Transportation Commons^™

Transportation Planning Through Mobile Mapping Technology, Marc Schlossberg, Nico Larco, Ken Kato, Dana Maher, Cody Evers, Christo Brehm

TREC Final Reports

This report describes the development and testing of the Fix This Tool, a spatial, participatory, active transportation and built environment assessment tool created on an iPhone platform. The goal of this tool development was to create an instrument that could be widely distributed to communities across the country to develop a spatially based assessment of the micro-scaled elements of their local active transportation environment such that public officials and community members could focus energy in making appropriate improvements. The development of this tool emerged out of previous work with such tools built on a GIS platform and a workshop-based format …

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 …

A Systemic Approach To Next Generation Infrastructure Data Elicitation And Planning Using Serious Gaming Methods, Ersin Ancel

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Infrastructure systems are vital to the functioning of our society and economy. However, these systems are increasingly complex and are more interdependent than ever, making them difficult to manage. In order to respond to increasing demand, environmental concerns, and natural and man-made threats, infrastructure systems have to adapt and transform. Traditional engineering design approaches and planning tools have proven to be inadequate when planning and managing these complex socio-technical system transitions. The design and implementation of next generation infrastructure systems require holistic methodologies, encompassing organizational and societal aspects in addition to technical factors. In order to do so, a serious …

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 …

User Evaluations Of Intermodal Travel To Work: Exploratory Studies, Research Report Wp 10-03, Steven D. Silver

Mineta Transportation Institute

The general importance of intermodal travel (i.e., travel in which there is a combination of modes to a destination, for example, train or light rail and a bus connection) has been emphasized in extensive congressional hearings and in state and regional spon¬sored transportation studies. Available empirical studies of the use of intermodal travel have predominantly been in cases where travel is across cities or regions. These studies have most often related use of intermodal travel options to distance, time of day and user demographics and user-identified factors and ratings that evaluate these factors. The principal objective of this explor¬atory study …

Examination Of Regional Transit Service Under Contracting: A Case Study In The Greater New Orleans Region, Research Report 10-09, Hiroyuki Iseki, Charles R. Rivasplata, Rebecca Houtman, Adam L. Smith

Mineta Transportation Institute

Many local governments and transit agencies in the United States face financial difficulties in providing adequate public transit service in individual systems, and in providing sufficient regional coordination to accommodate transit trips involving at least one transfer between systems. These difficulties can be attributed to the recent economic downturn, continuing withdrawal of the state and federal funds that help support local transit service, a decline in local funding for transit service in inner cities due to ongoing suburbanization, and a distribution of resources that responds to geographic equity without addressing service needs. This study examines two main research questions: (1) …

Understanding Household Preferences For Alternative-Fuel Vehicle Technologies, Hilary Nixon, Jean-Daniel Saphores

Mineta Transportation Institute

This report explores consumer preferences among four different alternative-fuel vehicles (AFVs): hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs), compressed natural gas (CNG) vehicles, hydrogen fuel cell (HFC) vehicles, and electric vehicles (EVs). Although researchers have been interested in understanding consumer preferences for AFVs for more than three decades, it is important to update our estimates of the trade-offs people are willing to make between cost, environmental performance, vehicle range, and refuel¬ing convenience. We conducted a nationwide, Internet-based survey to assess consumer preferences for AFVs. Respondents participated in a stated-preference ranking exercise in which they ranked a series of five vehicles (four AFVs and …

Rails To Recovery: The Role Of Passenger Rail Transportation In Post-Katrina New Orleans And Louisiana, James R. Amdal

UNOTI Publications

The purpose of this research is: 1) to inform decision makers at both the state and local level on options for successfully implementing a proposed passenger train between New Orleans and Baton Rouge; 2) to evaluate the potential impacts of new streetcar extensions on growth and development within select service corridors within the City of New Orleans. Both of these projects are viewed within the context of a post- Katrina environment. This report also provides a Summer 2010 ‘snapshot in time’ of existing and proposed real estate development along and adjacent to the proposed streetcar extensions in and adjoining the …

Real-Time Trip Information Service For A Large Taxi Fleet, Rajesh Krishna Balan, Nguyen Xuan Khoa, Lingxiao Jiang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In this paper, we describe the design, analysis, implementation, and operational deployment of a real-time trip information system that provides passengers with the expected fare and trip duration of the taxi ride they are planning to take. This system was built in cooperation with a taxi operator that operates more than 15,000 taxis in Singapore. We first describe the overall system design and then explain the efficient algorithms used to achieve our predictions based on up to 21 months of historical data consisting of approximately 250 million paid taxi trips. We then describe various optimisations (involving region sizes, amount of …

Revisiting Factors Associated With The Success Of Ballot Initiatives With A Substantial Rail Transit Component, Research Report 10-13, Peter J. Haas, Katherine Estrada

Mineta Transportation Institute

This report presents the replication of an MTI study conducted in 2001 by Peter Haas and Richard Werbel. That research, itself a continuation of an earlier project completed in 2000, included an analysis of transportation tax elections in 11 urban areas across the nation and culminated in the identification of 17 community-level factors with potential impact on the success of ballot measures for sales tax increases to fund transportation packages with substantial rail components. Trends observed in these more recent case studies were generally highly consistent with the following findings from the 2001 study. Thus this analysis reaffirms the importance …

What Do Americans Think About Federal Transportation Tax Options? Results From Year 2 Of A National Survey, Research Report 10-12, Asha Weinstein Agrawal, Hilary Nixon

