All posts by trac

Data-Driven Assessment of Post-Earthquake Bridge Functionality and Regional Mobility

The performance of bridges in an earthquake is critical to the mobility of nearly all transportation modes after the event. Damage to bridges near critical facilities, such as airports and ports, can also limit the contributions of those facilities to the post-event mobility of people and freight. Consequently, local, state, and federal engineers and emergency managers need reliable estimates of post-event bridge functionality so that they can plan pre-event mitigation, post-event response and mobility, and long-term recovery. The goal of this project is to predict the post-earthquake functionality of the approximately 10,000 bridges in Oregon and Washington following a Cascadia Subduction Zone (CSZ) magnitude-9.0 earthquake. The project will also evaluate the likelihood that crucial highway lifeline corridors will be available to support post-earthquake mobility. Key results from this project will include a database of bridge performance metrics for 100,000 simulated cases of bridge and intensity measures, and maps that show probable bridge functionality and re-opening times following CSZ earthquakes. These maps will enable WSDOT and ODOT to plan and make informed decisions about post-earthquake emergency routes.

Principal Investigators:
Christopher Motter, Civil and Environmental Engineering, WSU
Adam Phillips, Civil and Environmental Engineering, WSU
Marc Eberhard, Civil and Environmental Engineering, UW
Jeffrey Berman, Civil and Environmental Engineering, UW
Brett Maurer, Civil and Environmental Engineering, UW

Sponsor: PacTrans
Scheduled completion: August 2022

An Innovative Approach to Enhance Self-Healing in Cementitiously Stabilized Soils and Mitigate Shrinkage Cracking

Although cementitious stabilization of soils offers great advantages, such as the beneficial use of on-site inferior materials and waste by-products (fly ash, kiln dust), the approach also causes material shrinkage and subsequent cracking, which limit its widespread use. This study is investigating an innovative approach that combines the self-healing effects of bacterial spores with a method of mixing the material that involves sequential hydration. The use of bacterial microcapsules has been shown to encourage self-healing of cracking in cementitious materials. Sequential hydration is an approach in which less than optimal moisture is first added to a mix for partial hydration. The partially hydrated mixture develops initial strength but exhibits low shrinkage and cracking. With a second addition of moisture, the mixture develops higher strength but also less final shrinkage strain and stress. Mixes containing bacterial microcapsules that enhance self-healing are expected to benefit immensely from sequential hydration, and that combination may produce a novel process for developing cementitious stabilization of soils with high strength and low shrinkage cracking.

Principal Investigator: Balasingam Muhunthan, Civil and Environmental Engineering, WSU
Sponsors: TriDurLE and WSDOT
Scheduled completion: September 2023

WSDOT/UW Intern Program—Traffic Management Center

The WSDOT’s Northwest Region operates a Traffic Management Center (TMC) in its regional headquarters in north Seattle. This center manages the freeway systems in central Puget Sound by controlling ramp meters, identifying incidents with closed-circuit televisions cameras, and informing the traveling public in real time. With this effort, the Pacific Northwest Transportation Consortium (PacTrans) and WSDOT are cooperatively providing professional experience, training, and research opportunities to students from the UW’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at WSDOT’s TMC and other WSDOT facilities. Under the supervision of WSDOT engineers, students operate the FLOW system and perform various tasks such as operating the SR 167 HOT Lanes, I-90 variable speed limits, I-5 active traffic management, centralized traffic signal control, variable messages signs, and ramp meter optimization. This arrangement helps WSDOT reliably staff the TMC without increasing costs while also helping UW students prepare for a future in transportation engineering.

