Transportation Commons^™

Freight Down The Middle: Neighborhood Impacts And The New Orleans Middle Belt Rail Proposal, Department Of Planning And Urban Studies, University Of New Orleans

Planning and Urban Studies Reports and Presentations

The purpose of the “Freight Down the Middle” study is to assess the potential outcomes for New Orleans neighborhoods Hollygrove and Dixon residents if the Middle Belt option is implemented. The study analyzes current regulations, established data on health impacts, engineering specifications, demonstrated mitigation measures, and case studies to illustrate possible impacts on the neighborhoods. The study area focuses specifically on Hollygrove and Dixon, and statistical data at the census tract level is used to give context to the risk factors inherent to the population groups in the area.

A Terrorism Analysis Of The April 14, 2014, Bus Terminal Bombing In Abuja, Nigeria, Brian M. Jenkins, Bruce R. Butterworth

Mineta Transportation Institute

This Transportation Security Perspective is the fourth in a continuing series produced by the National Transportation Safety and Security Center of the Mineta Transportation Institute. These examine major terrorist attacks and trends in terrorists targeting surface transportation. Previous perspectives include the terrorist bombings in Volgograd, Russia; the assault on passengers at the Kunming train station in China; and the reported plot against the Metro in Los Angeles.

Active Travel Co-Benefits Of Travel Demand Management Policies That Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Mti Report 12-12, Caroline Rodier, Richard W. Lee, Brandon Haydu, Nicholas J. Linesch

Mineta Transportation Institute

There is increasing evidence that improved health outcomes may be significant co-benefits of land use plans and transport policies that increase active transport (or walking and biking for purposeful travel) and reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) from vehicle miles traveled (VMT). A greater understanding of these benefits may broaden the constituency for regional planning that supports local and national GHG reduction goals. In this study, California’s activity-based travel demand model (ABM) is applied to (1) demonstrate how this new generation of travel models can be used to produce the active travel data (age and sex distributions) required by comparative risk …

Building Consensus And Partnerships For Implementing The Map-21 Section 5310 Program In California, Mti Report Wp 12-25, Christopher Ferrell, Bruce Appleyard

Mineta Transportation Institute

The Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21)—the legislation that currently provides funding for federal transportation—allows metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) or eligible large, urbanized area (UZA) agencies to assume administrative responsibility for Federal Transit Administration (FTA) Section 5310—the Enhanced Mobility of Seniors and Individuals with Disabilities grant program. Caltrans engaged Mineta Transportation Institute (MTI) to conduct research and facilitate a dialogue with the State’s 5310 stakeholders. The MTI team conducted interviews with key stakeholders and Caltrans staff and performed in-depth quantitative analysis of the existing administrative activities of the 5310 program. This research was followed by two …

Federal Transit Administration's Impact On Public Transportation In The United States, Amy Changchien

PSU Transportation Seminars

The Federal Transit Administration invests in building the capacity and improving the quality of public transportation throughout the United States of America. Under FTA's leadership, public rail, bus, trolley, ferry, and other transit services have reached greater levels of safety, reliability, availability, and accessibility. Come hear the highlights of FTA's impacts and participate in an interactive question/answer session and discussion on career options in public transportation.

How To Achieve Right Of Way Success, Dawn Haecker, Michael B. Jett, Jim Crall, Kathy Heistand, Nicolette Mendenhall, Todd Clift

Purdue Road School

The Real Estate Division of INDOT will provide an overview of the Right of Way process and key factors that affect time and expenditures. Panel discussion and Q&A session will include established best practices, new developments, lessons learned, and factors resulting in improved customer service and efficiency in terms of time and money for project delivery.

10 Tips To Tell Your Story In A Thought-Provoking And Technically Truthful Way, Dave Johnson

PSU Transportation Seminars

How do you explain complex ideas? What do you say when reporters ask you to guess about the future? ODOT spokesperson and public affairs manager Dave Thompson will share tips on how to explain a complex topic to reporters and concerned citizens.

