Transportation Commons^™

Tls Newsletter, Volume 5, Edition 1. January, 2011, Unf Transportation And Logistics Society

Transportation & Logistics Society Newsletter

In the newsletter: In the Know--When Opportunity Knocks Will you be ready to answer? Life after graduation with Toby Robin. Important Upcoming Dates. Get to know TLS President Shatise Johnson. FYI--Christmas Begins at Hubbard House

Lessons Learned In Attempting To Survey Hard-To-Reach Ethnic Segments Along With The Presentation Of A Comprehensive Questionnaire, Research Report Wp-10-02, Richard A. Werbel

Mineta Transportation Institute

A survey questionnaire was developed and administered to transit users in the Sacramento Metropolitan Area to analyze the degree to which global satisfaction with transit is impacted by ethnicity and other relevant independent variables. Although the data collected was not analyzed because the sample size was substantially smaller than required, the questionnaire used, which is included in its entirety in an appendix, has some uncommon variables and measurement approaches that can be used in a number of other survey questionnaires used in transit studies. Options involving sampling methodology and methods of administering the questionnaire that would have generated an acceptable …

2011-2012 Unlv Mcnair Journal, Cyndy Anang, Sajar Camara, Pamela Cornejo, Carla Antonieta Farcello, Ilse Anahi Garcia, Natiera Magnuson, William L. Mccurdy, Lorena Munoz, Maxym V. Myroshnychenko, Ricardo Rios, Theodore Waldeck, Barbara Wallen, Ana Zuniga, Brenda M. Aguilar, Tiffany Alexandra Alvarez, Daniel N. Erosa, Paige C. Espinosa, Carla Antonieta Farcello, Julienne Jochel Paraiso, Nathaniel Derek Phillipps, Carmen Vallin, Jacent N. Wamala, Ernesto Zamora-Ramos

McNair Journal

Journal articles based on research conducted by undergraduate students in the McNair Scholars Program

Table of Contents

Biography of Dr. Ronald E. McNair

Statements:

Dr. Neal J. Smatresk, UNLV President

Dr. Juanita P. Fain, Vice President of Student Affairs

Dr. William W. Sullivan, Associate Vice President for Retention and Outreach

Mr. Keith Rogers, Deputy Executive Director of the Center for Academic Enrichment and Outreach

McNair Scholars Institute Staff

Longfellow Bridge Task Force Process Evaluation Report, Susan Jeghelian, Madhawa Palihapitiya

Massachusetts Office of Public Collaboration Publications

This report presents process evaluation findings and recommendations regarding the collaborative stakeholder process engaged in by the Longfellow Bridge Task Force, facilitated by the Massachusetts Office of Public Collaboration, and sponsored by the Massachusetts Department of Transportation under its bridge rehabilitation and restoration program. The purpose of the Task Force was to provide stakeholder and public input on the design of the Longfellow Bridge span cross-section, with particular focus on serving transit, roadway, bicycle and pedestrian needs effectively and safely.

Evaluation Of Bike Boxes At Signalized Intersections, Jennifer Dill, Christopher M. Monsere, Nathan Mcneil

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

This report presents a before-after study of bike boxes at 10 signalized intersections in Portland, Oregon. The bike boxes, also known as advanced stop lines or advanced stop boxes, were installed to increase visibility of cyclists and reduce conflicts between motor vehicle and cyclists, particularly in potential ?right-hook? situations. Before and after video were analyzed for seven intersections with green bike boxes, three intersections with uncolored bike boxes, and two control intersections. User perceptions were measured through surveys of cyclists passing through five of the bike box intersections and of motorists working downtown, where the boxes were concentrated. Both the …

Highway Safety Investigation Manual For The Oregon Department Of Transportation, Karen Dixon, Christopher Monsere

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Across the state, region, and nation highway safety investigators have developed a wide variety of tools and techniques for highway safety investigation procedures. Analysis techniques can range from systematic evaluation approaches such as the Oregon Department of Transportation’s (ODOT’s) Safety Priority Index System (SPIS) down to specific localized safety assessment strategies. It is important to develop consistent methods for safety evaluations across Oregon to ensure that safety investigations are conducted in a similar manner. It is also important to develop a screening process for proper highway safety investigations and document the procedures used for this assessment.

