Transportation Commons^™

A Driver Guidance System For Taxis In Singapore, Shashi Shekhar Jha, Shih-Fen Cheng, Meghna Lowalekar, Nicholas Wong, Rishikeshan Rajendram, Pradeep Varakantham, Nghia Troung Troung, Firmansyah Bin Abd Rahman

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Traditional taxi fleet operators world-over have been facing intense competitions from various ride-hailing services such as Uber and Grab.Based on our studies on the taxi industry in Singapore, we see that the emergence of Uber and Grab in the ride-hailing market has greatly impacted the taxi industry: the average daily taxi ridership for the past two years has been falling continuously, by close to 20% in total. In this work, we discuss how efficient real-time data analytics and large-scale multiagent optimization technology could help taxi drivers compete against more technologically advanced service platforms. Our system has been in field trial …

Taxis Strike Back: A Field Trial Of The Driver Guidance System, Shih-Fen Cheng, Shashi Shekhar Jha, Rishikeshan Rajendram

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Traditional taxi fleet operators world-over have been facing intense competitions from various ride-hailing services such as Uber and Grab (specific to the Southeast Asia region). Based on our studies on the taxi industry in Singapore, we see that the emergence of Uber and Grab in the ride-hailing market has greatly impacted the taxi industry: the average daily taxi ridership for the past two years has been falling continuously, by close to 20% in total. In this work, we discuss how efficient real-time data analytics and large-scale multi-agent optimization technology could potentially help taxi drivers compete against more technologically advanced service …

Analysis Of Public Transportation Patterns In A Densely Populated City With Station-Based Shared Bikes, Di Wang, Evan Wu, Ah-Hwee Tan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Densely populated cities face great challenges of high transportation demand and limited physical space. Thus, in these cities, the public transportation system is heavily relied on. Conventional public transportation modes such as bus, taxi and subway have been globally deployed over the past century. In the last decade, a new type of public transportation mode, shared bike, emerged in many cities. These shared bikes are deployed by either government-regulated or profit-driven companies and are either station-based or station-less. Nonetheless, all of them are designed to better solve the last-mile problem in densely populated cities as complements to the conventional public …

Book Review: Fundamentals Of International Aviation, Alan Bender

International Journal of Aviation, Aeronautics, and Aerospace

Not applicable.

The Cost Of Jaywalking On Traffic Congestion In An Intersection In Greater Cairo: A Case Study, Hussein Gawdat

Theses and Dissertations

There have been many studies focusing on different types of traffic delays, pedestrians’ interaction at signalized intersections and economic losses as a result of these delays. However, there is a huge gap in the current literature, regionally and globally, in studying the traffic delays associated with jaywalking. In Egypt, jaywalking is considered a common phenomenon, however, population increased drastically over the past decades in Greater Cairo leading to more congested streets. This research provides a case study that investigates the economic effect of jaywalking on traffic flow in Mashaal, a sample location in Greater Cairo, due to traffic congestion. The …

Pedestrian Observation And Data Collection Curriculum Guide, Jennifer Dill, Tara Beth Goddard

TREC Final Reports

This guidebook provides a comprehensive set of class exercises suitable for students in courses related to travel behavior, traffic safety, urban planning and design, community health, or civil engineering. Exercises include activities developed through this project as well as an extensive set of educational materials drawn from online resources. The exercises developed as part of this project focus on pedestrians. They include elements of both traditional traffic counts and behavioral components, the latter of which are often lacking from current data collections efforts. By encouraging students to consider behavioral interactions of roadway users, these exercises can provide students with field …

The Use Of Mt. Mazama Volcanic Ash As Natural Pozzolans For Sustainable Soil And Unpaved Road Improvement, Matthew D. Sleep, Morgan B. Masley

TREC Final Reports

Natural pozzolans can be a replacement for portland cement in many applications. Some natural pozzolans are byproducts of industrial processes. Other natural pozzolans, such as volcanic ash, occur naturally. This study determined the suitability of Mt. Mazama volcanic ash as a natural pozzolan and explored innovative uses of the material for roadway improvement. Requirements of natural pozzolans are specified in ASTM C618 – coal fly ash and raw or calcined natural pozzolan for use in concrete. This study concluded that volcanic ash from Mt. Mazama meets chemical requirements of a natural pozzolan. In its unprocessed, natural form, Mt. Mazama volcanic …

Making Sustainable Roadways From 7,000 Year-Old Volcanic Ash, Matthew D. Sleep, Morgan B. Masley

TREC Project Briefs

Volcanic ash from Mt. Mazama, prevalent in Southern Oregon, could be used as a natural pozzolan for unpaved roadway improvements. Sustainability benefits would include reduced carbon emissions.

