All posts by trac

Less than ten percent of intersections are signalized; however, more than 30 percent of intersection fatalities occur at signalized intersections. Signal phasing strategy is considered to be one of the most important factors influencing the safety and operations of signalized intersections. Because drivers respond differently to different signal phasing sequences, engineers need to evaluate how drivers interpret each phasing sequence and the message that they are trying to convey. The goal of this project is to assess the safety of different left turn movement treatments at signalized intersections by using crash, video, and survey data. In particular, the project will compare the safety of protected left turns to protected-permissive left turns with a flashing yellow arrow. It will compare the safety of doghouse displays to four-section vertical displays with a flashing yellow arrow. And it will assess the safety of including flashing yellow arrow phases in protected-permissive left turns at different times of the day to identify whether changes create driver confusion. The results of this research will help decision makers select more suitable signal phasing plans under various operational conditions.

Principal Investigator: Ali Hajbabaie, Civil and Environmental Engineering, WSU
Sponsor: PacTrans
Scheduled completion: January 2018

Traffic incident management (TIM) is the process of coordinating the resources of various partner agencies and private sector companies to detect, respond to, and clear traffic incidents as quickly as possible to reduce the impacts of incidents on safety and congestion while protecting the safety of on-scene responders and the traveling public. This project is looking at how TIM in the Puget Sound region can be improved. Researchers at the UW Center for Collaborative Systems for Security, Safety, and Regional Resilience (CoSSaR) are investigating and modeling the current regional TIM process. They will then then use that model to identify impedances to current emergency response and other threats to the security and safety of first responders and the public. CoSSaR will then employ an iterative process involving stakeholder input to design interventions. This project will promote public safety and save time and resources by collaboratively developing enhancements to our regional TIM system, assuring that those enhancements are desired, cost-effective, and sustainable. The enhancements will also promote the safety of first responders and will improve the efficacy and coordinated efforts of multiple agencies engaged in incident response and related services.

Principal Investigators:
Mark P. Haselkorn, Human Centered Design and Engineering, UW
Sarah C. Yancey, Human Centered Design and Engineering, UW

Sponsor: WSDOT
WSDOT Technical Monitor: Ron Vessey
WSDOT Project Manager: Doug Brodin
Scheduled completion: June 2017

Underwater noise created by impact pile driving can reach sound levels that have negative effects on aquatic wildlife. To address this problem, UW researchers developed a double-walled pile to decrease the noise transmitted into the water and substrate. The double-walled pile consists of two concentric steel pipe piles flexibly connected by a special driving shoe, which creates an air gap between the two tubes. The double-walled pile is driven into the sediment with traditional equipment that strikes only the inner pile. The air gap between the inner and outer pile and the flexible coupling prevent the radial deformation wave produced by the pile hammer from interacting with the water and the sediment and thus reduce noise levels.

After two successful full-scale tests of the double-walled pile technology, what remains to allow the use of this new technology in commercial projects is a way for structural engineers to estimate drivability, stresses in the piles, and load capacity during the design phase of the project (WEAP analysis). In addition, structural engineers must be able to determine the load capacity of the pile after driving so that they can know whether the installed pile can carry the intended loads (CAPWAP analysis). For this project, the researcher, in cooperation with Pile Dynamics Inc and Marine Construction Technology, PBC, will use data collected from the two field tests to modify existing commercial software for predicting drivability and stresses in the piles (WEAP analysis) and for estimating load capacity after driving (CAPWAP analysis). This will give engineers an industry standard tool for predicting and confirming the structural integrity of the installed piles.

Principal Investigator: Per G. Reinhall, Mechanical Engineering, UW
Sponsor: WSDOT
WSDOT Technical Monitor: Tom Bertucci
WSDOT Project Manager: Jon Peterson
Scheduled completion: June 2017

Transit-related crime affects people’s decisions to use public transportation. While transit operators have long monitored crime and are cognizant of high incident locations, they lack data-driven tools to readily match crime events spatially with the locations of individual transit facilities, and temporally with transit service periods and their associated transit ridership characteristics. The overall goal of this project is to provide transit agency planners with new data and tools for crime surveillance and prevention and to help them better protect transit riders on their way to and from the transit systems and while waiting for transit. To do so, the project will develop and test data-driven tools to identify hotspots of criminal activity near and around each transit facility by using the results of models that estimate environmental and socioeconomic predictors of crime near transit facilities. The tools will incorporate two novel data sets: location-specific, police-reported crime incidents by type and individual ORCA payment card transaction records that yield origin-destination transit trip data. The tools will assist transit agencies in making better decisions regarding the selection of countermeasures and the allocation of future safety investments.

Principal Investigators:
Anne Vernez Moudon, Urban Design and Planning, UW
Mark E. Hallenbeck, Washington State Transportation Center, UW

Sponsor: WSDOT
WSDOT Technical Monitor: Alan Soicher
WSDOT Project Manager: Jon Peterson
Scheduled completion: June 2018

This project’s goal is to use modern “big data” sources and analytics to improve the design, selection, and implementation of multimodal transportation plans in the I-5 corridor as part of the Puget Sound region’s Vision 2040 plan update.  One outcome of the project will be the refinement and use of models and tools to identify effective non-motorized improvements that can significantly increase transit use in the I-5 corridor. The project will take advantage of recent advances in the availability of transit ridership, transit origin/destination and route choice patterns, and sidewalk data, including regional ORCA fare payment data.  WSDOT’s corridor planning, modeling, multimodal planning, and construction traffic mitigation programs will all benefit from the outcome of this project.  The results will also allow WSDOT to work more effectively with transit agencies, cities, and counties to plan for and implement transportation solutions in the corridor and will help the region select and prioritize projects that support multi-occupancy vehicle travel, thus enhancing the region’s mobility at the least cost to WSDOT and the state.

Principal Investigators:
Mark E. Hallenbeck, Washington State Transportation Center, UW
Anat Caspi, Computer Science and Engineering, UW

Sponsor: WSDOT
WSDOT Technical Monitor: Alan Soicher
WSDOT Project Manager: Jon Peterson
Scheduled completion: October 2018

Recent advancements allow transportation agencies to collect large amounts of roadway safety data. This has created a need to determine what types of safety data they are collecting, what types of safety analysis they can conduct with those data, and what other kinds of data and analysis are required to meet agencies’ safety objectives. The goals of this project are to develop a comprehensive understanding of agency needs and priorities related to safety data management and analysis, develop a set of core skills and knowledge required for safety data management and analysis, create a comprehensive set of safety data workforce development resources that agencies can easily access for distribution, and identify and utilize proven delivery methods to supplement outreach efforts and activities in the area of safety data.  Safety data collection, management, integration, improvement, and analysis activities are integral to developing a robust data program that supports more informed decision making, better targeted safety investments, and overall improved safety outcomes.

Principal Investigators:
Ali Hajbabaie, Civil and Environmental Engineering, WSU
Cynthia Chen, Civil and Environmental Engineering, UW

Sponsor: PacTrans
Scheduled completion: January 2018