Transportation Commons^™

A Comparative Study On Using Meta-Heuristic Algorithms For Road Maintenance Planning: Insights From Field Study In A Developing Country, Ali Gerami Matin, Reza Vatani Nezafat, Amir Golroo

Civil & Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

Optimized road maintenance planning seeks for solutions that can minimize the life-cycle cost of a road network and concurrently maximize pavement condition. Aiming at proposing an optimal set of road maintenance solutions, robust meta-heuristic algorithms are used in research. Two main optimization techniques are applied including single-objective and multi-objective optimization. Genetic algorithms (GA), particle swarm optimization (PSO), and combination of genetic algorithm and particle swarm optimization (GAPSO) as single-objective techniques are used, while the non-domination sorting genetic algorithm II (NSGAII) and multi-objective particle swarm optimization (MOPSO) which are sufficient for solving computationally complex large-size optimization problems as multi-objective techniques are …

How Bicycling Sharing System Usage Is Affected By Land Use And Urban Form: Analysis From System And User Perspectives, Ahmadreza Faghih-Imani, Naveen Eluru, Rajesh Paleti

Civil & Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

There is a rapid growth of bicycle-sharing systems (BSS) around the world. Cities are supporting these systems as a more sustainable transport mode for short trips. Given the relatively recent adoption of BSS, there is substantial interest in understanding how these systems impact urban transportation. In this paper, we examine the functioning of the hugely successful New York City CitiBike system. We focus on the interaction of BSS with land-use and built environment attributes and the influence of weather condition and temporal characteristics on BSS usage. Towards this end, CitiBike system is analyzed along two dimensions: (1) at the system …

Design And Evaluation Of Ballast Water Management Systems Using Modified And Hybridised Axiomatic Design Principles, Lawrence Kuroshi

World Maritime University Ph.D. Dissertations

There are two major motivations to this research. The first is based on the concerns raised at the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) MEPC 67 and 68 meetings regarding the capacity of some type-approved Ballast Water Management (BWM) Systems to meet the performance standard (D-2) of the BWM Convention at-all-times and in all conditions. The second is based on the reluctance expressed by some ship- owners to install the system onboard their ships as a Lloyd's list survey suggested.

In this work, an attempt was made to address these issues and concerns using a set of criteria stipulated in Regulation D-5.2 …

A Holistic Risk-Oriented Framework For Port Infrastructure Adaption To Climate Change, Kana Nkasanga Patrick Mutumbo

World Maritime University Ph.D. Dissertations

This research is the first attempt in developing a broad-based qualitative tool for assessing climate risk in ports and building resilience. In order to demonstrate the applicability of the conceptual tool, the new Durban Dig-Out Port (DDOP) under development in the City of Durban (South Africa) is used for case study. Central to this research is the building of widespread industry recognition of the need to factor climate change into decision making at early stages of port development.

The recent significant shift toward supply chain management and customer orientation practices calls for the need to assess the effectiveness of port …

Virtual Aids To Navigation, R. Glenn Wright

World Maritime University Ph.D. Dissertations

There are many examples of master, bridge crew and pilot errors in navigation causing grounding under adverse circumstances that were known and published in official notices and records. Also dangerous are hazards to navigation resulting from dynamic changes within the marine environment, inadequate surveys and charts. This research attempts to reduce grounding and allision incidents and increase safety of navigation by expanding mariner situational awareness at and below the waterline using new technology and developing methods for the creation, implementation and display of Virtual Aids to Navigation (AtoN) and related navigation information. This approach has widespread significance beyond commonly encountered …

A Workshop For Transit Crisis, Ashley Tillman

All Capstone Projects

Crises can cause immediate chaos within any organization they touch. It is imperative that the individuals tasked with responding to crises are knowledgeable enough to communicate using a variety of methods and practices. Transit agencies task Transportation Managers and other key personnel to effectively communicate with front line employees before, during and after a crisis. In order for transit mangers to effectively communicate during crisis it is vital they are provided the necessary training relating to crisis communication. The purpose of the project is to develop a workshop for transit managers, stakeholders, and key leadership that are tasked with the …

Robocar Risks, Michael Lewyn

Scholarly Works

Suggests that policymakers should not widen roads or stringently enforce anti-jaywalking laws in order to accommodate autonomous vehicles.