Column Generation Approach For Feeder Vessel Routing And Synchronization At A Congested Transshipment Port, Jian G. Jin, Qiang Meng, Hai Wang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

With increasing container-shipping traffic in major transshipment ports, unsynchronized shipping services at hub ports usually lead to loss of transshipment connections, significant vessel port-stay time, and congestion. This calls for the design of feeder vessel services to pick up from and deliver containers to neighboring local ports, and, at the same time, synchronize them with long-haul services in a manner that enables efficient container transshipment. In this paper, we present a mixed integer linear programming model to optimize the feeder vessel routes and hub port synchronization with an objective to minimize the total operating and connection cost. We exploit the …

Bounded Rank Optimization For Effective And Efficient Emergency Response, Pallavi Madhusudan Manohar, Pradeep Varakantham, Hoong Chuin Lau

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Effective placement of emergency response vehicles (such as ambulances, fire trucks, police cars) to deal with medical, fire or criminal activities can reduce the incident response time by few seconds, which in turn can potentially save a human life. Owing to its adoption in Emergency Medical Services (EMSs) worldwide, existing research on improving emergency response has focused on optimizing the objective of bounded time (i.e. number of incidents served in a fixed time). Due to the dependence of this objective on temporal uncertainty, optimizing the bounded time objective is challenging. In this paper, we propose a new objective referred to …

Exploring Strategies To Improve Mobility And Safety On Roadway Segments In Urban Areas, Stephen Arhin

Mineta Transportation Institute

Several strategies have been proposed and developed to alleviate the congestion and throughput problem usually experienced in urban areas. These strategies include the use of Intelligent Transportation Systems, signal re-timing and signal coordination, among others. In urban areas, there are often combinations of signalized and un-signalized intersections on corridors that may impact throughput and mobility. This research investigated driver compliance rate (CR) with STOP-signs at All-Way STOP Control (AWSC) intersections that are in close proximity to upstream or downstream signalized intersections. Also, strategies to improve mobility and throughput on segments in an urban area were explored via modeling and simulation. …

Evaluating San José'S 4th Street Pop-Up Bikeway: What Does The Public Think?, Hilary Nixon

Mineta Transportation Institute

Promoting cycling as an alternative means of daily travel has garnered significant attention at the local, state, national, and international levels for the past two decades. The benefits of increased cycling include improved public health, reduced vehicle emissions, reduced traffic congestion, as well as potential economic benefits. However, the percentage of commuters biking to work remains low in the U.S. This white paper explores people’s opinions regarding a temporary protected bikeway installation in the City of San José, California. Overall, findings indicate that the majority of respondents had an overall positive impression of the bikeway. Issues related to safety and …

Electric Kick Scooters On Sidewalks In Virginia But Not In California? A Review Of How States Regulate Personal Transportation Devices, Kevin Fang, Asha Weinstein Agrawal, Ashley Hooper

Mineta Transportation Institute

Every weekday morning in San Francisco’s SoMa district, a stream of workers disembark from the city’s commuter rail station carrying an assortment of small, wheeled devices—kick scooters, electric skateboards, hoverboards, and more—which they then use to roll on to their offices. These “personal transportation devices” (PTDs)—also called micromobility or microtransit—encompass a growing set of devices that provide low-speed, flexible mobility for individual travelers. In recent years, the number of PTD types and their use has exploded with the introduction of new devices. This Perspective reports findings from a research project reviewing how these PTDs are regulated in the vehicle codes …

What Do Americans Think About Federal Tax Options To Support Transportation? Results From Year Nine Of A National Survey, Asha Weinstein Agrawal, Hilary Nixon

