All posts by trac

WSDOT has long been a national leader in the deployment of transportation system management and operations (TSM&O) strategies.  However, currently, TSM&O tends to be adopted on an ad hoc basis within the Department.  No defined or consistent process systematically considers TSM&O strategies within the WSDOT’s programming and prioritization process, nor are TSM&O strategies routinely considered in corridor and regional plans. To address this issue, researchers are working to develop a draft business outline that describes how TSM&O should be included in WSDOT’s planning and programming process at the headquarters and regional levels, providing a framework for the development of corridor-specific operations plans. They are also developing guidance on each of the TSM&O strategies of interest to WSDOT. And they are creating a website that WSDOT staff can use to access that guidance and further information about each strategy. These products will allow WSDOT to more effectively integrate TSM&O into its business processes and fully consider and implement TSM&O benefits where appropriate. They will also help WSDOT staff select the appropriate TSM&O strategies, estimate the value of those efforts, and associate the strategies with performance metrics.

Principal Investigator: Mark E. Hallenbeck, Washington State Transportation Center, UW
Sponsor: WSDOT
WSDOT Technical Monitor: Monica Harwood
WSDOT Project Manager: Doug Brodin
Scheduled completion: December 2017

Current models for forecasting freight movement in the United States have been developed primarily at the statewide level, along with a few regional freight forecasting models. This project is developing a national freight forecasting model for the FHWA. The model, the first of its kind at the national level, will support national freight policy making and planning. As a subcontractor to RSG, UW researchers are helping to identify the most useful and promising structures for a national model and are leading the evaluation of model components and their integration. They are also developing an approach to test the potential specifications for each model component and are contributing to the development of national sources of data for use in the model. The project will demonstrate the model in a software application.

Principal Investigators:
Anne V. Goodchild, Civil and Environmental Engineering, UW
Edward D. McCormack, Civil and Environmental Engineering, UW

Sponsors:
FHWA
Resource Systems Group

FHWA Technical Monitor: V. Mysore
Scheduled completion: July 2019

Growing federal program emphasis on system performance measurement and management is encouraging state departments of transportation to develop effective performance measures and performance monitoring practices. These efforts are producing a rapidly expanding body of information about agencies’ research on and evaluations of performance measurement and monitoring. However, transportation systems management and operations (TSMO) staff and their advisors in academia and private practice face significant challenges in trying to gain access to this information. These practitioners risk duplicating previous work, adopting measures and practices that others have found to be inappropriate, or both. Therefore, the objectives of this project were to survey the current state of practice in TSMO performance measurement and monitoring and to develop a user-friendly tool to assist TSMO professionals in finding and retrieving topic-specific information about current practice. TRAC researchers assisted the Florida Atlantic University research team in surveying available literature, ongoing development efforts, and ongoing research. The team then developed a classification scheme to facilitate practitioner access to information about specific areas of TSMO performance measurement and monitoring. NCHRP anticipates that AASHTO and the National Operations Center of Excellence will use the classification scheme to provide user-friendly access to information about TSMO performance measurement and monitoring practices and research.

Principal Investigator: Mark E. Hallenbeck, Washington State Transportation Center, UW

Sponsors:
NCHRP
Florida Atlantic University

Florida Atlantic University Technical Monitor: Aleks Stevanovic
Scheduled completion: September 2016

The FHWA’s Office of Freight Management and Operations (HOFM) and Office of Transportation Management (HOTM) require the use of a national travel time data set to support analyses for the Freight Performance Measures Program (FPM) and documents such as the Urban Congestion Report. In 2013, the HOFM acquired a National Performance Measures Research Data Set (NPMRDS) for this purpose. After passage of the national Moving Ahead for Progress (MAP 21) legislation, FHWA determined that this data set could also assist states and metropolitan planning organizations in their freight planning, performance measurement, and other operations efforts, and it decided to make the data set available to a broader community of users. As a subcontractor to Cambridge Systematics, TRAC researchers provided technical assistance to the growing community of NPMRDS users in analyzing roadway performance and in linearly referencing and visualizing the data. Staff responded to technical questions asked by NPMRDS users, assisted in developing reports that assessed users and their data needs, and produced a website to guide users in applying the NPMRDS data set.

Principal Investigator: Mark E. Hallenbeck, Washington State Transportation Center, UW

Sponsors:
FHWA
Cambridge Systematics

Cambridge Systematics Technical Monitor: Rich Margiotta
Scheduled completion: August 2017

Traditionally, truck congestion bottlenecks have been defined as physical locations on highways that routinely experience congestion. This definition has directed attention to urban areas where most congestion occurs in general and to peak period “commuter” congestion specifically. However, although much truck delay occurs under these situations, many other impediments to truck travel exist, including policy restrictions on truck travel, extreme event and disaster conditions, and regulatory constraints. Therefore, a broader definition of truck bottlenecks may be warranted: any condition that acts impedes efficient truck travel, leading to travel times in excess of what would normally occur. As a subcontractor to Cambridge Systematics, TRAC researchers assisted in a review of current practices and measures for identifying, classifying, evaluating, and mitigating truck freight bottlenecks. They also participated in work to develop a new classification system for truck freight bottleneck categories based on causal and contributing factors; methods for quantitatively measuring truck freight bottlenecks within each of the categories; a scalable methodology for systematically identifying truck freight bottlenecks; a scalable methodology for evaluating the impacts of truck freight bottlenecks on local, regional, and national network performance; and a range of options for solving or mitigating truck freight bottlenecks for each identified category.

