Transportation Commons^™

Battery Electric Vehicles: Travel Characteristics Of Early Adopters, Yunwen Feng, Jean-Daniel Saphores, Hilary Nixon, Monica Ramirez Ibarra

Mineta Transportation Institute

Do U.S. households with battery electric vehicles (BEVs) drive less or more than U.S. households with internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs)? Answering this question is important to policymakers and transportation planners concerned with reducing vehicle miles traveled and the emissions of greenhouse gases from transportation. So far, this question has not been answered satisfactorily, possibly because of the relatively low number of EVs in the U.S. until recently, but also because of methodological issues. In this paper, we aim to fill this gap by analyzing data from the 2017 National Household Travel Survey (NHTS). We apply propensity score matching (PSM), …

Scooting Through Urban Shared Micromobility Transformations: A Comprehensive Study Of Shared E-Scooter Usage Patterns, Pandemic Effects, And Equity Challenges, Farzana Mehzabin Tuli

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The rise of shared e-scooters has sparked a paradigm shift in urban transportation, offering a flexible mode of micromobility for short-distance travel. Since their US debut in September 2017, these electric scooters have gained popularity, surpassing traditional bikesharing services in many cities. This dissertation presents four studies that delve into various aspects of e-scooter adoption, from user behavior and pandemic effects to gender disparities and equitable access, providing comprehensive insights for urban mobility planning. The first study aims to determine (i) who uses shared e-scooters and why they use them, and (ii) what effects e-scooters have on the usage of …

Assessing Gtfs Accuracy, Gregory L. Newmark

Mineta Transportation Institute

The promised benefits of the General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) Schedule and Realtime standards are dependent on the underlying quality of the data. Despite this fundamental reliance, there has been relatively little research on techniques and strategies to assess GTFS accuracy. The need for such assessment is growing as federal and state governments increasingly require transit agencies to make these data available to the public. This research fills this gap by presenting a suite of methods and metrics to assess the temporal accuracy of GTFS Realtime and the spatial accuracy of GTFS Schedule feeds. The temporal assessment demonstrates an approach …

Moving Towards The Electrification Of Medium- And Heavy-Duty Vehicles In The Inland Empire, Kimberly Collins, Raffi Der Wartanian, Francisca Beer, Yunfei Hou

Mineta Transportation Institute

This report investigates the transition to zero-emission medium- and heavy-duty vehicles (MDHD) within California’s Inland Empire (IE), emphasizing the significance of electric vehicle charging infrastructure and opportunity charging strategies in facilitating sustainable transportation. Utilizing a mixed-methods approach that combines a systematic literature review, geospatial and big data analytics, and thematic analysis of expert interviews, the study explores the multifaceted challenges and opportunities of electrification. The literature review assesses policies at various governance levels, while geospatial analysis identifies regional traffic patterns and infrastructure needs. Big data analytics examine vehicle movements, complemented by insights from interviews with 16 regional experts, offering a …

Assessing The Impacts Of Cavs On A Coordinated Signalized Corridor, Ty David Mills

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Connected Automated vehicles (CAVs) are growing in popularity and could have potential implications on the transportation system. The effects of CAVs have yet to be fully realized because of the newness of the technology. Anticipated effects include increased capacity, faster travel time, improved level of service, increased safety, and overall effectiveness of the transportation system. The Highway Capacity Manual (HCM) published by the Transportation Research Board of the National Academies has incorporated some of these impacts by developing capacity adjustment factors (CAFs) for various scenarios for freeway segments, signalized intersections, and roundabouts. This study builds upon the HCM study of …

Optimization Of Customer Service And Driver Dispatch Areas For On-Demand Food Delivery, Jingfeng Yang, Hoong Chuin Lau, Hai Wang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

With the rapid development and popularization of mobile and wireless communication technologies, on-demand food delivery (OFD) platforms have been able to connect restaurants, customers, and drivers in real time, drastically changing dining and food delivery services. Motivated by the critical need for supply and demand management in the on-demand food delivery market, we focus on the optimization of customer service area and driver dispatch area for on-demand food delivery services. Specifically, for each restaurant, the platform needs to decide the (1) customer service area (CSA), i.e., the surrounding area within which customers can see the restaurant’s information and order food …