Mineta Transportation Institute

This report summarizes the results of the ninth year of a national random-digit-dial public opinion survey asking 1,201 respondents if they would support various tax options for raising federal transportation revenues. The ten specific tax options tested were seven variations on raising the federal gas tax rate, two variations on a new mileage tax, and creating a new federal sales tax. In addition, the survey collected data on standard sociodemographic factors, travel behavior (annual miles driven and vehicle fuel efficiency), respondents’ views on the quality of their local transportation system, and their priorities for government spending on transportation in their …

Challenges And Opportunities In Transportation Data, Kristin A. Tufte, Kushal Datta, Alekh Jindal, David Maier, Robert L. Bertini

Computer Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

From the time and money lost sitting in congestion and waiting for traffic signals to change, to the many people injured and killed in traffic crashes each year, to the emissions and energy consumption from our vehicles, the effects of transportation on our daily lives are immense. A wealth of transportation data is available to help address these problems; from data from sensors installed to monitor and operate the roadways and traffic signals to data from cell phone apps and -- just over the horizon -- data from connected vehicles and infrastructure. However, this wealth of data has yet to …

Optimization Of A Cyclic Express Subway Service, Hai Wang, Jiangang Jin, Jingfeng Yang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

With rapid population growth and increasing demand for urban mobility, metropolitan areas such as Singapore, Tokyo, and Shanghai are increasingly dependent on public transport systems. Various strategies are proposed to improve the service quality and capacity of bus and subway systems. Express trains-i.e., trains that skip certain stations-are commonly used, because they can travel at higher speeds, potentially reduce travel time, and serve more passengers. In this paper, we study cyclic express subway service (CESS), in which express trains provide routine transport service with cyclic (periodic) station-skip patterns that can be used in daily service. We propose an exact Mixed …

A Survey Of Ride-Hailing Passengers, Steven Gehrke

PSU Transportation Seminars

In less than a decade, the ride-hailing industry, led by Uber and Lyft, has dramatically transformed the way we travel in our metro regions. Rider adoption of these on-demand mobility services has proceeded much quicker than our understanding of their impacts to our urban transportation systems. Planning for this transformation in personal mobility, which will have unintended consequences, has been made more difficult by the scarcity in meaningful data made available by these ride-hailing companies. Public agencies responsible for managing congestion and transit services are hindered in their ability to successfully plan for the integration of this emergent travel mode …

Airships In U.N. Humanitarian And Peace Operations: Ready For Service?, Walter Dorn, Nic Baird, Robert Owen

Journal of Aviation/Aerospace Education & Research

This study examines whether the United Nations should take steps in the near future to exploit the operational characteristics of lighter-than-air (LTA) and hybrid aircraft in support of its peace and humanitarian operations. Continued progress in the development of LTA transport system makes this a timely issue. At the same time, this progress highlights persistent challenges to the conduct of reliable and safe LTA operations, particularly in the face of bad weather and threats from groups hostile to the UN mission. The report examines this issue in four sections: (1) the potential advantages of LTA operations; (2) their disadvantages; (3) …

Utrecht, Bike Capital Of The World, Martijn Rietbergen

PSU Transportation Seminars

Utrecht is a bustling, bicycle-friendly city in the Netherlands. Every day, between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m., over 125,000 cyclists ride to their work, school, university, public transport, shops or home through the city centre.

The municipality wants to make cycling even more attractive for these and other cyclists. Consequently, the bicycle is given precedence in the mobility policy of the municipality of Utrecht. We want to be the most bike-friendly city in the world. We want to keep our growing city livable, accessible and economically strong, and we are convinced that the bicycle can and should play a major …

Science, Advocacy, Policy, Planning: Tools For Advancing Transportation Equity, Garrett S. Mcallister

Graduate Student Portfolios, Professional Papers, and Capstone Projects

The theme of this portfolio is how different tools and approaches can be used for advancing transportation equity. Broadly defined, transportation equity is about fairness in transportation. There are a number of ways this fairness can be assessed. The most common way to assess transportation equity is by looking at the fairness of outcomes, distributed geographically, socially, or even by mode of transportation. Equity can also be defined by the fairness of processes. The first half of the portfolio illustrates some of the problems with the current transportation system and how it is unhealthy (Piece 1) and unjust (Piece 2). …