Transportation Commons^™

Development Of A Statistical Algorithm For The Real-Time Prediction Of Transit Vehicle Arrival Times Under Adverse Conditions, Kenneth Dueker, Thomas J. Kimpel, James G. Strathman

Center for Urban Studies Publications and Reports

Prior TransNow funded research by Portland State University (PSU) and the University of Washington (UW) in cooperation with Tri-Met, the transit provider for the Portland metropolitan area, has utilized a rich set of archived data from the Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL)-based Bus Dispatch System (BDS). Tri-Met is one of the few transit agencies that archive AVL data for analysis and research.

Rtc3 Transportation Model Version 1.0 Created In Support Of The Regional Transportation Commission Community Coalition, Krystyna Anne Stave

Public Policy and Leadership Faculty Research

No abstract provided.

Evolution Of Global Airline Strategic Alliance And Consolidation In The Twenty-First Century, Terence P. C. Fan, Laurence Vigeant-Langlois, Christine Geissler, Björn Bosler, Jan Wilmking

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Global airline strategic alliances have emerged since the late 1980s, and their number has slowly risen through the years. Will the number of such alliances continue to proliferate? Or will airlines consolidate with one another to form mega-carriers? In this paper, the likelihood of various airline consolidation and alliance development possibilities was examined based on a number of high-level trends and forces. The most probable near-term industry alliance and consolidation structure is described, accompanied with a probable path of evolution. These predictions have important implications for managers of strategic alliances, carriers who are currently in an alliance as well as …

Lessons Learned: A Conference On Transit Referenda And Why They Succeed Or Fail, Mti Report S-01-03, Mineta Transportation Institute

Mineta Transportation Institute

In the summer of 2001, the Mineta Transportation Institute co-sponsored, with the American Public Transportation Association, Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority, and the Center for Transportation Excellence, a two-day symposium on July 29 through July 31, entitled “Lessons Learned: A Conference on Transit Referenda and Why They Succeed or Fail.” The purpose of the conference was to discuss the history of successful and unsuccessful transportation measures that have existed in various cities across the United States . Participants represented members from transportation agencies nationwide. Each table was presented with issues to discuss and present to the conference. Short presentations were …

Effect Of Online Shopping On Vehicular Traffic, Mti Report 01-20, Joseph Giglierano

Mineta Transportation Institute

The purpose of this research was to assess and project the effects of online shopping on vehicular traffic. It was anticipated that as more people purchased goods and services online. short-distance traffic would be reduced. The method of study was personal interviews following a literature review of this subject. Efforts were focused on consumers’ shopping behaviors and the resulting effects on short-distance traffic. Survey data were combined with forecasts of online shopping volume from eMarketer, and estimates of total trip savings were made for the years 2000 and 2004. The results were not encouraging. We estimated that online shopping reduced …

Factors Influencing Voting Results Of Local Transportation Funding Initiatives With A Substantial Transit Component: Case Studies Of Ballot Measures In Eleven Communities, Mti Report 01-17, Richard Werbel, Peter J. Haas

Mineta Transportation Institute

This publication is a follow-up study to MTI publication 00-01, Why Campaigns for Local Transportation Funding Initiatives Succeed or Fail: An Analysis of Four Communities and National Data. The earlier publication was case studies of four local ballot tax measures for transportation packages. The current study, Factors Influencing Voting Results of Local Transportation Funding Initiatives with a Substantial Rail Transit Component: Case Studies of Ballot Measures in Eleven communities, uses the same case study methodology as the prior study, and is expanded to 11 communities from the past four years. Some of the important conclusions identified by the study are …

Using Fiber Networks To Stimulate Transit-Oriented Development: Prospects Barrier And Best Practices, Mti Report 01-16, Walter Siembab

Mineta Transportation Institute

This study empirically examines a practical aspect of a relationship that is only now being conceptualized––the relationship between rail transit, land development, and telecommunications. It pushes the envelope of knowledge in so far as the interaction between just two of the factors, public transportation and land use (urban form), has been a focus of policy research for only about 30 years, especially the last 10 years. This study is concerned with the feasibility of introducing three telecommunications-based incentives for transit-oriented development. The market for these hypothetical incentives is the developers of transit-oriented projects. California’s Bay Area/Santa Clara Valley and Los …

Implementation Of Zurich’S Transit Priority Program, Mti Report 01-13, Andrew Butler Nash