Contributing Factors Of Obesity Among Over-The-Road Truckers, Shari Weiss

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Obesity among over-the-road truckers (OTRs) is an epidemic creating significant public health issues among this population. The consequences of obesity (hypertension, diabetes, heart disease) put both truckers' health and their medical clearance at significant risk. The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of gender, physical activity, diet, and sleep on obesity among OTRs. Through a socioecological lens, this study examined whether obesity is significantly impacted by gender, physical activity, nutrition, and sleep. This study also examined the impact of the trucking environment on obesity. The study used a quantitative research design and data were collected through a …

Discovering Historic Traffic-Tolerant Paths In Road Networks, Pui Hang Li, Man Lung Yiu, Kyriakos Mouratidis

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Historic traffic information is valuable in transportation analysis and planning, e.g., evaluating the reliability of routes for representative source-destination pairs. Also, it can be utilized to provide efficient and effective route-search services. In view of these applications, we propose the k traffic-tolerant paths (TTP) problem on road networks, which takes a source-destination pair and historic traffic information as input, and returns k paths that minimize the aggregate (historic) travel time. Unlike the shortest path problem, the TTP problem has a combinatorial search space that renders the optimal solution expensive to find. First, we propose an exact algorithm with effective pruning …

Differences Of Cycling Experiences And Perceptions Between E-Bike And Bicycle Users In The United States, Ziwen Ling, Christopher R. Cherry, John Macarthur, Jonathan X. Weinert

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

E-bikes are bicycles that provide pedal-assistance to aid people in cycling. Because of the potential of promoting sustainable transportation, more attention has been focused on the e-bike market. This paper investigates the differences of the cycling experience and perceptions between e-bike and conventional bicycle users, using samples drawn from independent bicycle dealer customers. A total of 806 respondents in the United States took the on-line survey, including 363 e-bike-owning respondents. The results show that e-bikes play a more important role in utilitarian travel, such as commuting and running errands, compared to a conventional bicycle. Conventional bicycle-owning respondents use their bicycles …

Impact Of Last Mile Parking Availability On Commercial Vehicle Costs And Operations, Miguel Figliozzi, Chawalit Tipagornwong

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

This research analyses how parking availability levels affect commercial vehicle parking costs and operations in congested urban areas. Unlike passenger vehicles, parking availability has an impact on route characteristics and commercial vehicle fleet sizes. Hence, commercial vehicles parking costs cannot be captured solely by estimating delays and/or the cost of parking fines. This research combines logistics, queuing, and optimization models to study the impact of last mile parking availability on commercial vehicle costs and operations. Scenarios are built to study the impact of parking availability on typical less-than-truckload (LTL) and courier service costs. Results indicate that parking availability levels do …

Issues In Trip Generation Methods For Transportation Impact Estimation Of Land Use Development: A Review And Discussion Of The State-Of-The-Art Approaches, Kristina Marie Currans

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

As agencies develop more robust planning objectives for creating sustainable and livable communities, the research community has continued developing supportive tools and methods to provide more accurate and robust means for estimating transportation impacts for site-level development review. This paper is a review of the state-of-the-art trip generation methods for land use transportation impact estimation. First, it provides an overview of the more recent available and peer-reviewed estimation methods. Second, the authors offer a discussion of the successes of state-of-the-art approaches using common themes of research to identify corresponding consistency with theories of travel behavior and urban economics. These themes …

Accessibility, Income, And Person Trip Generation: Multilevel Model Of Activity At Food Retail Establishments In Portland, Oregon, Kristina Marie Currans, Kelly Clifton

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

In the past decade, the methods for estimating multimodal transportation impacts of urban land use development have improved substantially. One assumption commonly made in these new methods is that overall person-trip rates at similarly-sized establishments of the same land use do not vary across a region. This is an assumption of convenience to permit the adjustment of ITE Trip Generation vehicle trip rates for use in different urban environments. However, this assumption is inconsistent with theories of urban economics, which recognize that businesses pay a premium to locate in areas with high levels of accessibility to attract more customers. In …

Deepwater Port Act Of 1974: Some International And Environmental Implications, James H. Gnann Jr.