Mineta Transportation Institute

This report summarizes the results of a national random-digit-dial public opinion poll that asked 1,516 respondents if they would support various tax options for raising federal transportation revenues. The 11 specific tax options tested were variations on raising the federal gas tax rate, creating a new mileage tax, and creating a new federal sales tax. In addition, the survey collected standard socio-demographic data, some minimal travel behavior data, and attitudinal data about how respondents view the quality of their local transportation system and their priorities for government spending on transportation in their state. All of this information is used to …

Potential Economic Consequences Of Local Nonconformity To Regional Land Use And Transportation Plans Using A Spatial Economic Model, Caroline Rodier, Margot Spiller, John E. Abraham, John D. Hunt

Mineta Transportation Institute

To achieve the greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction targets that are required by California’s global warming legislation (AB32), the state of California has determined that recent growth trends in vehicle miles traveled (VMT) must be curtailed. In recognition of this, Senate Bill 375 (SB375) requires regional governments to develop land use and transportation plans or Sustainable Community Strategies (SCSs) that will achieve regional GHG targets largely though reduced VMT. Although the bill requires such a plan, it does not require local governments to adopt general plans that conform to this plan. In California, it is local, not regional, governments that have …

Tribal Corridor Management Planning: Model, Case Study, And Guide For Caltrans District 1, Research Report 10-01, Jay K. Adams, Mary Scoggin

Mineta Transportation Institute

In Northern California, tribal governments and personnel of the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) District 1, have applied innovative context-sensitive solutions to meet a variety of transportation challenges along state highways that traverse tribal lands. This report describes and discusses the efforts under way and offer suggestions for continuing and extending these initiatives through the development of Tribal Corridor Management Plans (TCMPs). The methods employed in this project are multidisciplinary and include: (1) content analysis of existing corridor management plans; (2) literature review to identify “best practices;” (3) participant observation; (4) interviews with local stakeholders; (5) focus group interviews with …

Driving Forces: Police Fatalities, Carol Servino

Graduate Research Symposium (2010 - 2017)

Law enforcement is an inherently risky occupation. The number of traffic-related fatalities for law enforcement officers in the U.S. during the past 13 years has been increasing; however, the number of fatalities for the general population in motor vehicle traffic incidents declined during the same time period.

The federal government reports that federal motor vehicle safety standards aswell as behavioral and vehicle safety programs implemented by state and local law-enforcement agencies contributed to the downward trend for the general public.

What accounts for the pattern and problem with police driving-related deaths?

Logistics Service Orientation: An Integrated Strategy To Build Logistics Service Competency, Mert Tokman, R. Glenn Richey, Haozhe Chen

Journal of Transportation Management

While the importance of logistics service competency is widely acknowledged, more research is needed to investigate its antecedents. In this conceptual paper, we synthesize extant marketing and logistics/supply chain literature and propose a new concept - logistics service orientation, which consists of both logistics service’s internal and external market orientation. It is argued that a firm’s logistics service orientation has direct impacts on its logistics service performance. In addition, it is also proposed that this impact can be indirectly achieved through enhanced internal integration. This research contributes to existing knowledge by offering new insights on the development of logistics service …

How Does Light Rail Transit Affect Urban Land Use?, Needham B. Hurst

Economics Honors Projects

This paper estimates the effect of the Hiawatha Light Rail Transit (LRT) line on land use change in Minneapolis, MN, between 2000 and 2010. I use a binomial logit model and find that within the 1-mile submarket near LRT, the effect of distance to LRT stations on land use change had a different radius and magnitude depending on existing land use. The effect of LRT on conversions of low-density housing to denser uses only extended out to 90 feet from stations after LRT went into operation. Vacant and industrial land were the most likely to experience land use change, especially …

Tls Newsletter Volume 5, Edition 4 April 2011, Unf Transportation And Logistics Society

Transportation & Logistics Society Newsletter

Inside the Newsletter: Life after graduation with Rose Mueller. Important Upcoming Dates. Get to know TLS Vice President Tom Branning

Bicycling Access And Egress To Transit: Informing The Possibilities, Kevin J. Krizek

Mineta Transportation Institute

When effectively integrated with transit services, considerable room exists for bicycling to realize various benefits to communities. A successful marriage between bicycling and transit will likely increase the use and efficiency of both modes. A core problem, however, exists in that the predominant approach for integrating bicycles and transit—bicycles aboard transit vehicles—frequently runs up against capacity restraints. Integrating bicycling and transit requires analysis of a broad range of alternatives that considers both the travel patterns and needs of individuals but also accompanying urban form characteristics. What are the most cost effective strategies likely to generate the largest number of cyclists …

Driver Safety And Motor Carrier Profitability: Identifying And Understanding Drivers In The Fleet, John L. Kent, Ronald L. Coulter, Mary Coulter

Journal of Transportation Management

The objective of the study was to quantitatively explore truck driver safety records in an effort to determine and classify various types of drivers. Six safety variables relating to the number of safety points each driver had accumulated were analyzed using a cluster analysis procedure on 368 active drivers. The results of the study identified three clusters of drivers. Over 49.3 percent of the drivers were identified in a cluster labeled as the “Best Drivers.” The label “Ticket Magnets” was given to 23.6 percent of the drivers, and 27.1 percent of the sample was given the label “Accident Prone.” The …

Michigan Passenger Rail: An Analysis Of Community Benefits, James L. Roach, John C. Taylor

Journal of Transportation Management

Passenger rail service is perceived to provide important benefits to Michigan communities. However, the extent of these benefits has never been quantified in a systematic way. The study reported on here involved the performance of a broad based assessment of the community level benefits of passenger rail serv ice. The main objective of the research project was to estimate the full range of these benefits at the community level, as opposed to at the state level. Benefits were estimated for individual travelers, Amtrak expenditures, and local businesses. This research indicates local communities currently realize $62.0 million annually in benefits. Additional …