Mineta Transportation Institute

The objective of this research was to describe transit priority techniques in Zürich and understand how the city implemented its program. Most transit priority improvements are relatively simple and inexpensive; however, they have proved to be difficult to implement and sustain. The research effort consisted of a case study with interviews and surveys. We interviewed many persons associated with the development and implementation of Zürich’s transit priority program. A survey to evaluate support of transportation decision-makers in Santa Clara County, California, illustrated transit improvements in a typical U.S. city. The data was compared to a similar survey in Zürich. The …

Terrorism Overview, Mti Report 01-14, Brian M. Jenkins

Mineta Transportation Institute

Recent global events make it clear that the threat of terrorism is one to be taken seriously. For those who are attempting to kill in quantity and kill indiscriminately, surface transportation offers the ideal target. Because of the public nature of mass transit, there is often little security with no checkpoints as is the case with airports. The practice of terrorism has moved in varying directions in recent years, depending upon different forms of transportation systems and venues of operation. On the positive side, terrorist attacks on commercial aviation have declined significantly after reaching a high point in the 1970s, …

Protecting Public Surface Transportation Against Terrorism And Serious Crime: Continuing Research On Best Security Practices, Mti Report 01-07, Brian M. Jenkins

Mineta Transportation Institute

Terrorist attacks on commercial aviation had declined significantly after reaching a high point in the 1970s. The devastating consequences of the four coordinated hijackings and deliberate crashes of three of the planes into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., on September 11, 2001—an event unprecedented in the annals of terrorism—have wiped out all sense of progress and focused national attention on aviation security. Meanwhile, terrorists have continued to attack public surface transportation worldwide with no indication of abatement in these attacks.1 With large-scale indiscriminate violence clearly the reality of contemporary terrorism and growing …

National Transportation Security Summit, Mti Report S-01-02, Mti

Mineta Transportation Institute

This publication is transcript of an event that was held on October 30, 2001. The Mineta Transportation Institute brought together several agency representatives from transportation and labor-related agencies from across the United States to discuss security concerns related to the surface transportation industry. The keynote speaker for the event was Secretary Norman Y. Mineta, and serving as moderators were Rod Diridon, Executive Director of MTI, and Ellen Engelman from the U.S Department of Transportation’s Research and Special Programs Administration. Welcomers included Jeff Morales, Director of Caltrans; Pete Cipolla, General Manager, Valley Transportation Authority; and John Horsley, Executive Director, AASHTO. Panelists …

Applying An Integrated Urban Model In The Evaluation Of Travel Demand Management Policies In The Sacramento Region: Year Two, Mti Report 01-08, Robert A. Johnston

Mineta Transportation Institute

In this study, the authors apply an integrated land use and transportation model, the Sacramento MEPLAN model, to evaluate transit investment alternatives combines with supportive land use policies and pricing policies in the Sacramento region. The current study builds upon the year-one study (Johnson et. al., 2000) in two important respects. First, the study employs a second version of the Sacramento MEPLAN model that explicitly represents floorspace consumption in the land use component of the model. Second, the transit, land use and pricing policies evaluated in the year-two project as expanded and refined in this study in response to the …

How Best To Serve Seniors On Existing Transit Services, Mti Report 01-04, David Koffman

Mineta Transportation Institute

Increases in the size of the elderly population and changes in travel patterns are expected to create significant new mobility expectations. The research documented here is intended to provide tools for transit providers and public policy makers to make the greatest use of existing transit resources to serve mobility needs of the growing senior population. The research demonstrates how customer satisfaction surveys can be used to set priorities for improving existing fixed route services. The primary analysis technique used is the impact score technique. This method determines the relative impact of various improvements on overall customer satisfaction. It does this …

Statewide Safety Study Of Bicycles And Pedestrians On Freeways, Expressway, Toll Bridges, And Tunnels, Thomas C. Ferrara

Mineta Transportation Institute

The purpose of this study is to attempt to clarify some of the issues pertaining to bicycles on freeways. Specifically, the goal of this project is to “develop policy recommendations, guidelines, and policies for bicycle and pedestrian use of freeways, expressways, tunnels, and toll bridges in California.”

