Transportation Commons^™

Transportation Meets Social Welfare, Ellen M. Bassett, Andrée Tremoulet

TREC Project Briefs

OTREC researchers helped state transportation department staff members face a problem that isn’t strictly part of their job description: how best to deal with homeless individuals and households living in DOT rights of way and rest areas.

OTREC researchers examine the human relations impact of transportation and land management decisions involving homeless encampments.

An Operator Survey: Making Bus Travel Safer, James G. Strathman, Sung Moon Kwon

TREC Project Briefs

No abstract provided.

Wider Dissemination Of Household Travel Survey Data Using Geographical Perturbation Methods, Kelly J. Clifton, Steven R. Gehrke

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Public agencies spend vast amounts of money collecting information about passenger travel in household travel surveys. These data are valuable for the rich and detailed information they provide, which contribute to regional and statewide travel demand models. These data have utility beyond travel demand modeling in their application to transportation policy and travel behavior research. As the demand on these data increase, so have the quantity of information collected. Detailed geospatial referencing of the home, work and other travel destinations are common practice and permit the integration with other spatially archived data sources, such as land use characteristics, transportation system …

Towards Proactive And Flexible Agent-Based Generation Of Policy Packages For Active Transportation, Araz Taeihagh, Rene Bañares-Alcántara

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

One of the approaches gaining ground in policy design is the implementation of combinations of policy measures as policy packages with the aim of increasing efficiency and effectiveness of the designed policies. In this paper, we describe the recent advancements in the developments of a virtual environment for the exploration and analysis of policy packages. The virtual environment uses an agent-based modelling approach for the generation of different configurations of policy measures in the policy packages. The benefit of using the approach is the proactive and flexible generation of policy packages as the agents can react to the changes that …

An Explanatory And Comparative Analysis Of Freight Transportation In Eu And U.S. Highways, Luis Alberto Hernandez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This thesis provides resources for data collection regarding road freight transportation in the Unites States and the European Union, as well as an explanatory description of data available at each source. Afterwards, individual analysis of the current state of affairs of the highway freight transportation systems in U.S. and EU are performed. Thereafter, an explanatory and comparative analysis between the two land freight transportation systems is performed in terms of regulatory authorities and associations, trucks volume flow, freight weight and volume flow, major issues affecting the system, infrastructure funding sources, and major logistics hubs. Besides, a correlation analysis was performed …

Model Of Urban Freight Transportation: The Case Of Waste Collection, Radim Vecera

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This thesis introduces the role of urban freight transportation in global economies and its negative environmental impacts. Because the volume of urban freight is continually increasing sustainable measurements have to be implemented during all phases of transportation planning and operation processes.

The thesis is mainly focused on waste collection, as it is an often neglected part of urban freight transportation. Since urban areas are growing the waste collection is starting to be complex problem which is difficult to manage. Therefore different types of optimization software are used to improve the whole process. In this thesis TransCAD software is used to …

Impacts Of Transportation Infrastructure Proximity And Accessibility On Real Property Values, Arturo Bujanda

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Investments in public infrastructure such as highways, airports, mass transit, and stadiums can increase adjacent property values, generating a value premium for private developers and adjacent property owners. A portion of this value can be "captured" as public revenue via property taxes to assist financing such improvements. States and local governments aim to anticipate and capture the economic value created by transportation accessibility. While value capture (VC) represents an opportunity for regional agencies to recapture some transportation infrastructure costs, it is not clear how much value is added by the infrastructure in a particular region. This research applies geographic weighted …

Investigation Motorcycle Safety At Exit Ramp Sections By Analyzing Historical Crash Data And Rider’S Perception, Hongyun Chen, Chanyoung Lee Ph.D., Aicp, Ptp, Pei-Sung Lin

CUTR Faculty Journal Publications

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the safety performance of four exit ramp types and the major contributing factors on motorcycle crashes and injury severity of motorcycle riders. A six-year crash data were collected in Florida, and a web-based survey (234 samples) was conducted. 573 crashes were found at 419 exits, including 178 diamond exits, 71 directional exits, 85 loop exits and 85 outer connection exits. For a diamond exit, both the survey and crash data showed that this type was safer and more preferable by motorcycle riders; while a loop exit was the most dangerous exit due …

Dealing With The Need Of Greek Ports Expansion : A Public-Private Partnership Opportunity?, Dimitrios Dalaklis, Petros Siousiouras, Antonios Maniatis

Conference Papers

Greece, located at the eastern portion of the Mediterranean Sea (Med) and a country with an enormous number of islands, is a shipping superpower. The Med is amongst the world’s busiest waterways. It provides access to the Black Sea and quite often it is characterized as the most important element of the transport chain between Asia and Europe. The Greek Prime-Minister himself has openly declared his strategic vision to transform the country into a major hub for Europe's commerce; numbers of port-visits in the country under discussion are extremely high and expectations are that with the upcoming recovery of the …

Transportation Needs Of Latinos In Pittsfield, Ma, Daniela Bravo, Aida Palencia, Chanel Fields, Luis Natal, Francisco Rodriguez, Patricia Guardado, Edna Dacosta, Zaida Ismatul, Melissa Correa, July Suarez, Joseli Alonzo, Andrea Ornelas, Phillip Granberry, María Idalí Torres

Gastón Institute Publications

Latinos in Pittsfield are a small but fast growing population. The most significant issue they face is related to transportation. Because the area's lack of population density, Berkshire County Regional Transportation Authority provides limited bus routes. In Massachusetts in 2012, 72% of the population drove to work, while in Berkshire County 86% did. Likewise, in Massachusetts, 9% used public transit but in Berkshire County only 2% did. Massachusetts has failed to enact a Safe Driving Bill, even though Sen. Patricia Jehlen and Rep. Tricia Farley-Bouvier have sponsored H.3285.