Thompson worked as a broadcast news reporter, producer and anchor for 20 years, including anchoring the weekend news at KPTV from 1992 to 2000. He’s been in public relations another 14 years, leading pre-IPO angel-invested startup branding efforts and providing company and government agency perspective to reporters and citizens. And of course, apologizing for Portland’s congestion and warning …

Forcasting Senior Populations, Richard Lycan

Institute on Aging Publications

This project seeks to: Improve population forecasts for senior populations; Increase awareness of issues related to forecasting senior populations; Provide support to corecasters

Aesthetically Designed Maps: Development And Perception, Catherine Wang

Graphic Communication

This research explored the creative element of subway map creation in light of its effectiveness. Printed subway maps, used often for metropolitan cities and areas, are limited in physical dimension and scale, carrying minimal information. The New York, San Francisco Bay Area, Tokyo, Paris, London and Moscow subway maps highlight similar design and abstraction that fulfill the basic necessary elements for subway patrons. Over the years since the first metro map for each city was created, maps have become more simplified by removing physical land features and reference points to make way for expanding and new subway lines, stations, and …

Time-Series Data Mining In Transportation: A Case Study On Singapore Public Train Commuter Travel Patterns, Tin Seong Kam, Roy Ka Wei Lee

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The adoption of smart cards technologies and automated data collection systems (ADCS) in transportation domain had provided public transport planners opportunities to amass a huge and continuously increasing amount of time-series data about the behaviors and travel patterns of commuters. However the explosive growth of temporal related databases has far outpaced the transport planners’ ability to interpret these data using conventional statistical techniques, creating an urgent need for new techniques to support the analyst in transforming the data into actionable information and knowledge. This research study thus explores and discusses the potential use of time-series data mining, a relatively new …

Transportation Futures: Policy Scenarios For Achieving Greenhouse Gas Reduction Targets, Mntrc Report 12-11, Robert B. Noland, Andrew I. Kay, Robert B. Noland, Caroline J. Rodier

Mineta Transportation Institute

It is well established that GHG emissions must be reduced by 50% to 80% by 2050 in order to limit global temperature increase to 2°C. Achieving reductions of this magnitude in the transportation sector is a challenge and requires a multitude of policies and technology options. The research presented here analyzes three scenarios: changes in the perceived price of travel, land-use intensification, and increases in transit. Elasticity estimates are derived using an activity-based travel model for the state of California and broadly representative of the U.S. The VISION model is used to forecast changes in technology and fuel options that …

The Terrorist Attack In Kunming, China: Does It Indicate A Growing Threat Worldwide?, Brian M. Jenkins, Bruce R. Butterworth

Mineta Transportation Institute

At 9:00 pm on March 1, 2014, six men and two women, dressed in black and wielding knives, arrived at the Kunming train station, one of the largest in southwest China, and began slashing people at random. Before authorities could stop them, the assailants had killed 29 people and wounded another 143. It was the second worst terrorist attack in the history of the People’s Republic of China, not including a series of bombings in Shijiazhuang in 1998, which killed 108 people. These, however, were carried out for personal, not political reasons. It was also China’s second most lethal transportation …

Mineta Transportation Institute Says Subways Are Still In Terrorists’ Sights, Brian M. Jenkins, Bruce R. Butterworth

Mineta Transportation Institute

The FBI arrested a California National Guard reservist on March 17 as he headed for the Canadian border on his way to Syria. Once in Syria, Nicholas Michael Teausant, who is also a student at San Joaquin Delta Community College in Stockton CA, planned to join the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Although he had never attended the army’s basic training course and was in the process of being discharged by the National Guard for failing to meet “basic education requirements,” Teausant thought he could teach the Syrian jihadists shooting skills and urban warfare tactics

Measuring Urban Bicyclists' Uptake Of Traffic-Related Pollution, Alexander Y. Bigazzi

