Washington State University
Guidelines for Pervious Concrete Sidewalks, Parking Lots, and Shared-Use Paths to Improve Drivers, Bikers, and Pedestrian Safety
PI: Somayeh Nassiri (WSU), snassiri@wsu.edu
Dates: 12/16/2015 – 12/15/2016
Status: Completed
UTC Project Information
Final Technical Report
Objectives of this study are:
1: Test safety aspects of pervious concrete sidewalks/parking lots/bike lanes in winter conditions,
2: Develop additional best-practice guidance for winter maintenance of pervious concrete installations. Read More
Benchmarking and Safety Assessment for Modified Lateral Spreading Design Procedure Using Three-Dimensional Nonlinear Finite Element Analysis
PI: Christopher R McGann (WSU), christopher.mcgann@wsu.edu
Dates: 12/16/2015 – 12/15/2016
Status: Completed
Project Information
Final Technical Report
The purpose of this proposed project is to verify the safety of bridge foundations designed with an improved/modified lateral spreading design procedure using nonlinear 3D finite element models. The current design procedures used for liquefaction-induced lateral spreading are often overly conservative due to the simplifying assumptions involved in their use. A modified design procedure (Martin et al., 2002; Zha, 2004; Boulanger et al., 2006; Ashford et al., 2011) that is part of the focus of this proposed work has been developed as a means to more appropriately consider the relevant aspects of the laterally-spreading bridge-foundation-soil system. This procedure has been shown to be effective in its intended purpose of reducing some of the excessive conservatism associated with more simplified design approaches, however, there has only been limited testing and analysis to verify and benchmark the relative safety of the resulting design solutions for a wide range of bridges, foundations, and soil conditions. Read More
Evaluation of the Social Cost of Modal Diversion: A Multi-Modal Safety Analysis
PI: Jeremy Sage (WSU), jlsage@wsu.edu
Dates: 01/16/2015 – 06/15/2016
Status: Completed
Project Information
Final Technical Report
Infrastructure investment by public agencies routinely has a multi-faceted objective. Often, considerable components of these objectives may be viewed as attributable to the goal of increasing the social welfare of the residents of the region and users of the transportation system. Transportation factors related to social welfare or social costs may typically be viewed in terms of pollution, congestion, and safety. The realization of social cost savings or benefits (performance) is largely dependent upon the response functions (how the user responds to a change in the transportation system) of users. Response functions are largely an insight to the economic conditions experienced by the user. This project will develop a reliable and implementable performance evaluation of safety projects that is readily implementable by effected jurisdictions. To achieve this evaluation, the project will draw from literature and implement tactics from several research lines, primarily that of the transportation infrastructure investment, social cost, and modal choice literature. Read More
Determination of Creep Compliance and Indirect Tensile Strength for Mechanistic-Empirical Pavement Design Guide (MEPDG)
PI: Balasingam Muhunthan (WSU), muhuntha@wsu.edu
Dates: 01/16/2015 – 06/15/2016
Status: Completed
UTC Project Sheet
Final Technical Report
Pavement condition greatly affects the safety of driver. For instance, the rutting in wheelpath creates hydroplaning which can leads to loss of control of vehicles. The roughness, e.g. potholes, can pose safety hazards to the driver. Therefore, improving the pavement condition by designing cost-effective long-lasting pavement is of paramount importance. The adoptions of Mechanistic-Empirical Pavement Design Guide (MEPDG) align well with this goal, when compared to traditional empirical pavement design.
Regional Map Based Analytical Platform for State-Wide Highway Safety Performance Assessment
PI: Ali Hajbabaie (WSU), ali.hajbabaie@wsu.edu
Co-Investigators: Yinhai Wang (UW)
Dates: 01/16/2015 – 06/15/2016
Status: Completed
UTC Project Sheet
Final Technical Report
Most traffic crash modeling and safety performance analysis cannot capture impacts of dynamic factors that are often critical for understanding the occurrence mechanism of crashes and are very labor intensive.To address these deficiencies, this proposed research takes advantage of the ongoing DRIVE Net research at the University of Washington to build large-scale safety analysis functions on the data-rich eScience transportation platform. The proposed research has the following objectives: Improve current crash modeling methods; Develop a Safety Performance Index (SPI); Monitor the safety performance of the state highway network on regional map using SPI; Develop a Potential Safety Improvement Index (PSII); Develop safety improvement analysis methods for accident hotspots based on the overlapped SPI and PSII. Read More