Path-Choice-Constrained Bus Bridging Design Under Urban Rail Transit Disruptions, Yiyang Zhu, Jian Gang Jin, Hai Wang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Although urban rail transit systems play a crucial role in urban mobility, they frequently suffer from unexpected disruptions due to power loss, severe weather, equipment failure, and other factors that cause significant disruptions in passenger travel and, in turn, socioeconomic losses. To alleviate the inconvenience of affected passengers, bus bridging services are often provided when rail service has been suspended. Prior research has yielded various methodologies for effective bus bridging services; however, they are mainly based on the strong assumption that passengers must follow predetermined bus bridging routes. Less attention is paid to passengers’ path choice behaviors, which could affect …

Segac: Sample Efficient Generalized Actor Critic For The Stochastic On-Time Arrival Problem, Honglian Guo, Zhi He, Wenda Sheng, Zhiguang Cao, Yingjie Zhou, Weinan Gao

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This paper studies the problem in transportation networks and introduces a novel reinforcement learning-based algorithm, namely. Different from almost all canonical sota solutions, which are usually computationally expensive and lack generalizability to unforeseen destination nodes, segac offers the following appealing characteristics. segac updates the ego vehicle’s navigation policy in a sample efficient manner, reduces the variance of both value network and policy network during training, and is automatically adaptive to new destinations. Furthermore, the pre-trained segac policy network enables its real-time decision-making ability within seconds, outperforming state-of-the-art sota algorithms in simulations across various transportation networks. We also successfully deploy segac …

Enabling Sustainable Freight Forwarding Network Via Collaborative Games, Pang Jin Tan, Shih-Fen Cheng, Richard Chen

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Freight forwarding plays a crucial role in facilitating global trade and logistics. However, as the freight forwarding market is extremely fragmented, freight forwarders often face the issue of not being able to fill the available shipping capacity. This recurrent issue motivates the creation of various freight forwarding networks that aim at exchanging capacities and demands so that the resource utilization of individual freight forwarders can be maximized. In this paper, we focus on how to design such a collaborative network based on collaborative game theory, with the Shapley value representing a fair scheme for profit sharing. Noting that the exact …

Anopas: Practical Anonymous Transit Pass From Group Signatures With Time-Bound Keys, Rui Shi, Yang Yang, Yingjiu Li, Huamin Feng, Hwee Hwa Pang, Robert H. Deng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

An anonymous transit pass system allows passengers to access transport services within fixed time periods, with their privileges automatically deactivating upon time expiration. Although existing transit pass systems are deployable on powerful devices like PCs, their adaptation to more user-friendly devices, such as mobile phones with smart cards, is inefficient due to their reliance on heavy-weight operations like bilinear maps. In this paper, we introduce an innovative anonymous transit pass system, dubbed Anopas, optimized for deployment on mobile phones with smart cards, where the smart card is responsible for crucial lightweight operations and the mobile phone handles key-independent and time-consuming …

Time-To-Failure Prediction Of Fine-Grained Soil Slopes Subject To Weather-Driven Deterioration, Arm M. Morsy

Mineta Transportation Institute

Embankments have been widely used in the construction of transportation and flood defense infrastructure. Embankments constructed from clays experience a suite of weather-driven deterioration processes that lead to a progressive loss of hydromechanical performance, causing potentially severe and costly consequences. This study aimed to predict the time to failure of aging, deteriorating clay embankments supporting transportation infrastructure. A multi-phase numerical modeling approach was developed to replicate the long-term, weather-driven, hydromechanical behavior of clay embankments. This model simulated the behavior of a number of well-documented embankment failure case studies that had sufficient data to derive the necessary soil properties and climate …

Ten Years Forward: An Evaluation Of California’S Active Transportation Program, Bruce Appleyard, Mario Carbajal, Madison Swayne, Nell Ahangarfabrik, Megan Honey

Mineta Transportation Institute

California’s Active Transportation Program (ATP) is a competitive, grant-based program that serves as a major funding stream for active transportation infrastructure in California. The program has six goals based on increasing nonmotorized transportation, safety, equity, sustainability, and health. Evaluation of the ATP’s administrative and scoring processes is crucial to ensure goals are met as equitably and efficiently as possible. Additionally, establishing a methodology for evaluating the safety impacts of active transportation projects is critically important. Through a series of interviews and an extensive review of the documents and rubrics of the program, this report discusses how the Active Transportation Program …

Is Parking Cash-Out Worth It? Comparing Cost-Effectiveness And Climate And Equity Benefits In The Bay Area And South Coast Air Quality Management Districts, Fynnwin Prager, Tianjun Lu, Ashley Membere, Parveen Chhetri