PSU Transportation Seminars

Urban bicyclists’ uptake of traffic-related air pollution is still not well quantified, due to a lack of direct measurements of uptake and a lack of analysis of the variation in uptake. This paper describes and establishes the feasibility of a novel method for measuring bicyclists’ uptake of volatile organic compounds (VOC) by sampling breath concentrations. Early results from the data set demonstrate the ability of the proposed method to generate findings for transportation analysis, with statistically significant exposure and uptake differences from bicycling on arterial versus bikeway facilities for several traffic-related VOC. These results provide the first empirical evidence that …

America Moves: Transportation And Public Policy In The United States, Adie Tomer

Brookings Scholar Lecture Series

The United States is in a perpetual state of motion. Every day, Americans drive over 8 billion miles, board over 20,000 flights, and ship over 45 million tons of freight. But what drives all of this physical movement? And what is the relationship to public policy? This presentation will begin to answer those questions, utilizing a combination of quantitative metrics and policy analysis to explain how, where, and why Americans move. It will outline driving habits, and the disruptive moment every metropolitan area and state faces due to federal gridlock. It will map aviation patterns, and the emerging presence of …

Bike Planning Methods In Oregon Communities, Tara Weidner

PSU Transportation Seminars

In this seminar, Tara Weidner will discuss changes in the works to the State Analysis Procedures Manual (APM) to include three graduated levels of bike planning methods for use in Oregon communities, based on community size, data needs, and planning stage. These include the Bike Level of Traffic Stress (BLTS), a sketch tool used to assess bike network connectivity, the data-heavy Highway Capacity Manual Multi-modal Level of Service (MMLOS) procedures, and a simplified MMLOS developed by the same researchers.

Thomas Pinckney, Agent At Virginia, Tennessee And Georgia Air Line (Railroad), Inquires With W.G. Macdowell, Treasurer Of N.& W. Railroad (Norfolk & Western?), As To The Status Of A Claim Made By Shippers Compress Co., Thomas Pinckney

Broadus R. Littlejohn, Jr. Manuscript and Ephemera Collection

Thomas Pinckney, agent at Virginia, Tennessee and Georgia Air Line (railroad), inquires with W.G. Macdowell, treasurer of N.& W. Railroad (Norfolk & Western?), as to whether or not a claim of $1690.33 made by Shippers Compress Company has been paid to N. & W. October 25, 1887.

A Recipe For An Online, Geospatial Transit Performance Archive, Jon Makler

PSU Transportation Seminars

Where and when does overcrowding happen on TriMet's bus network? Which routes have the best on-time performance? Portland State University and TriMet have collaborated to make this kind of data available to anybody through Portal, PSU's transportation data archive for the Portland/Vancouver region. This presentation will cover the use of General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) data for mapping TriMet’s performance data and the development of Portal’s innovative transit application. In the MAP-21 era of performance management, see how tools like Portal can support enhanced agency decision-making as well as community engagement.

More Urban Form, Fewer Auto Trips, Kelly J. Clifton

TREC Project Briefs

Trip generation refers to the number of vehicle trips that are predicted to originate in a given zone. The Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) publishes standard trip generation rates for various land use types, but these rates are primarily measured in low-density suburban areas. There is national interest in building data that expands upon the existing ITE trip generation rates to include sites located in a multi-modal context.

In areas that have a more compact urban form, better access to transit and a greater mix of land uses, fewer vehicle trips may be generated there than ITE rates indicate. However, …

Tls Newsletter. Volume 8, Edition 5. February, 2014, Unf Transportation And Logistics Society

Transportation & Logistics Society Newsletter

Inside the Newsletter: TLS Meeting on Wednesday, February 19th. TLS President's Corner. Upcoming Events. The Propeller Club of Jacksonville--What's in it for you! Get Involved: UNF Relay for LIfe. Get to Know TLS Assistant Marketing Director Veronica Perez. TLS on Tour: Target Distribution Center. Life after graduation with Taylor Barry