Urban Studies and Planning Commons^™

Modeling Of Dc Link Capacitor Current Ripple For Electric Vehicle Traction Converter, Lei Jin, Julia Zhang

TREC Final Reports

Contemporary Full Hybrid Electric Vehicle/Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle/Battery Electric Vehicle (FHEV/PHEV/BEV) products use one or more DC/AC power converters, also known as traction inverters, to convert the DC voltage/current provided by the traction battery to the AC voltage/current to drive the traction motor(s). Large and bulky DC link capacitors are used at the input of the traction inverter to provide a smooth DC input voltage. Those DC link capacitors, occupying almost 50% of the space in the whole package, can contribute to more than 20% of the total cost of the traction inverter. They are generally over designed to assure …

An Activity-Based Learning Module For Human Factors In The Introductory Transportation Engineering Course, David Hurwitz

TREC Final Reports

This project summary report describes the execution of OTREC Project #517 (An ActivityBased Learning Module for Human Factors in the Introductory Transportation Engineering Course)

Multimodal Data At Signalized Intersections: Strategies For Archiving Existing And New Data Streams To Support Operations And Planning & Fusion And Integration Of Arterial Performance Data, Kristin A. Tufte, Christopher M. Monsere, Sirisha Murthy Kothuri, Carl Scott Olson

TREC Final Reports

There is a growing interest in arterial system management due to the increasing amount of travel on arterials and a growing emphasis on multimodal transportation. The benefits of archiving arterial-related data are numerous. This research report describes our efforts to assemble and develop a multimodal archive for the Portland-Vancouver region. There is coverage of data sources from all modes in the metropolitan region; however, the preliminary nature of the archiving process means that some of the data are incomplete and samples. The arterial data sources available in the Portland-Vancouver region and that are covered in this report include data for …

Overlooked Destinations: Suburban Nodes, Centers, And Trips To Strips, Nico Larco, Robert Parker

TREC Final Reports

This study looks at travel to typical suburban commercial strips by residents living within one-third of a mile of the strip by focusing on six sites – four in the Portland, OR., metro area and two in the Atlanta, GA., metro area. The study mapped pedsheds around the commercial strips in these sites and found significant increases in network extents when formal and informal pedestrian paths were added to street centerline data. Informal networks such as goat paths through vacant land and cuts in fences were widespread and suggest a pent-up demand for route directness. Travel surveys of residents found …

Relocation Of Homeless People From Odot Rights-Of-Way, Ellen M. Bassett, Andrée Tremoulet, Allison Moe

TREC Final Reports

This research project consists of an investigation of responses to homeless encampments on rights-of-way owned by Departments of Transportation (DOTs). While DOTs are not housing or social service agencies, their role as major public landowners involves them in dealing with the consequences of homelessness. The research goals included analyzing the prevalence of the problem, documenting how DOTs are responding, and culling from this data information that could be used as a basis for creating a best practices guide. The research included a single mixed-methods, in-depth case study, electronic surveys of practitioners and follow-up interviews. Products consist of two reports (included …

Developing An Oregon Access Management Best Practices Manual, Karen Dixon, Xiang Yi, Lacy Brown, Robert Layton

TREC Final Reports

This report reviews an Oregon research effort to develop an Oregon Access Management Best Practices Manual. In particular, this research effort develops a resource to help transportation professionals quantify safety and operational effects of various access management strategies, provide measurable criteria to evaluate these access management techniques, and identify data collection practices necessary to successfully perform these assessments. It is the expectation that this manual can be used by engineers, decision makers, and educators to help the transportation community better understand the appropriate application of access management strategies and how to quantify benefits of the various access management options. This …

Development Of Mobile Mapping Technology To Facilitate Dialogue Between Transportation Agencies And The Public, Ken Kato, Marc Schlossberg, James Meacham

