and capabilities for integration with other systems in the future. The research is based on the review …

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. …

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 …

Effect Of Weather Events On Travel Time Reliability And Crash Occurrence, Sonu Mathew, Srinivas S. Pulugurtha

Mineta Transportation Institute

The magnitude of the effect of adverse weather conditions on road operational performance varies with the type of weather condition and the road characteristics of the road links and adjacent links. Therefore, the relationship between weather and traffic is always a concern to traffic engineers and planners, and they have extensively explored ways to integrate weather information into transportation systems. Understanding the influence of weather on operational performance and safety helps traffic engineers and planners to proactively plan and manage transportation systems. The main objective of this research is to evaluate the effect of adverse weather conditions on travel time …

Does Transit Service Reliability Influence Ridership?, Srinivas S. Pulugurtha, Raunak Mishra, Sravya L. Jayanthi

Mineta Transportation Institute

This research focused on analyzing the association between transit service reliability indicators and ridership. Further, the effect of road network, demographic, socioeconomic, and land use characteristics on transit service reliability was analyzed. The analysis was conducted at a bus stop level. Bus arrival/departure and ridership data from the Charlotte Area Transit System (CATS) was obtained. The road network, demographic, socioeconomic, and land use characteristics were captured within 0.25-mile and 0.50-mile buffers. Pearson correlation analysis was conducted to understand the association between road network, demographic, socioeconomic, and land use characteristics and bus transit service reliability measures. The results show that bus …

Large Eddy Simulations Of Wind Shear From Passing Vehicles Under A Freeway Overpass, Hamid Rahai, Assma Begum

Mineta Transportation Institute

California is moving toward a 100% clean energy future, and expanded wind energy will be a major component of the state’s future energy portfolio. Innovations in wind energy resources will move California closer to achieving its goal. To gain a better understanding of transient pressure and the wind shear generated at the bridge poles from passing vehicles, this study performed large-eddy simulations of a vehicle (also called an Ahmed body) moving under a freeway overpass at a distance of 0.75 w (width) from the bridge poles. Results include transient contours of mean velocity, turbulent kinetic energy, vorticity, and pressure around …

Understanding The Safety And Usability Of Personal Vehicles For Non-Driving Individuals With Disabilities And Their Families/Care Providers, Anil R. Kumar, Hannah Bowman

Mineta Transportation Institute

The connections between shared personal vehicles of individuals with disabilities (IWDs) and their household family members play an important role in the mobility, overall health, and well-being of all involved actors, yet this topic remains mostly overlooked within publicly available research. Families that include a non-driving IWD are more likely to be low-income, and often struggle with the costs of operating a family car but, due to insufficient public transportation options, they own vehicles despite their prohibitive cost. This exploratory study utilized the Systems Engineering Initiative for Patient Safety (SEIPS) model, a framework focused on assessing the interplaying sociotechnical factors …

Damage Detection And Damage Localization In Bridges With Low-Density Instrumentations Using The Wave-Method: Application To A Shake-Table Tested Bridge, Mehran Rahmani, Xintong Ji, Sovann Reach Kiet

Mineta Transportation Institute

This study presents a major development to the wave method, a methodology used for structural identification and monitoring. The research team tested the method for use in structural damage detection and damage localization in bridges, the latter being a challenging task. The main goal was to assess capability of the improved method by applying it to a shake-table-tested prototype bridge with sparse instrumentation. The bridge was a 4-span reinforced concrete structure comprising two columns at each bent (6 columns total) and a flat slab. It was tested to failure using seven biaxial excitations at its base. Availability of a robust …