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

The Effects Of Frequency Of Social Interaction, Social Cohesion, Age, And The Built Environment On Walking, Gretchen Allison Luhr

Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this dissertation was to explore, through a social ecological framework, the multifaceted effects of the neighborhood environment by investigating how dimensions of both the built environment and the neighborhood social context may interact to influence walking. Aesthetics, land use mix, crime, and pedestrian infrastructure were considered with respect to built environment walkability, and the neighborhood social context was conceptualized using measures of both social cohesion and social interaction with neighbors. This research used data from an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)-funded study of 748 adults (18 years of age and older) residing in the Lents neighborhood in Portland, …

Webinar: State-Wide Pedestrian And Bicycle Miles Traveled: Can We Estimate It?, Krista Nordback

TREC Webinar Series

Heard of Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT)? Wouldn’t it be great to know the corresponding value for walking and cycling?

This webinar discusses options for estimating the miles people walk and bicycle on the state-wide level, by investigating the practical considerations of trying to compute these values for one study state.

What strategies can be used, and what data sources do these require?

How do these strategies compare?

How do PMT/BMT estimates vary based on data?

Find out what researchers found and what obstacles they encountered when they tried to estimate bicycle and pedestrian miles traveled in the State of Washington.

Peak Pedaling: Has Portland Bicycling Reached The Top Of The Logistic Curve?, Robert Mccullough

PSU Transportation Seminars

The recent City Club report on bicycling provided an opportunity to collect and analyze a number of data sets including the new Hawthorne Bridge data. One question is where Portland bicycling on the logistic curve -- a common tool for judging the maturity of a developing product or activity. Logistic curves are used for marketing, for epidemiology, and even for visits to Indian owned casinos. The preliminary evidence is that we are reaching the horizontal area of the curve. Additional evidence Our further research into future policies indicates a shift to bicycle boulevards in order to attract more risk averse …

Pricing And Reliability Enhancements In The San Diego Activity-Based Travel Model, Joel Freedman

PSU Transportation Seminars

The estimation of demand for priced highway lanes is becoming increasingly important to agencies seeking to improve mobility and find alternative revenue sources for the provision of transportation infrastructure.

However, many modeling tools fall short of what is required for robust estimates of demand with respect to toll and managed lanes in two key areas:

• The value-of-time is often aggregate and not consistently defined throughout the model system, and
• The reliability of transport infrastructure is rarely taken into account.

This presentation describes an effort which implemented recommendations of the Strategic Highway Research Program C04 and L03\L04 tracks on pricing and …

Enhancing Capacity And Managing Demand To Increase Short-Term Throughput On The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, Kevin Reid Carstens

Master's Theses

While there are many proposals for fixing congestion between San Francisco and Oakland in California by adding a new bridge or tube, these solutions will take decades to implement even though a solution is needed now. This thesis assesses sixteen different strategies for reducing congestion in the short-term in the four categories of improving transit, promoting carpooling, implementing intelligent transportation systems practices, and incentivizing alternatives to using the Bay Bridge. Top priorities include HOV improvements on the West Grand Avenue and Powell Street onramps, altering WestCAT Lynx and BART transit services, partnering with rideshare apps to increase transit station accessibility …

How Intermediate Capacity Modes Provide Accessibility And Resilience In Metropolitan Transit Networks: Insights From A Global Study Of 19 Cities, Jan Scheurer

Journal of Public Transportation

Drawing on the Spatial Network Analysis of Multimodal Urban Transport Systems (SNAMUTS) accessibility tool, this paper introduces comparative results of public transport network performance measures in 19 metropolitan regions in developed countries. These results are assessed typologically and functionally to highlight the contribution of each common public transport mode to maximize (or not) the integration of transport networks with the urban structure to optimize accessibility outcomes. It is shown that the capacity and performance spectrum embodied by each mode represents a gradual scale that allocates a specific niche to intermediate modes, particularly trams that are present in half the cities …