The objective of this …

The Visport Project: Visualization Of Port Logistics, Petros J. Katsioloudis, Ginger S. Watson

STEMPS Faculty Publications

The article focuses on the introduction of Visualization in Port Logistics (VisPort) web-based tool project for the visualization of port careers and logistics in the U.S. It outlines the educational objectives of the project including the virtual reality experience associated with port operation, the multimedia environment for the learning of students, and the simulation of port logistics. It mentions that the scientific and technical visualization curriculum offered to students enhances the skills related to scientific and mathematical concepts as well as the experience on graphic techniques.

Freight Distribution Problems In Congested Urban Areas: Fast And Effective Solution Procedures To Time-Dependent Vehicle Routing Problems, Miguel A. Figliozzi

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Congestion is a common phenomenon in all medium to large cities of the world. Reliability of freight movement in urban areas is an important issue to manufacturing or service companies whose operation is based in just-in-time approaches. These companies tend to provide high value or time sensitive products/services. As congestion increases, carriers face increasing challenges to satisfy their time sensitive customers in an economical way. Route designs or schedules which require long computation times or ignore travel time variations will result in inefficient and suboptimal solutions. Poorly designed routes that lead freight vehicles into congested arteries and streets not only …

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 …

No More Freeways: Urban Land Use-Transportation Dynamics Without Freeway Capacity Expansion, Lei Zhang, We Xu

TREC Final Reports

Observations of the various limitations of freeway capacity expansion have led to a provocative planning and policy question – What if we completely stop building additional freeway capacity. From a theoretical perspective, as a freeway transportation network matures, there exists a saturation point beyond which any additional freeway capacity would only be counterproductive from a welfare point of view, and worsen the existing urban transportation problems. Traditional benefit/cost analysis of individual freeway capacity expansion projects often ignores long-term induced demand and land use changes and does not represent a systems approach to this important theoretical issue. From a practical perspective, …

Clinton Street Max Urban Vision, Darryl Abe, Allison Duncan, Sheri Fisher, Jay Higgins, Shawn Petch, Susan Rosenthal, Joel Stein, Huifu Xu

Urban Design Workshop

This document is the product of the 2011 Urban Design Workshop at Portland State University which worked to develop an urban design vision for the future Clinton Street MAX Station, part of the Portland- Milwaukie Light Rail line. This project follows two previous years of PSU workshops that investigated the urban design potential of Portland-Milwaukie Light Rail stations within the Hosford-Abernethy and Brooklyn neighborhoods in southeast Portland.

While previous efforts were broad in scope, our project specifically addresses two oversized blocks immediately adjacent to the Clinton Street Station, refered to as the Powell Triangle. The blocks are bordered by 12th …

Risk Factors For Driving Cessation Vary By Race And Ethnicity, Elizabeth Dugan, Frank Porell, Chae Man Lee

Gerontology Institute Publications

Driving is related to our identity and independence as well as allowing us to get needed goods, services, and social opportunities that enrich daily life. Yet with increasing age, the risk for developing threats to medical fitness to drive increases. Driving cessation is related to a long list of negative outcomes, such as: depression, social isolation, diminished access to health care, and diminished quality of life. We investigated risks for driving cessation, paying close attention to racial differences. This study used data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), 1998-2008. The study included N=46, 528 older people (age 65 and …

Five Years Later: Emergency Preparedness Improvements In New Orleans, Louisiana Since Hurricane Katrina, Evacuteer.Org, Uno/Lsu Gulf Coast Center For Evacuation Transportation And Resiliency

UNOTI Publications

No abstract provided.

