Publications

Summary:
Estimating the safety effects of emerging or future technology based on expert acquisitions is challenging because the accumulated judgment is at risk of being biased and imprecise. Therefore, this semiquantitative study proposes and demonstrates an upgraded bowtie analysis for safety effect assessments that can be performed without the need for expert acquisition. While bowtie analysis is commonly used in, for example, process engineering, it is novel in road traffic safety.

Summary:
Global positioning system (GPS) devices that are installed in trucks and used for fleet management are increasingly common. Raw data from these devices present an opportunity for public agencies to use these trucks as probe vehicles to better monitor roadway operations and to quantify transportation system efficiency.

Summary:
Electronic door seals (E-seals) were tested on shipping containers that traveled through ports, over borders, and on roadways. The findings showed that using these RFID devices could increase supply chain efficiency and improve the security of containerized cargo movements, particularly when E-seals replace common mechanical seals. Before the benefits of E-seals can be realized, several barriers must be addressed.

Summary:
The Norwegian Public Roads Administration (NPRA) completed an evaluation of Unmanned Aircraft Systems’ (UAS) ability to operate in winter weather and in mountainous terrain in support of snow avalanche monitoring. Vendors flew nine multi-rotor, rotary-wing, and fixed wing aircraft on four increasingly difficult missions ranging from flights over a nearby road and bridge to a 2.3 kilometer flight to a 1300 meter mountain to inspect avalanche features.

Summary:
There is growing pressure in cities to unlock the potential of every public infrastructure element as density and demand for urban resources increase. Despite their historical role as providing access to land uses for freight and servicing, alleys have not been studied as a resource in modern freight access planning. The authors developed a replicable data collection method to build and maintain an alley inventory and operations study focused on commercial vehicles.

Summary:
As congestion increases, transportation agencies are seeking regional travel time data to determine exactly when, how, and where congestion affects freight mobility. Concurrently, a number of regional intelligent transportation systems (ITS) are incorporating various technologies to improve transportation system efficiency. This research explored the ability of these ITS devices to be used as tools for developing useful historical, and perhaps real-time, traffic flow information.

Summary:
This paper presents a systematic methodology for identifying and ranking bottlenecks using probe data collected by commercial GPS fleet management devices. This methodology is based on the hypotheses that truck speed distributions can be represented by either a unimodal or bimodal probability density function, and it proposes a new reliability measure for evaluating roadway performance.

Summary:
The Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT), Transportation Northwest at the University of Washington (UW), and the Washington Trucking Associations (WTA) have partnered on a research effort to collect and analyze global positioning systems (GPS) truck data from commercial, invehicle, truck fleet management systems. This effort was funded by the Washington State Legislature, and its purpose is to develop a statewide freight performance measures program for use by WSDOT.

Summary:
This study reviews the impact of public transit network layout (TNL) on resident mode choice. The review of TNL as a factor uses variables divided into three groups: a variable set without considering the TNL, one considering TNL from the zone level, and one considering TNL from the individual level. Using Baoding’s travel survey data, a Multinomial Logit (MNL) model is used, and the parameter estimation result shows that TNL has significant effect on resident mode choice. Based on parameter...

Summary:
A series of field operational tests completed by Washington State over a 10-year period has shown that electronic container door seals (E-seals) can increase the efficiency and improve the security of containerized cargo movement. Universal use of E-seals, along with the associated infrastructure, could provide notable improvements in security, container tracking, and transaction cost reductions.

Summary:
This report documents the development of data collection methodologies that can be used to cost effectively measure truck movements along specific roadway corridors selected by transportation agencies in Washington State.

Summary:
This report assesses the feasibility of a public use bike-share system for Seattle, Washington. Colloquially referred to as “bike-share” or “bike-sharing,” such systems are considered a form of public transportation. Bike-share bicycles are intended for short-term use and are accessible via automated check-out systems.

Summary:
This report examines the relationship between Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) and safety from an urban perspective. Existing urban ITS systems are either system-level or site-level applications. System-level ITS, such as freeway management systems or traffic signal networks, address safety concerns only indirectly. These systems are designed to improve traffic flows and thus indirectly reduce collisions caused by congestion.

Summary:
A factor that influences transit ridership but has not received much attention from researchers is weather. This paper examines the effects of weather on bus ridership in Pierce County, Washington, for the years 2006–2008. Separate ordinary least squares regression models were estimated for each season, as weather conditions may have different effects depending on the time of year. Four weather variables were considered: wind, temperature, rain, and snow.

Summary:
Quantifying the relationship between the number and types of truck trips generated by different land uses provides information useful for traffic demand analyses, forecasting models, and a general understanding of the factors that affect truck mobility. This project evaluated data collection methodologies for determining truck trip generation rates by studying a specific kind of establishment.