Applying An Integrated Model To The Evaluation Of Travel Demand Management Policies In The Sacramento Region, Mti Report 01-03, Robert A. Johnston

Mineta Transportation Institute

The Mineta Transportation Institute at San José State University conducted this study to review the issues and implications involved in the project in question. The primary objective of this study was to use an advanced integrated land use and transportation model to evaluate transit and supportive land use and pricing policies; the Sacramento MEPLAN model was used to simulate these policies. The model represents the effect of changes in the transportation system on land use. If the land use and transportation interaction is not represented, then the analysis of transit and highway alternatives may be biased. For example, if the …

Best Practices In Developing Regional Transportation Plans, Mti Report 01-10, Donald N. Rothblatt

Mineta Transportation Institute

AltAlthough Regional Transportation Plans (RTPs) have been prepared for many decades, there has been little effort to comprehensively compare and evaluate the different features of these documents. Most Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPO) typically do this on an ad hoc basis, thus resulting in duplication of efforts. Furthermore, there is a need to evaluate how the many changes in federal transportation policy during the 1990s have affected the planning of major new transportation facilities. The purpose of this study is to compare Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) Regional Transportation Plans (RTP) and planning processes in California with selected regions. Seventeen MPOs were …

A Planning Template For Nonwork Travel And Transit Oriented Development, Mti Report 01-12, Dick Nelson, John Niles, Aharon Hibshoosh

Mineta Transportation Institute

The Mineta Transportation Institute (MTI) at San José State University assigned a project team to design a planning template for transit-oriented development (TOD) that incorporates an understanding of nonwork travel, that is, trips for shopping, eating out, and engaging in recreational and cultural activities. Nonwork trips are growing in signifigance and now account for four of every five trips. At the same time, TOD has become a popular planning response to the impacts of metropolitan growth. Some planners believe that TOD will induce more pedestrian and transit trips and will reduce the average length and frequency of household auto travel. …

Construction Of Transit-Based Developments: New Policy Initiatives For Governments, Mti Report 01-05, Scott Lefaver

Mineta Transportation Institute

This project reviews policies and legislative programs that can be adopted at all levels of government to encourage transit-based development. The study focuses on local government implementation since it is cities and counties that have the land use responsibility for planning and zoning. The study also investigates how higher levels of government (state and federal) can encourage development through legislative and policy incentives. The study recommends some land use, legislative, and fiscal powers that are needed by local jurisdictions to carry out these incentives. The chapter entitled “Elements of Success” explains each of the recommendations in detail.

Transit Labor Relations Guide, Mti Report 01-02, Herbert H. Oestreich

Mineta Transportation Institute

Transit organizations, both public and private, are under great internal and external pressures today to improve their organizational effectiveness. Studies have shown that the collective bargaining relationship between union and management, particularly the collective bargaining agreement, has a direct, measurable effect on organizational effectiveness. Both transit management and transit unions have begun to recognize that it is in their mutual interest to improve organizational effectiveness by turning toward a more cooperative collective bargaining relationship. In particular, they have experimented with a negotiating style called “interest-based bargaining” and with a problem solving approach through joint labor-management committees. There is a great …

California Border Zone Land Transportation Issues: Nafta Ii, Mti Report 01-06, George E. Gray

Mineta Transportation Institute

The Mineta Transportation Institute at San José State University conducted this study to review the issues, impacts, implications, and opportunities for improved California-Baja California border area land transportation. The study reviews current conditions, previously identified issues, and, in consultation with Caltrans District 11 officials and others, developed an ultimate listing of seven issues for detailed study as follows: (1) public transportation at the border; (2) cross-broder Americans with Disabilities Act interface; (3) California highway access to Tijuana International Airport; (4) Clean Air Act compliance; (5) General Services Administration off-site authority; (6) southbound inspection requirement; and (7) pipelines or other stationary …

Non-Pricing Methods To Optimize High Occupancy Vehicle Lane Usage, Mti Report 01-11, George E. Gray

Mineta Transportation Institute

The Mineta Transportation Institute) at San José State University conducted this study to review the issues and implications involved in the project in question. Twenty-four potential HOV facility user groups were identified. Through a ranking process, seven of these groups were selected for further study in phase one. The project team made the following preliminary conclusions as to the suitability of each group to use HOV facilities and recommended whether each group should be included in the phase two study to refine these findings and develop implementation strategies. 1. As the result of 1998 legislation, which includes sunset provisions, electric …

Gis For Livable Communities: Examination Of Community Perceptions Of Assets, Liabilities And Transportation Improvements, Mti Report 01-09, Thomas A. Horan

Mineta Transportation Institute

Urban dwellers navigate everyday journeys through a variety of transportation connections. Transportation planning can play an instrumental part in shaping livable community goals, as it is part of the built environment that citizens’ encounter on a daily basis. This report examines the role that the built environment plays in the shaping of an individual’s sense of community. Geographical Information Systems (GIS), can generate spatial maps of a citizens’s interaction with the transportation environment. Combined with survey data, these maps offer information to community members and leaders that can help guide decision making about livable community goals. Riverside, California serves as …