Evaluation And Recommendation Of Mix Design For Emulsion Stabilized Bases, Samuel Franco

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Asphalt emulsion has been used for base material stabilization in a few TxDOT districts. Results from these practices were quite different. The initial performance of two projects on US287 constructed around 2000 in the Amarillo District has been found to be satisfactory. However, the Yoakum District has reported problems with asphalt emulsion for base work in a project on FM 237. The preliminary conclusion from these trials has been that asphalt emulsion may not perform well in the high humidity/high rainfall areas like east Texas. On the other hand, using calcium-based additives to stabilize base courses in road construction has …

Public Investment And Economic Growth In El Paso, Azucena Gonzalez Monzon

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This research focuses on the impact from public capital stock on economic growth in El Paso, Texas. A time series analysis is used to gauge the dynamic relationship between public infrastructure and the productivity of this city's economy. An Error Correction model and a Vector Error Correction model are utilized to discover short-run and long-run impacts from public capital stock on the growth of this particular economy. The Vector Autoregressive model is used to determine causality amongst the variables and to determine the structure of this economy. This research finds that public infrastructure growth actually follows economic growth and private …

Methodology To Convert A Transportation Planning Origin-Destination Matrix Into A Microscopic Traffic Simulation Origin-Destination Matrix, Jose Osiris Vidana-Bencomo

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Microscopic traffic simulation (MTS) is a cost-effective approach for the evaluation of traffic conditions in urban highways networks. In MTS models, traffic demand that is entered into the network is specified by one or several Origin-Destination (O-D) matrices. A major challenge in the application of MTS for large urban networks is the specification of the O-D matrices. This dissertation proposes a methodology that may be used to transform a O-D matrix from a transportation planning model (which is based on Traffic Analysis Zone, or TAZ, and is readily available) into a O-D matrix for a MTS model (which is traffic …

Transit In A Border Zone: The Demand For Public Transportation In Three Texas Border Cities, Adam Gregory Walke

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Factors affecting the demand for public transportation include those, like fares or the level of service, that transit administrators can directly influence as well as those, like gasoline prices, that are beyond administrators' control. This study considers both but focuses on the latter and, more specifically, on how proximity to an international border affects transit ridership. Pedestrian border crossings have a significant effect on ridership levels in El Paso, Brownsville, and Laredo, Texas. Also, ridership correlates positively with the purchasing power of the peso in Laredo and with Mexico's industrial production index in El Paso. In the context of prior …

Network Effect Of Dynamic Routing Of Commerical Traffic Through Ports Of Entry, Alfredo Sanchez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The City of El Paso, TX has access to six ports of entry (POE) between the United States and Mexico in the region. Two of the four POEs within the El Paso City limits allow access to commerical traffic. The objective of this thesis is to see the effect on the El Paso transportation network of shifting all commercial traffic from Bridge of the Americas (BOTA) to Ysleta-Zaragoza and Santa Teresa POEs. DynusT, a dynamic routing traffic simulation tool, was used to make this determination.

Evaluation Of The Iqa Delay Estimation Method, Yaye Keita, Mitsuru Saito

CUTR Faculty Journal Publications

The Incremental Queue Accumulation (IQA) method is the new delay estimation method for signalized intersections adopted for the Highway Capacity Manual 2010. Using a signalized intersection and a remote data collection facility, the IQA method was evaluated for its accuracy and for potential challenges that practitioners may encounter as they use the new method. The results were compared with delays obtained by the delay estimation models included in the Highway Capacity Manual 2000. It was found that the IQA method was promising and theoretically more robust than the current delay estimation model, but field data collection could be challenging. © …

Getting Around When You’Re Just Getting By: The Travel Behavior And Transportation Expenditures Of Low-Income Adults, Mti Report 10-02, Asha Weinstein Agrawal, Evelyn A. Blumenberg, Sarah Abel, Gregory Pierce, Charles N. Darrah

Mineta Transportation Institute

How much do people with limited resources pay for cars, public transit, and other means of travel? How does their transportation behavior change during periods of falling employment and rising fuel prices? This research uses in-depth interviews with 73 adults to examine how rising transportation costs impact low-income families. The interviews examine four general areas of interest: travel behavior and transportation spending patterns; the costs and benefits of alternative modes of travel; cost management strategies; and opinions about the effect of changing transportation prices on travel behavior. Key findings include: Most low-income household are concerned about their transportation costs. Low-income …