Mineta Transportation Institute

This research explores the potential impacts of California parking cash-out policy changes on the Bay Area and LA County. Parking cash-out—a California law since 1992—requires that certain qualifying employers who subsidize employee parking offer employees the option to give up their parking space and receive cash instead. Studies show parking cash-out substantially reduces VMT and emissions, yet enforcement remains voluntary. Current policy covers few firms (<1%) and employees (around 11%) in the study regions. Policy reform to include companies with 20+ employees could increase this to 18%. Our experimental-design survey (n=963) explores behavioral changes in response to multiple policy variables and finds that 76.9% of employees would accept cash-out if offered, and that participants who had to pay the market rate for parking and were full-time commuters were more likely to switch to using public transportation at lower cash minimums. VMT related to employees covered by parking cash-out are substantial (5.6 million in the Bay Area; 5.7 million in LA County), and account for a combined 6,593 daily tons of GHG. As even limited adoption could have significant environmental benefits, parking cash-out would be a more cost-effective approach to reducing VMT than traditional TDM programs such as trip-reduction programs, workplace parking taxation, or transit subsidies and road diets, though further evidence on the direct influence of parking cash-out on commuter behavior is needed.

Forecasting Commercial Vehicle Miles Traveled (Vmt) In Urban California Areas, Steve Chung, Jaymin Kwon, Yushin Ahn

Mineta Transportation Institute

This study investigates commercial truck vehicle miles traveled (VMT) across six diverse California counties from 2000 to 2020. The counties—Imperial, Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, and San Francisco—represent a broad spectrum of California’s demographics, economies, and landscapes. Using a rich dataset spanning demographics, economics, and pollution variables, we aim to understand the factors influencing commercial VMT. We first visually represent the geographic distribution of the counties, highlighting their unique characteristics. Linear regression models, particularly the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) and elastic net regressions are employed to identify key predictors of total commercial VMT. LASSO regression …

Threat And Hazard Identification And Risk Assessment (Thira) Guidance For Railroads, Frances L. Edwards, Daniel C. Goodrich

Mineta Transportation Institute

Climate change creates new challenges for all critical transportation infrastructure, especially for railroads with an open system that is continuously exposed to the elements. A Threat and Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment (THIRA) is a necessary first step for an organization to understand the challenges and develop strategies for adaptation to them. In many cases, the railroad sector is uniquely positioned to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions through mitigation steps. This guide will assist railroad risk managers and emergency managers to evaluate the risks and determine how best to respond to them through preparation, mitigation, or adaptation. The THIRA is the …

Karnataka Government Must Revisit Gig Workers Bill, Make It More Inclusive, Babu Mathew, Saurabh Bhattacharjee, Madhulika T

Popular Media

The Karnataka Platform-Based Gig Workers (Social Security and Welfare) Bill, 2024 has been favourably received by several commentators, but a closer inspection of the text of the Bill reveals glaring omissions, which if left unaddressed are likely to undermine the Bill’s objectives.

Transportation, Healthcare Seeking, And Outcomes, Xiao Lin Ong

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

Advancements in engineering and transportation technology have integrated commuting into modern living. Most studies on transportation infrastructure, such as roads and railways, focus on economic outcomes. This paper examines an overlooked outcome of transportation connectivity: access to medical care. We study the role transportation networks play in determining patients’ treatment location choices. Specifically, we aim to study 1) why patients travel to begin with, 2) how do patients choose where to go for treatment, and 3) how travel times can affect patients’ travel decisions. To do so, we develop a dynamic discrete choice, spatial model and provide empirical estimates. We …

Tracing The Development Of Trust In Automation/Autonomy In A Multitasking Environment, Tetsuya Sato

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Future Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) operations will likely involve autonomous systems that exceed the capabilities of a typical automation. However, human operators could use such systems counterproductively by either misusing unreliable systems or disusing reliable systems. One determinant for inappropriate use of autonomous systems is trust. Human factors theorists proposed numerous ways to characterize trust such as the tripartite model of trust that describes the bases of trust in automation (i.e., performance, process, and purpose; Lee & See, 2004). Previous works have indicated that participants rated lower performance- and process-based trust toward the automation when the tracking task required more …

Young Driver Training And Socioeconomic Status: A Human-In-The-Loop Driving Simulator Evaluation, Jeffrey Edward Glassman