Principle Investigator: Yinhai Wang, Civil and Environmental Engineering, UW
Sponsor: WSDOT
WSDOT Technical Monitor: Sayuri Koyamatsu
WSDOT Project Manager: Doug Brodin
Scheduled completion: June 2023

WSDOT/UW Intern Program—Tolling Division

For the past nine years, the UW has supported two undergraduate or graduate students in the UW Civil and Environmental Engineering Transportation Program each school year to provide analytical support to the WSDOT Toll Division. Under the supervision of WSDOT engineers, these students assist in collecting, storing, and processing data related to the operation of the WSDOT Toll Facilities. Students prepare analyses and conduct necessary research to assist WSDOT engineers and draft reports and presentations related to facility operation. Students participating in this intern training receive invaluable practical experience while studying at the UW.

Principle Investigator: Yinhai Wang, Civil and Environmental Engineering, UW
Sponsors: WSDOT, PacTrans
WSDOT Technical Monitor: Tyler Patterson
WSDOT Project Manager: Doug Brodin
Scheduled completion: June 2021

Real-Time Truck Parking Information Integration, Visualization, and Prediction

With a strong correlation between increased truck driving hours and fatigue-related crashes, rest breaks for freight trucks are important for safety. However, the numbers of truck parking spaces at freeway rest areas cannot meet the increasing demand for parking. The goal of this project is to provide real-time and predicted short-term truck parking space information to truck drivers through a web service and as a mobile application. Parking availability will be predicted with the use of comprehensive historical truck parking space data. To assess truck parking detection accuracy, extra parking detection roadway stickers or other devices will be installed near the tested parking slots. The applications and their supporting algorithms should improve the ability of truckers to efficiently find and schedule truck parking and enhance the robustness of the entire freight mobility system. 

Principal Investigator: Yinhai Wang, Civil and Environmental Engineering UW
Sponsor: WSDOT
WSDOT Technical Monitor: Karthik Murthy
WSDOT Project Manager: Doug Brodin
Scheduled completion: December 2021

Characterization of Seattle’s Commercial Traffic Patterns: A Greater Downtown Area and Ballard/Interbay Vehicle Count and Evaluation

This project was designed to deliver crucial granular baseline data on commercial vehicle movements in key areas of Seattle to help city transportation professionals plan for increasing goods movement and service activities. It produced Seattle’s first complete estimate of Greater Downtown area traffic volumes, and it offered a detailed analysis of commercial vehicle traffic in and around one of the city’s major industrial centers, the Ballard-Interbay Northern Manufacturing Industrial Center. In doing so, it produced a critical snapshot of the detailed data needed for effective policy and planning, potentially informing everything from road maintenance and traffic signals to electric vehicle charging station sites and possible proposals for congestion pricing.

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Promises of Data from Emerging Technologies for Transportation Applications: PSRC Case Study, Planned Continuation and Expansion of Phase II

Emerging technologies such as automated vehicles, advanced data analytics and machine learning, and on-demand ride services will not only fundamentally alter the transportation landscape but will provide new data that can be used for transportation planning and analysis. This project is examining the properties of these new data and identifying potential applications. Phase I developed a preliminary framework for integrating emerging and conventional data from diverse sources. Using the Seattle SR 99 Tunnel Tolling Project as a case study, Phase II began to demonstrate the value of emerging big data (more specifically, app-based data) and their fusion with data from other, conventional sources in evaluating a project’s impact on transportation system performance and in answering critical and time-sensitive planning and policy-related questions. This continuation of Phase II will focus on investigating other potential future data sources, such as transportation network companies, insurance providers, and automakers, and on sharing methodologies created for data processing, origin/destination estimation, and validation. The researchers will make all work open source in order to help state, regional, and local agencies better coordinate among agencies and with data providers.