TREC Final Reports

The goal of this grant was to take the technological innovations for deploying survey instruments to mobile phones, developed under a previous OTREC grant, and publish them as globally accessible mobile applications (apps) for use in a variety of transportation planning settings. Under this grant, three applications have been developed for three distinctly different user groups. The first, JLA Involve, was developed and deployed for JLA, a Portland, OR.-based public involvement firm, to support their work with the City of Tualatin, OR., in updating their Transportation System Plan (TSP). The second was developed and deployed for the City of Eugene, …

Designbridge: Integrating Transportation Into Service Learning Design/Build Projects, Juli Brode, Nico Larco, John Roswell

TREC Final Reports

This proposal develops transportation-related projects through the work of designBridge. This active, student-based organization is composed of members from the University of Oregon’s School of Architecture and Allied Arts working cooperatively with participants from the UO’s Planning, Public Policy and Management, Landscape Architecture, Geography, and Art departments. The program provides an opportunity for students to gain valuable, real-world experience by encouraging them to explore significant design issues in the community, to seek appropriate solutions to transportation problems, and to develop professional skills. Students are engaged in all phases of the design and building process, from the first client meeting through …

Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Community Needs Assessment, Robert Parker, Juli Brode, John Rowell

TREC Final Reports

Dependence on fossil fuels, climate change, and degraded air quality are forcing the auto industry and consumers to seek alternative solutions to the current transportation system. Significant technical breakthroughs are allowing automakers to develop electric vehicles (EVs) that transcend some of the key barriers that limited them historically. Plug in electric vehicles entered the Oregon marketplace in early 2011. A range of reports suggest the demand for EVs will grow rapidly once affordable highway speed vehicles become available. ODOT identified the lack of a reliable network of electric vehicle service equipment (e.g., charging stations) that increases the range of these …

Bicycle And Pedestrian Engineering Design Curriculum Expansion, Ashley Haire

TREC Final Reports

This project summary report describes the execution of OTREC Project #298 (Development, Deployment and Assessment of a New Educational Paradigm for Transportation Professionals and University Students). The project is one facet of a multiyear collaboration of the Region X Transportation Consortium that was sponsored by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). The regional collaboration aims to shift the traditional paradigm of engineering course delivery to foster a more hands-on approach. The University of Idaho, for example, has created activity-based modules for a traffic signals course, while the University of Washington developed similar modules for a freight systems course. The focus of …

Regional Transportation And Land Use Decision Making In Metropolitan Regions: Findings From Four Case Studies, Richard D. Margerum, Susan Brody, Robert Parker, Gail Mcewen, Terry Moore

TREC Final Reports

Throughout the United States, metropolitan regions face increasingly complex issues related to transportation and land use. The diffuse nature of decision making creates a need to better coordinate land use and transportation to address issues such as: congestion, infrastructure costs, and greenhouse gas emissions. Key players in this decision making are regional metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) with transportation planning authority, regional planning responsibilities, and in some cases regional land use planning authority. The goal of this study was to describe and assess efforts by regional agencies to coordinate land use and transportation. Policies and processes in four key topic areas …

Extraboard Management: Trimet Case Study, James G. Strathman, Sung Moon Kwon, Steve Callas

TREC Final Reports

This paper examines extraboard operations and management at TriMet, the transit provider for the Portland Oregon metropolitan area. The extraboard consists of a pool of operators who fill open work resulting from absences and other causes. The paper first examines the general performance of the extraboard in filling open work, drawing on seven years of daily operations data from three bus garages. It then presents statistical analyses focusing on open work patterns and the effects of selected work rules on operator utilization and service delivery. Lastly, suggestions are made for improving the efficiency of extraboard operations.

