UW WSU WSDOT




Freeway and Arterial Management

Approaches to Target Setting for PM3 Measures

With transportation performance management (TPM), transportation agencies use roadway performance information such as reliability and delay to help make investment and policy decisions to achieve transportation system performance goals. The purpose of this project was to provide examples of different options available to state departments of transportation and metropolitan planning organizations for setting the roadway performance targets required for performance management.

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Guidelines for Obtaining AADT Estimates from Non-traditional Sources

Passively collected traffic data from sources such as smart phones, vehicle transponders, and vehicle tracking devices have great potential to determine traffic volume information such as annual average daily traffic (AADT). This project developed a guide that contains a comprehensive technical checklist and data quality acceptance criteria that highway agencies can use to purchase or test traffic volume estimates such as AADT from private sector vendors that base those estimates on non-traditional data sources.

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Curb Allocation Change Project

Seattle has experienced a rapid increase in ride-hailing trips by transportation network companies (TNCs) such as Uber and Lyft. That increase has raised broad concerns about congestion, safety, and effective curb use. In response, this study evaluated a strategy of increasing passenger loading zone (PLZ) spaces to manage TNC driver stops and improve traffic flow when passengers are picked up and dropped off in the South Lake Union area of Seattle.

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I-405 Express Toll Lanes Analysis: Usage, Benefits, and Equity

This study examined how the I-405 express lanes—the Washington State Department of Transportation’s (WSDOT) newest dynamically tolled facility—are used, the benefits they provide to users, and how these benefits are distributed among different groups of noncommercial users. The project provided unique insight into facility usage patterns and equity impacts associated with different income and geographic groups.

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Coordinated Incident and Congestion Management: Mitigating Impacts of Major Traffic Incidents in the Seattle I-5 Corridor

Within the Seattle major metropolitan area, multi-jurisdictional and coordinated traffic incident management (TIM) operations detect, respond to, and clear traffic incidents to restore traffic flow quickly and safely. However, there is a need to extend TIM operations to include congestion management (CM), which involves managing incident-generated congestion and mitigating regional impacts after an incident has been cleared. This project identified challenges and opportunities for enhancing regional TIM by including the management of major incidents along the Seattle I-5 corridor, supported by innovative technologies.

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Traffic Monitoring Practices Guide for Canadian Provinces and Municipalities

The Traffic Monitoring Practices Guide for Canadian Provinces and Municipalities provides the first national-level guidance on the planning, design, and implementation of traffic monitoring programs for Canadian provinces and municipalities. The Guide will assist agencies with upgrading their traffic monitoring programs and may ultimately culminate in more consistent, nationally relevant guidance for monitoring traffic.

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Digital Roadway Interactive Visualization and Evaluation Network Applications to WSDOT Operational Data Usage

Researchers made improvements to the data fusion techniques and database design of an online system called the WSDOT Digital Roadway Interactive Visualization and Evaluation Network (DRIVE Net). DRIVE Net is a region-wide, web-based transportation decision support system that, using digital roadway maps as its base, provides layers for integrating and analyzing roadway data from a variety of sources and serves as a practical tool for visualizing historical observations in both space and time. With its ability to support complex analytics and decision-making for a large-scale transportation network, the system is expected to be of great practical use for both traffic engineers and researchers.

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NCHRP 20-07, Task 366: Accessing Information about Transportation Systems Management and Operations Performance Measurement

Growing emphasis on system performance measurement and management is encouraging state departments of transportation to develop effective performance measures and performance monitoring practices. Unfortunately, transportation systems management and operations (TSMO) staff face significant challenges in trying to gain access to the rapidly expanding body of information about agencies’ research on and evaluations of TSMO performance measurement and monitoring. These practitioners risk duplicating previous work, adopting measures and practices that others have found to be inappropriate, or both. In response, this project surveyed the current state of practice in TSMO performance measurement and monitoring and developed a user-friendly tool to assist TSMO professionals in finding and retrieving topic-specific information about current practice.

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Evaluation of the Effects of Changing to Continuous Access HOT Lanes on SR 167

In August 2014, WSDOT changed the access controls for the high occupancy toll (HOT) lanes on State Route (SR) 167. The lanes were initially designed and implemented with restricted access, but since August 23, 2014, free access has been allowed into and out of the HOT lane. To look at the effects of that change, researchers examined the performance of the corridor, including both the HOT lanes and the parallel general purpose lanes, and the volumes of use and travel times. They also examined the amount of revenue collected, the amount of toll evasion occurring, collision frequency and severity, and impacts on customer attitudes and transit operations.

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