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Previous research consistently shows that young drivers are poor at anticipating latent hazards on the roadway compared to more experienced drivers. The Road Awareness and Perception Training (RAPT) program is a driver training program that aims to accelerate young drivers’ learning of hazard anticipation (HA) skills. More recent research has started showing evidence that RAPT may be even more effective at reducing accidents for young drivers with a lower socioeconomic status (SES), though the direct impact of RAPT on HA skills in the driver population is yet unclear. The current experiment thus directly evaluated the effectiveness of RAPT on the …

Fine-Grained Passenger Load Prediction Inside Metro Network Via Smart Card Data, Xiancai Tian, Chen Zhang, Baihua Zheng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Metro system serves as the backbone for urban public transportation. Accurate passenger load prediction for the metro system plays a crucial role in metro service quality improvement, such as helping operators schedule train timetables and passengers plan their trips. However, existing works can only predict low-grained passenger flows of origin-destination (O-D) paths or inflows/outflows of each station but cannot predict passenger load distribution over the whole metro network. To this end, this paper proposes an end-to-end inference framework, PIPE, for passenger load prediction of every metro segment between two adjacent stations, by only utilizing smart card data. In particular, PIPE …

Reinforcement Learning For Strategic Airport Slot Scheduling: Analysis Of State Observations And Reward Designs, Anh Nguyen-Duy, Duc-Thinh Pham, Jian-Yi Lye, Nguyen Binh Duong Ta

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Due to the NP-hard nature, the strategic airport slot scheduling problem is calling for exploring sub-optimal approaches, such as heuristics and learning-based approaches. Moreover, the continuous increase in air traffic demand requires approaches that can work well in new scenarios. While heuristics rely on a fixed set of rules, which limits the ability to explore new solutions, Reinforcement Learning offers a versatile framework to automate the search and generalize to unseen scenarios. Finding a suitable state observation and reward structure design is essential in using Reinforcement Learning. In this paper, we investigate the impact of providing the Reinforcement Learning agent …

Exploring Performance-Based Contracts: A Good Option To Address Long-Term Road Maintenance In California?, Maria Calahorra-Jimenez, Richard Poythress

Mineta Transportation Institute

Performance-based contracts (PBCs) used in road maintenance provide flexibility for considering new materials, design, and technology to achieve predetermined performance targets. Several states in the U.S. have already used these types of contracts in road maintenance, and their experience can inform the use of PBCs in California. The objectives of this research are twofold. First, identify the benefits and challenges of PBCs compared to traditional contracts. Second, explore the main aspects of PBCs implementation for road maintenance and relate them to California's context. To this end, deductive-inductive content analysis was conducted on 84 peer-reviewed articles published between 1998 and 2023. …

Privacy-Preserving Arbitrary Geometric Range Query In Mobile Internet Of Vehicles, Yinbin Miao, Lin Song, Xinghua Li, Hongwei Li, Kim-Kwang Raymond Choo, Robert H. Deng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The mobile Internet of Vehicles (IoVs) has great potential for intelligent transportation, and creates spatial data query demands to realize the value of data. Outsourcing spatial data to a cloud server eliminates the need for local computation and storage, but it leads to data security and privacy threats caused by untrusted third-parties. Existing privacy-preserving spatial range query solutions based on Homomorphic Encryption (HE) have been developed to increase security. However, in the single server model, the private key is held by the query user, which incurs high computation and communication burdens on query users due to multiple rounds of interactions. …

Adopt: An Environmentally-Friendly System For Alerting Drivers To Occluded Pedestrians Traffic, Abrar Abdulrahman Alali

Computer Science Theses & Dissertations

The emergence of sensing technologies and vehicular communications has brought significant opportunities for enhancing pedestrian safety on city streets. However, existing solutions rely on costly technologies such as computer vision and trajectory prediction to detect crossing pedestrians, while they have limits in detecting pedestrians who are occluded by parked cars. Despite the presence of collaborative perception by surrounding vehicles and infrastructure, there is a notable absence of incorporating existing parked cars themselves due to their insufficiency in detecting pedestrians and communicating with other cars while they are turned off. Furthermore, accommodating pedestrians on streets has been linked to an additional …

Mapping Of Pavement Conditions Using Smartphone/Tablet Lidar Case Study: Sensor Performance Comparison, Calvin Beavers, Chad Day, Austin Krietemeyer, Scott M. Peterson, Yushin Ahn, Xiaojun Li