Calibrating The Hsm Predictive Methods For Oregon Highways, Karen Dixon, Christopher M. Monsere, Fei Xie, Kristie Gladhill

TREC Final Reports

The Highway Safety Manual (HSM) was published by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) in the spring of 2010. Volume 2 (Part C) of the HSM includes safety predictive methods which can be used to quantitatively estimate the safety of a transportation facility. The resulting information can then be used to provide guidelines to identify opportunities to improve transportation safety. The safety performance functions (SPFs) included with this content, however, were developed for several states other than Oregon. Because there are differences in crash reporting procedures, driver population, animal populations, and weather conditions (to name a …

A Capping Case Study: Integrating Freight Rail Into A Community Setting, Jeff Schnabel, Tristan Brasseur

TREC Final Reports

This investigation seeks to explore specific design solutions that could potentially enhance the capabilities of heavy rail facilities while increasing their safety and reducing their environmental and community impacts.

Using Portland's Brooklyn Rail Yard as the study site, this case study explored the potential of structural platforms (caps) built above the existing rail yards to provide development space for expanding rail capacity and rail related activities. The potential for capping to reduce /eliminate conflicts between rail and non-rail uses will also be investigated. Finally, the various designs were presented for caps at the rail yard.

Capping projects (the development of …

2010 Transit Oriented Developments Survey, Jennifer Dill

TREC Final Reports

This report presents results from surveys of residents at several transit-oriented developments (TODs) in Portland, Gresham, Hillsboro, and Happy Valley. The research complements survey work done in 2005 at sites near three MAX stations in Hillsboro and Beaverton (west of downtown) and the Merrick apartments near the Convention Center in Portland, and in 2007 at 11 sites in the eastside of Portland and Gresham.

Combined Seismic Plus Live Load Analysis Of Highway Bridges, Michael H. Scott, Minjie Zhu

TREC Final Reports

The combination of seismic and vehicle live loadings on bridges is an important design consideration. There are well-established design provisions for how the individual loadings affect bridge response: structural components that carry vertical live loads are designed to remain well within the linear-elastic range while lateral load carrying components are designed to yield under large seismic excitations. The weight of the bridge superstructure is taken in to account as dead load in structural analysis for seismic loads; however, the effects of additional mass and damping of live loads on the bridge deck are neglected. To improve the design of highway …

Green And Economic Fleet Replacement Modeling: Part I, David S. Kim, Miguel A. Figliozzi, J. David Porter

TREC Final Reports

The purpose of this study was to gain a better understanding of how equipment replacement decisions are supported with data collection and quantitative models at state DOTs, and to determine if models found in the research literature offer any better decision support when applied to realistic fleet usage and cost data. This study also addressed the current state of equipment replacement at state DOTs with respect to using measurable “green” criteria in replacement decisions, and the development of new quantitative replacement models utilizing such criteria. The responses from 25 state DOTs indicates that there is little consistency in the criteria …

Value Of Travel-Time Reliability: Commuters’ Route-Choice Behavior In The Twin Cities, Carlos Carrion-Madera, David Levinson, Kathleen Harder, Miguel A. Figliozzi

TREC Final Reports

Travel-time variability is a noteworthy factor in network performance. It measures the temporal uncertainty experienced by users in their movement between any two nodes in a network. The importance of the time variance depends on the penalties incurred by the users. In road networks, travelers consider the existence of this journey uncertainty in their selection of routes. This choice process takes into account travel-time variability and other characteristics of the travelers and the road network. In this complex behavioral response, a feasible decision is spawned based on not only the amalgamation of attributes, but also on the experience travelers incurred …

Evaluation Of Safe Routes To School Programs: Qualitative And Quantitative Analysis Of Parental Decision-Making, Lynn Weigand, Noreen Mcdonald

TREC Final Reports

In the United States, walking to school declined from 42% of 5-18 year olds in 1969 to 16% in 20011. The US Department of Transportation has responded to this dramatic decrease by funding the Safe Routes to School program for $612 million in SAFETEA-LU. The program’s funding emphasize infrastructure improvements such as completing sidewalks and adding crosswalks by requiring between 70% and 90% of funding be allocated toward infrastructure. However, recent research shows that 2 of 3 children who currently are driven to school, but live close enough to walk, do so because it is more convenient for parents. Currently, …