Principal Investigator: Mark E. Hallenbeck, Washington State Transportation Center, UW

Sponsors:
NCHRP
Cambridge Systematics

Scheduled completion: October 2016

The FHWA’s Long-Term Pavement Performance (LTPP) program makes the world’s largest pavement performance database available annually to the public. However, a number of LTPP test sections are missing traffic data or have unreliable traffic parameters that limit the ability of researchers to use those sites in analyses that require traffic load as an input. In addition, the traffic data in the LTPP Standard Data Release can be complex and difficult to navigate. This project is designed to improve the LTPP database, both by significantly improving the traffic load data incorporated in it and by making it easier for pavement researchers to select the traffic data they need for specific analyses. As a subcontractor to Applied Research Associates (ARA), UW researchers are helping to identify the gaps and major limitations in the traffic data in the current LTPP Standard Data Release, provide traffic estimates for the LTPP sites with missing or questionable traffic data in the form of computed parameters tables, and provide guidance to help users quickly select the most appropriate LTPP test sites and traffic statistics for their pavement analyses.

Principal Investigator: Mark E. Hallenbeck, Civil and Environmental Engineering, UW

Sponsors:
FHWA
Applied Research Associates

ARA Technical Monitor: O. Selezneva
Scheduled completion: February 2019

Hot mix asphalt (HMA) consists of aggregate particles bonded together by asphalt binder at high heat. Petroleum-based asphalt is widely used in road and other infrastructure construction.  However, high oil prices and tight asphalt supply have recently doubled asphalt prices. Industries are therefore seeking an alternative binder for HMA. Alternative binders such as fly ash, silica fume, and ground granulated blast-furnace slag have been used, as have sulfur, coal tar, manure-based bio-oil, or plant-based bio-oil, but each raises concerns about price and/or performance. This project is seeking to develop a 100 percent waste cooking oil-based bioasphalt modified with lignin-derived epoxy (LEP). Both waste cooking oil and lignin (found in plant tissues and burned in pulp mills) are byproducts. The resulting bioasphalt will have comparable or superior material properties to those of traditional petroleum-based binders, resistant to fatigue, rutting, thermal cracking, and moisture susceptibility. And being based on industry byproducts, it will reduce the need to procure virgin materials, reduce energy consumption, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, as well as cost significantly less than petroleum-based asphalt.

Principal Investigators:
Balasingam Muhunthan, Civil and Environmental Engineering, WSU
Jinwen Zhang, School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, WSU
Michael Wolcott, Civil and Environmental Engineering, WSU
Junna Xin, Composite Materials and Engineering Center, WSU
Kun Zhang, Civil and Environmental Engineering, WSU

Sponsor: FHWA
FHWA Technical Contact: D. Confer
FHWA Project Manager: J. Youtcheff
Scheduled completion: August 2018

This project expands on the previous Light Rail Transit project to examine whether major transportation infrastructure affects physical activity and the cost effectiveness of those changes from a health perspective. The project is determining whether people living close to two new Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) lines (King County Metro’s Rapid Ride) become more physically active after BRT has been implemented than people living far from the BRT lines. Participants are wearing accelerometers and GPS devices and are keeping a travel log for seven days on three different occasions over the course of this five-year study. The project will also review whether King County Metro’s social marketing campaign In Motion will result in residents using transit more often.

Principal Investigators:
Brian E. Saelens, Pediatrics, UW
Frederick P. Rivara, Pediatrics, UW
Anne Vernez Moudon, Urban Design and Planning, UW

Sponsors:
National Institutes of Health
National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute
Seattle Children’s Research Institute

Scheduled completion: June 2020

Modern technology is creating a significant increase in both the amount and types of data available to describe the condition, use, and performance of the state’s transportation system. However, although WSDOT is capturing data from many new sources, it is not using them to full benefit because the new data sets cannot be easily combined with each other or be integrated into WSDOT’s existing data systems. Those systems lack the capabilities to integrate third party data sets for analysis and the functions needed for real-time performance monitoring, quick operational decision support, and system-wide analysis. To address these issues, this project is expanding the Digital Roadway Interactive Visualization and Evaluation Network (DRIVE Net) system to include additional data sources and new, desirable analytical functions. These new capabilities will better support WSDOT’s tasks of freeway performance analyses, project prioritization and planning, operational strategy evaluation, traffic information dissemination, and real-time traffic management.

Principal Investigator: Yinhai Wang, Civil and Environmental Engineering, UW
Sponsor: WSDOT
WSDOT Technical Monitor: Bill Legg
WSDOT Project Manager: Doug Brodin
Scheduled completion: December 2016