Mineta Transportation Institute

Poor road conditions affect millions of drivers, and assessing the condition of paved surfaces is a critical step towards repairing them. This project explores the feasibility of using the Apple iPad Pro LiDAR sensor as a cost-effective tool for assessing the damage and condition of paved surfaces. Our research aims to provide accurate and precise measurements using readily available consumer devices and compare the results to state-of-the-art equipment. This investigation involved visual inspection, identification, and classification of pavement distresses, followed by a comparison of the iPad and iPhone LiDAR data with a survey-grade terrestrial laser scanner. The project revealed several …

Experimental Investigation Of The Self-Healing Potential Of Bacteria For Sustainable Concrete Structures Phase 2, Andrea Calabrese, Pitiporn Asvapathanagul, Nisarg N. Patel, Nanubala Dhruvan, Austin Adams, Michael Hernandez, Douglas S. Lopez-Cruz

Mineta Transportation Institute

Concrete is a critical component of so much of the modern construction industry. This material, well known for its versatility, robustness, longevity, and strength, is well-suited for a wide range of structural applications. Nonetheless, the widespread occurrence of cracks in concrete structures, primarily attributed to its limited tensile strength, shrinkage, and overstain, imposes a considerable economic and environmental challenge when it comes to retrofitting these fissures. This study tackles this problem by harnessing bacteria tolerant to high alkaline conditions to enable Microbially Induced Calcium Carbonate Precipitation (MICP) for the self-repair of concrete. This is achieved through an external application method, …

Spatio-Temporal Analysis Of The Roadside Transportation-Related Air Quality (Startraq 2022): Data-Driven Exposure Analysis By Transportation Modes, Jaymin Kwon, Yushin Ahn, Steve Chung

Mineta Transportation Institute

Particulate matter (PM) pollution poses significant health risks, influenced by various meteorological factors and seasonal variations. This study investigates the impact of temperature and other meteorological variables on PM10 and PM2.5 levels in Fresno County, known for high air pollution. Multiple linear regression (MLR) and generalized additive models (GAMs) assess the significance of these relationships. Analyzing data from Fresno County, we examine PM10 and PM2.5 levels across "hot" (June to August) and "cool" (September to May) seasons. Findings indicate PM10, both MLR and GAM models identify statistically significant variables, excluding temperature and wind direction in each season. However, during the …

Battery Management System Development For Electric Vehicles And Fast Charging Infrastructure Improvement, Yu Yang, Hen-Geul Yeh, Cesar Ortiz

Mineta Transportation Institute

The electric vehicle (EV) has become increasingly popular due to its being zero-emission. However, a significant challenge faced by EV drivers is the range anxiety associated with battery usage. Addressing this concern, this project develops a more efficient battery management system (BMS) for electric vehicles based on a real-time, state-of-charge (SOC) estimation. The proposed study delivers three modules: (1) a new equivalent circuit model (ECM) for lithium-ion batteries, (2) a new SOC estimator based on the moving horizon method, and (3) an on-board FPGA implementation of the classical Coulomb counting method for SOC estimation. The research team extends the traditional …

Webinar: Building Capacity In Gateway Communities Through The Gnar Academy, Jordan Katcher, Elizabeth Sodja

TREC Webinar Series

Small towns and cities near national parks, public lands, and other natural amenities across the West are experiencing rapid growth and increased tourism. As we have documented via our prior NITC-funded research, this has created a range of big city challenges for these “gateway communities,” particularly in the form of interconnected transportation, land use, and housing issues. Seeking to help gateway communities better prepare for and respond to their transportation and planning challenges, the Gateway and Natural Amenity Region (GNAR) Initiative team translated the findings from our research on planning and development challenges in gateway communities into an online learning …

Wasted Space: Using Parking Lots & Vacant Land To Improve Neighborhood Completeness, Ryan Martyn

Hatfield Graduate Journal of Public Affairs

This study conducts a spatial analysis of Portland, Oregon, focusing on leveraging underutilized areas like parking lots and vacant land—termed "wasted space"—to improve the city's completeness. Central to this investigation is the concept of a "complete neighborhood," characterized by access to daily necessities within convenient active transportation trip. This comprehensive idea encompasses walkability, equitable access to services, and sustainability.

This paper aims to redefine the concept of a complete neighborhood with precision and delve into its implications. The research looks at five regional, town, and neighborhood centers as defined by the city of Portland. These centers act as pivotal hubs …