Evaluation Of Transportation Microenvironments Through Assessment Of Cyclysts' Exposure To Traffic-Related Particulate Matter, Linda A. George, Miguel A. Figliozzi, Christopher M. Monsere, Christine M. Kendrick, Alexander Y. Bigazzi, Adam Moore

TREC Final Reports

It is well established that vehicles powered by carbon-based fuels (e.g. gasoline, diesel) have a negative impact on air quality, especially in urban centers. Traditionally, air quality conformity studies analyze the macroenvironmental impact of transportation corridors, as they relate to regional air quality management concerns. Urban residents spend a considerable amount of outdoor time in transportation microenvironments as pedestrians, bicycle commuters, people waiting to use public transport, residents and workers situated along roadways, and commuters within vehicles. An emerging area of research has shown that human health impacts within transport microenvironments can be considerable, but have not been well-characterized. As …

Safety Evaluation Of Curve Warning Speed Signs, Karen K. Dixon, Raul Eduardo Avelar, Ida Schalkwyk

TREC Final Reports

This report presents a review of a research effort to evaluate the safety implications of advisory speeds at horizontal curve locations on Oregon rural two-lane highways. The primary goals of this research effort were to characterize driving operations at rural two-lane highway curve locations where advisory speed signs were present, and to determine to what extent these signs play a role in enhancing safety. Placement of advisory speed signs at horizontal curve locations in the State of Oregon is a practice aided by unique and specific state-level policies and, as such, may vary from nationally accepted procedures. Speed data was …

Wireless Data Collection System For Real-Time Arterial Travel Time Estimates, David S. Kim, J. David Porter, Mario E. Magana, Sejoon Park, Amirali Saeedi

TREC Final Reports

This project pursued several objectives conducive to the implementation and testing of a Bluetooth (BT) based system to collect travel time data, including the deployment of a BT-based travel time data collection system to perform comprehensive testing on all the components. Two different BT-based travel time data collection systems were installed. The first system, composed of two DCUs, was installed on a corridor located in Salem, OR. Extensive testing was done on this system, including the collection of travel time samples. A second system composed of five DCUs was installed along 99W in the city of Tigard, OR. Very limited …

Providing Capacity In Rural Communities: Planning For Alternative Transportation, Megan Smith

TREC Final Reports

This technology transfer proposal linked service learning with rural multimodal transportation planning through a collaborative partnership between University of Oregon (UO) experiential learning programs and three rural Oregon communities. As this planning and technical support to rural communities occurred, lessons learned were gathered and will support future servicelearning projects focused on transportation planning. The primary products for this project are the: (1) Completion of multimodal transportation planning projects that increase rural community capacity; and (2) a website with resources for communities, faculty and students. Three further outcomes were: (1) Increased capacity for transportation planning in rural communities; (2) Increased capacity …

Overlooked Density: Re-Thinking Transportation Options In Suburbia, Phase Ii, Nico Larco

TREC Final Reports

Comprising over 9 million units in this country, suburban multifamily housing is a widespread and overlooked example of density located within walking distance to commercial development in suburbia. This report focuses on resident demographics, attitudes, and perceptions as they relate to mode choice in 14 suburban multifamily sites in Eugene, Oregon. Through site analysis and resident surveys, our study shows that site design and connectivity is a significant predictor of resident mode choice. Residents of more-connected developments walk and bike to their local commercial area for more than 40% of their trips, nearly twice the rate of residents of less-connected …

Travel Behavior, Residential Preference, And Urban Design: A Multi-Disciplinary National Analysis, Jessica Greene, Nico Larco, Yizhao Yang, Marc Schlossberg, Daniel Rodriguez, Noreen Mcdonald, Tabitha Combs