Principal Investigators:
Jeff Ban, Civil and Environmental Engineering, UW
Cynthia Chen, Civil and Environmental Engineering, UW

Sponsor: WSDOT
WSDOT Technical Monitor: Natarajan Janarthanan
WSDOT Project Manager: Doug Brodin
Scheduled completion: December 2023

Data-Driven Simulation Tool for Dynamic Curb Planning and Management

Curbs are a critical layer at which people and goods join and leave the transportation network. Traditionally, curb spaces have been statically supplied, priced, and zoned for specific uses, such as commercial or passenger loading, or bus stops. However, in response to the growing demand for curb space, some cities are being more intentional about defining curb usage. This heightened demand and changing expectations for finite curb resources requires the implementation of real-time curb management capabilities to improve occupancy and throughput and decrease traffic disruption caused by cruising for parking and space maneuvering. The Department of Energy’s Vehicle Technologies Office has funded the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory to develop a city-scale, dynamic curb use simulation tool and an open-source curb management platform. The simulation and management capabilities will include dynamically and concurrently controlling price, number of spaces, allowed parking duration, time of sale or reservation, and curb space use type. A microscale curb simulator will simulate the activities of individual vehicles transferring goods and people at the curb at the city block-face level. This project will examine new methods for dynamically reallocating curb space throughout the day and will provide this capability to city and commercial partners through a demonstration.

Principal Investigator: Andisheh Ranjbari, Civil and Environmental Engineering, UW
Sponsor: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Scheduled completion: September 2023

Community Engagement Support for the Highway System Plan Update

WSDOT is updating the state’s Highway System Plan (HSP). The HSP is the state highway component of the Washington Transportation Plan, which outlines the policies adopted by the Washington State Transportation Commission. The HSP serves as the basis for the six-year highway program and the two-year biennial budget request to the State Legislature. Because the COVID-19 pandemic is limiting in-person communication with the state’s residents, business owners, and public decision makers, WSDOT is looking for non-traditional ways to increase public and community engagement in the plan’s update. The objective of this project is to develop an easily deployed tool that will allow WSDOT to increase its communication with citizens around the state. The tool will allow WSDOT to interact with a variety of communities via a discrete choice survey, which the project will conduct. It will focus on aspects of the HSP such as preservation and maintenance, systems operations and management, the physical condition of the system, and focused capacity expansion, as well as their related budget impacts and effects on system performance, safety, access for diverse users and uses, the road system’s impact on climate change, and availability of natural resources. In updating the HSP, WSDOT is particularly interested in increasing the participation of populations such as communities of color, low-income communities, people with limited English proficiency, and people with disabilities to improve the equity of the resulting plan.

Principal Investigator: Mark E. Hallenbeck, Washington State Transportation Center, UW
Sponsor: WSDOT
WSDOT Technical Monitor: Jeremy Jewkes
WSDOT Project Manager: Jon Peterson
Scheduled completion: December 2021

An Innovative Internet of Things (IoT) Technology for Comprehensive Traffic Sensing and V2X Applications

Roadway safety can be significantly improved with real-time collection of traffic, roadway surface condition, and environmental condition data and the efficient broadcasting of that information to road users. The UW’s Smart Transportation Applications and Research Laboratory (UW STAR Lab) has developed the Mobile Unit for Sensing Traffic (MUST), which can be used for real-time traffic and environmental sensing, data collection, vehicle-to-everything (V2X) applications, roadway monitoring, and infrastructure security. MUST is able to collect real-time transportation-related data, such as travel times, speeds, traffic volumes, vehicle types, pedestrian flows, and roadway surface and weather conditions. Taking advantage of AI technology, MUST can detect moving objects promptly without the need for high bandwidth communication support. In addition, MUST can be configured as a road-side unit for connected vehicle and other smart transportation applications, This project will install MUST sensors along four roadways in Lynnwood and Bellevue, Washington, to demonstrate their data collection, condition assessment, and V2X application capabilities. This project will also investigate the most cost-effective way for MUST sensors to transmit their data to transportation agencies and to broadcast real-time information to road users through various channels. The goal is to establish a standard procedure for state transportation agencies to follow in deploying MUST sensors to improve roadway safety.

Principal Investigator: Yinhai Wang, Civil and Environmental Engineering, UW
Sponsor: WSDOT
WSDOT Technical Monitor: Matt Neeley
WSDOT Project Manager: Doug Brodin
Scheduled completion: December 2023