Real-Time Travel Time Estimation Using Macroscopic Traffic Flow Models, Pushkin Kachroo, Kaan Ozbay, Antoine G. Hobeika

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Research

This paper presents the estimation of travel time on highways based on macroscopic modelling. The focus is on real-time values as compared to average or static values. The macroscopic models are used for distributed and time/space lumped settings and corresponding travel time estimation functions and algorithms are developed. The implications of these algorithms for the implementation of various incident management and traffic control strategies are also discussed.

Analysis Of A New Vehicle Scheduling And Location Problem, Ebru K. Bish, Thin Yin Leong, Chun-Lun Li, Jonathan W. C. Ng, David Simchi-Levi

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

We consider a container terminal discharging containers from a ship and locating them in the terminal yard. Each container has a number of potential locations in the yard where it can be stored. Containers are moved from the ship to the yard using a fleet of vehicles, each of which can carry one container at a time. The problem is to assign each container to a yard location and dispatch vehicles to the containers so as to minimize the time it takes to download all the containers from the ship. We show that the problem is NP-hard and develop a …

The Conference Proceedings Of The 2001 Air Transport Research Society (Atrs) Of The Wctr Society, Volume 2, Yeong-Heok Lee, Brent D. Bowen, Scott E. Tarry, Uno Aviation Institute

Faculty Books and Monographs

UNOAI Report 01-7

The Conference Proceedings Of The 2001 Air Transport Research Society (Atrs) Of The Wctr Society, Volume 3, Yeong-Heok Lee, Brent D. Bowen, Scott E. Tarry, Uno Aviation Institute

Faculty Books and Monographs

UNOAI Report 01-8

Economics Of Overloading And The Effect Of Weight Enforcement: Research Note, James G. Strathman

Center for Urban Studies Publications and Reports

This note describes the economic rationale for exceeding weight limits by motor carriers in the face of weight enforcement activities. Patterns of weight enforcement practices by states are identified reflecting differences in enforcement intensity and the severity of penalties imposed for exceeding weight limits. Statistical analysis of weight enforcement data shows that the marginal effects of enforcement intensity and penalties are similar in deterring overloading, with most of the enforcement-related deterrence attributable to the use of portable/semi-portable scales.

Analysis Of Design Attributes And Crashes On The Oregon Highway System, James G. Strathman, Kenneth Dueker, Jihong Zhang, Timothy Williams

Center for Urban Studies Publications and Reports

Since the passage of the Highway Safety Act of 1966, state departments of transportation have engaged in systematic safety improvement planning and programming. According to Davis (2000), the general approach to safety improvement planning employed by most states follows six principal steps:

1. Identification of hazardous roadway locations using crash records;

2. Detailed engineering study of selected hazardous locations to identify roadway design problems;

3. Identification of potential countermeasures;

4. Assessment of the costs and benefits of potential countermeasures;

5. Implementation of countermeasures with the highest net benefits;

6. Assessment of countermeasure effectiveness following implementation.

All planning processes are subject …

Motor Vehicle Taxes As An Environmental Management Instrument: The Case Of Singapore, Ngee-Choon Chia, Sock Yong Phang

Research Collection School Of Economics

Being geographically small, land scarcity poses a potential constraint for economic growth in Singapore. Restraining car ownership and car use through motor vehicle taxes is part of the land-transport policy to ensure smoother traffic flow. This paper analyses the use of motor vehicle taxes in Singapore as an environmental management instrument. It evaluates the effectiveness of ownership and use taxes as instruments to internalise congestion and environment externality. Economic issues relating to the use of such taxes are also highlighted. It concludes that motor vehicle taxes offer Singapore a double dividend.

Park And Ride Feasibility Analysis For The Evansville, Indiana, Metropolitan Area, Brian Howard

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Congested roadways and declining air quality standards are major concerns for many communities faced with the challenges of suburban growth and city decay. How each community chooses to fight the problems created by urban sprawl depends greatly on individualized characteristics of the community. Analyzing and understanding unique values of each community provides a sound foundation for measures designed to promote sustainable growth initiatives. The Evansville, Indiana, region is experiencing many of the growing pains associated with increased residential, commercial, and industrial development. Many roadways are currently strained near capacity, and traffic problems are anticipated to increase over the next 20 …