By The Numbers: Russia’S Terrorists Increasingly Target Transportation, Brian M. Jenkins, Bruce R. Butterworth

Mineta Transportation Institute

If body count is the terrorists’ goal, then surface transportation provides an attractive target— crowds of strangers in confined environments. While Umarov’s Chechen predecessors carried out spectacular hostage seizures at hospitals, a primary school, and even at a theater in the heart of Moscow, trains, subways, and buses have featured heavily among their targets.

Unlocking The Landlocked : Appraising The Economic Viability Of Dry Ports For Zimbabwe, Blessing Charuka

World Maritime University Dissertations

No abstract provided.

A Theory Of Travel Decision-Making With Applications For Modeling Active Travel Demand, Patrick Allen Singleton

Dissertations and Theses

The continuing evolution of urban travel patterns and changing policy goals and priorities requires that transportation researchers and practitioners improve their abilities to plan and forecast the demand for travel. Walking and bicycling - the primary forms of active travel - are generating increasing interest for their potential to reduce automobile use, save governmental and consumer costs, and improve personal and social health outcomes. Yet, current transportation planning tools, namely regional travel demand forecasting models, poorly represent these active travel modes, if at all.

More broadly, travel models do an incomplete job of representing the decision-making processes involved in travel …

Cracking Susceptibility Of Concrete Made With Recycled Concrete Aggregate, O. Burkan Isgor, Jason Ideker, Tengfei Fu, Matthew P. Adams

TREC Final Reports

As high-quality, local, natural aggregate resources continue to become less available, and the cost of landfilling waste material rises, the need for alternative aggregates and recycling of waste material will increase. Using RCA in fresh concrete is one way to address both of these issues. However, there has long been a concern that RCA may negatively affect the properties of new concrete in which it is included. The results of the present investigation, however, indicate that the use of RCA in new concrete may not produce higher levels of free drying shrinkage as previously believed. Actually, these results show that …

A Simple Method For Estimation Of Queue Length, S. P. Anusha, Lelitha Devi Vanajakshi, Anuj Sharma

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Faculty Publications

Urban arterials are characterized by frequent intersections. Queue length and delay are the two primary measures of performance of intersection. These measures play a primary role in determining the arterial performance. This article presents a methodology to determine the number of vehicles in queue at a signalized intersection for under saturated traffic conditions. The results obtained were validated using actual values that are manually extracted. The root-mean-square error is of the range 1.3 vehicles for estimation of number of vehicles in queue. The various aspects that have to be considered in accurate estimation of performance measures are also discussed.

Study Of Seat-Belt Usage In Nevada & Driver's Performance, Atul Sancheti

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), motor vehicle incidents has been reported to be the leading cause of the accidental deaths in the United States accounting for more than 42,000 deaths every year. Distracted driving and Driving under influence (DUI) are the major contributors to these roadway crashes. Moreover, drivers fatigue and drowsiness behind the wheel is another important factor contributing to the high fatality rate. These factors results in significant decline in the driver's abilities of perception, recognition and vehicle control.

It has also been reported by National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) estimated that about 292,471 …

Performance Measure For Transportation Network: A Study In Travel Time Dynamics, Anuj Nayyar

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Arterial Performance Measurement and Monitoring is one of the leading goals of any transportation agency. The complexity of the differences between performance measures is highlighted and the various data collection methodologies are highlighted. A major performance measure that impacts end users and traffic planners is travel time. This study presents defining a mathematical system for modeling travel time. The modeling in real-time is presented and methods are proposed to evaluate it using vehicle trajectories. Also comparative results are presented between the actual sensor data sets and simulated data to study the effectiveness of the system developed.

Estimation Of Travel Time Based On Vehicle-Tracking Models, Anuj Nayyar

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

In this thesis we study the travel time problem based on the known traffic density model. Using the conservation law, we model the travel time function by a boundary value problem of a non homogeneous linear hyperbolic equation. The equation is transformed into an initial value hyperbolic equation, and the well-posedness of the problem is discussed. The mathematical analysis for both density and travel problems are given. We also derive the analytic solutions for several special cases of traffic density. Numerical schemes are proposed for solving for travel time problem. Several numerical examples are presented and error analysis on the …

Performance Comparison Of Design-Build And Construction Manager/General Contractor Highway Projects, Binita Shakya

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Researchers have conducted numerous studies comparing project performance of design-bid-build (DBB) and design-build (DB) highway projects. However, little research has been done to compare the performance of DB and construction manager/general contractor (CM/GC) highway projects. Therefore, an exploratory study was conducted to compare the performance of 55 DB and 34 CM/GC highway projects from various States Departments of Transportation (DOTs) in terms of cost, change orders, and construction intensity. The results showed that contract award cost growth was significantly lower in DB projects than in CM/GC projects. In contrast to this, the total cost growth of DB projects was higher …

Piloting Portland's Multimodal Arterial Performance System, Shaun Quayle

PSU Transportation Seminars

Shaun will present on the recently completed pilot demonstration of multimodal arterial performance measures for the Portland metro region, as part of the larger regional concept of operations. Treatments include a permanent bike count station on the Springwater Trail, permanent truck classification stations, Bluetooth travel time stations, as well as leveraging existing transit and signal controller data to paint a picture of the collective modal transportation system.