TREC Final Reports

This report summarizes the findings of a national project to examine the travel behavior, social capital, health, and lifestyle preferences of residents of neotraditional developments (NTD) compared to more standard suburban developments. We compare survey results from residents of matched pairs of neighborhoods in seventeen U.S. cities and towns, with each pair comprised of one NTD and one typical suburban neighborhood of similar size, age, and socio-demographic composition. The study addresses salient themes in the transportation, planning and health literatures: a national study, surveying populations of diverse incomes, collecting resident information on preferences for and attitudes towards neighborhood qualities, and …

Performance Enhancement Of Bridge Bracing Under Service And Extreme Loads, Peter Dusicka, Max Taylor Stephens, Kate Fox-Lent

TREC Final Reports

As truck loads continue to get bigger, the demand on many aging bridges increases. Slender steel structural elements widely used in bridge superstructures and braced substructures to resist these loads are built primarily for tension, however, and can buckle under compressive loads. Portland State University associate professor Peter Dusicka set out to develop and demonstrate the concept of retrofitting bridge brace elements with fiber reinforced composites in order to provide restraint against buckling. The advanced materials consisted of a combination of fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) composite pultruded sections and wet lay-up wraps intended to be applied in the field. This …

Impacts Of Low-Speed Vehicles On Transportation Infrastructure And Safety, Katharine M. Hunter-Zaworski, Linda Cornell

TREC Final Reports

There are increasing numbers of low-speed electric vehicles (LSVs) on public roadways. These vehicles are designed to be used within protected environments and on roadways with a maximum posted speed of 25 mph. Currently these vehicles are not subject to the same federal requirements for occupant protection as passenger cars. This research project investigated safety standards, operating regulations, and LSV manufacturer materials from sources around the world. The purpose of the research was to determine positive and negative impacts that LSVs, including Neighborhood Electric Vehicles (NEVs) and Medium Speed Electric Vehicles (MSEVs), are likely to have for the Oregon Department …

Trail Planning & Community Service Curriculum, Lynn Weigand

TREC Final Reports

The objective of this project was to develop a new trail planning curriculum and conduct a regional trail research project in the Portland metropolitan area. The curriculum was created for a community service-based, University Capstone course at Portland State University (PSU), with Metro (regional government) as the community course partner. Project goals included: Expanding opportunities for undergraduate students to study trail design and planning for transportation and recreational walking and bicycling; Providing practical application of knowledge to a trail planning project through research and data collection on trail use; Raising awareness of bicycle and pedestrian travel among students in disciplines …

Analysis Of Bus Collision Incidents Using Transit Its And Other Archived Operations Data, James G. Strathman, Paul Herman Wachana, Steve Callas

TREC Final Reports

This report analyzes factors contributing to bus operations safety incidents at TriMet, the transit provider for the Portland Oregon metropolitan region. The analysis focuses on 4,631 collision and non-collision incidents that occurred between 2006 and 2009. Empirical analysis of these incidents draws on a wide array of operator-level data recovered by transit ITS technologies in combination with information from TriMet’s human resources, scheduling, and customer relations databases. Incident frequencies are estimated in relation to operators’ demographic characteristics, employment status, assigned work characteristics, service delivery and performance indicators, temporal factors, and customer information. Apart from identifying factors that are empirically related …

Oregon Freight Data Mart, Miguel A. Figliozzi, Robert Bertini

TREC Final Reports

Increasing freight volumes are adding pressure to the Oregon transportation system. Monitoring the performance of the transportation system and freight movements is essential to guarantee the economic development of the region, the efficient allocation of resources, and the quality of life of all Oregonians. Freight data is expensive to collect and maintain. Confidentiality issues, the size of the datasets, and the complexity of freight movements are barriers that preclude the easy access and analysis of freight data. Data accessibility and integration is essential to ensure successful freight planning and consistency across regional partner agencies and planning organizations. In relation to …