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Current Issue | Previous Issues | Subscribe January 2007 - Vol. 5 No. 1

Policy & Planning

Study explores 'hidden' transportation system

More than 3,000 organizations in Minnesota provide some form of transportation for their clients—and most of these organizations are not formally regulated by the state as transportation providers, say University of Minnesota researchers.

The findings are the result of a survey conducted by Gary Barnes and Heather Dolphin, researchers with the University’s Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs. From November 2004 through April 2005, they surveyed organizations throughout Minnesota that work with clients who cannot drive their own cars. Their goal was to learn about the types of organizations that provide or use transportation services for disadvantaged populations, and to use the information to improve coordination of these services.

According to the researchers, the survey shows that the true size of the specialized transportation system is far larger than the formal network known to transportation funders and regulators. Among the large survey sample of a wide range of organizations, about 65 percent reported being involved in their clients’ transportation. Transit agencies—the chief focus of discussions about improving community transportation—are a small minority of transit providers; the largest number of organizations providing or arranging transportation for their clients include churches, nursing homes, and social service agencies. “If you don’t think of these other places, then you’re leaving out 75 percent of your potential [coordination] participants,” Barnes says. “These organizations are not looking outside of their own missions, so they are generally not coordinating services,” he adds. “The downside is that a lot of them are funded privately, so the state doesn’t have much leverage in getting them to coordinate.”

One problem with involving more agencies in a coordinated system is that in many cases their vehicles are used for multiple purposes, not just passenger transportation, Barnes noted. “So many of these vehicles might not really be available for use in a coordinated system, even if the agencies were willing. But the very large number of organizations involved in transportation indicates that working to include more of them in the transit planning process might be beneficial.”

Complete results of the study are discussed in a report titled An Exploratory Survey of Potential Community Transportation Providers and Users (CTS 06-08), available on the CTS Web site. For more information about community transportation, visit the University of Minnesota’s Community Transportation Web site.

Safety & Security

Researchers discuss new findings at Toward Zero Deaths Conference

“If we really want a big push in traffic safety, we must concede that it will cost society. If we are serious about making a significant improvement in safety, we need to think outside of the box, relax our political barriers, modify our safety culture, and accept the costs.” That was the perspective of Nic Ward, director of the University of Minnesota’s HumanFIRST transportation research program, at the 2006 Toward Zero Deaths conference November 2 and 3 in Duluth, Minnesota.

Ward was one of several University of Minnesota faculty members and researchers who presented new findings in safety research to the attendees of the annual conference. Other presenters included Max Donath, director of the Intelligent Transportation Systems Institute, and human-factors researchers Kathleen Harder and Janet Creaser.

The Minnesota Toward Zero Deaths (TZD) program is a multiagency partnership that includes representatives from the Minnesota Department of Transportation, Minnesota Department of Public Safety, Minnesota State Patrol, Federal Highway Administration, and the Center for Transportation Studies at the University of Minnesota. The ambitious goal of this program is to move toward zero deaths on Minnesota roads, using each of the “four Es” of traffic safety: education, enforcement, engineering, and emergency trauma care.

Ward highlighted some possible avenues for intervention to change people’s attitudes toward safety, including social approaches based on family and community, and technological approaches such as cameras to detect speeding and red-light running. Ultimately, he noted, improving safety may require citizens to weigh the societal costs of traffic fatalities and injuries against a traditional aversion to policies and technologies that are seen as infringing on individual freedoms.

Kathleen Harder spoke about her work with fellow human-factors researcher John Bloomfield evaluating the results of Minnesota’s Highway Enforcement of Aggressive Traffic (HEAT) Program. In a year-long federally funded effort, HEAT targeted a number of zones throughout the state with increased enforcement and education efforts. Harder and Bloomfield used speed data gathered by automated traffic detectors inside and outside enforcement zones to look for changes in driver behavior.

“We have found massively statistically significant effects,” Harder said about the study findings. “This program has impacted individuals in their cars in a real way. While we could just say that the program worked, we have the data to back it up.” In addition to reductions in speeding, Harder said, the number of crashes also declined during the study period relative to the previous five-year average. HEAT will continue in 2007 with additional federal funding.

Janet Creaser analyzed the effects of the state’s Nighttime Concentrated Alcohol Patrol (NightCAP) program. Creaser and her team found that increasing the number of “saturation” enforcement actions in a given year resulted in a marginally significant decrease in the fatal alcohol-related crash rate. This seems to indicate that a large number of saturations are probably required to see significant decreases in the fatal alcohol-related crash rate. Overall, this analysis suggests that to increase deterrence, both visible enforcement and appropriate advertising is needed, and since funding is limited, targeted enforcement seems to be the best option for now.

ITS Institute director Max Donath highlighted emerging technologies, such as rural intersection decision support (IDS) systems, that may reduce intersection fatalities. The Institute’s IDS research focuses on giving drivers better information about gaps between vehicles when crossing a rural highway; the goal of the system is to reduce crashes without introducing traffic signals.

Minnesota is currently demonstrating an infrastructure-based rural intersection collision-avoidance system and is leading an eight-state, pooled-fund demonstration to note the differences in application across varying geographies and driving characteristics.

Intelligent Transportation Systems

Minnesota researchers join Cooperative Intersection Collision Avoidance Systems initiative

The Minnesota Department of Transportation and the Intelligent Transportation Systems Institute have been selected by the U.S. Department of Transportation to participate in the Cooperative Intersection Collision Avoidance Systems (CICAS) research initiative. ITS Institute director Max Donath and Intelligent Vehicles Laboratory director Craig Shankwitz recently announced the signing of a cooperative agreement outlining the roles of Mn/DOT, the ITS Institute’s Intelligent Vehicles Laboratory, and the HumanFIRST Program in supporting the innovative and ambitious safety research effort.

CICAS brings together federal agencies, automobile manufacturers, and university transportation centers with the goal of developing new technologies to prevent collisions that kill thousands of Americans and injure more than one million more every year. Donath said that the effort put forth by the ITS Institute will focus on the prevention of crashes at rural highway intersections. This work is a direct outgrowth of the Institute’s Intersection Decision Support (IDS) research, which over the past two years has developed a new approach to preventing collisions at rural highway intersections.

In the past two years, IDS research has accomplished several important research goals that will contribute to CICAS research, including:

• developing advanced traffic sensor networks,
• developing an advanced vehicle trajectory measurement and recording system,
• studying driver gap acceptance behavior on a microscopic level using traffic simulation,
• testing new active displays in a driving simulator to determine what information a driver needs to safely maneuver through rural unsignalized intersections. 

The Institute is currently working with a consortium of other state departments of transportation in a complementary project to better characterize driver gap acceptance behavior on a national basis.

The US DOT describes CICAS as a “cooperative” system, meaning it integrates data from both vehicle-based and infrastructure-based sensing systems via the newly allocated Dedicated Short-Range Communications portion of the radio spectrum. Warning display systems using this data are to be developed for both in-vehicle and outside-the-vehicle placement.

Minnesota’s CICAS research, expected to last five years, will focus on infrastructure-based solutions, and include four main components:

1. A microscopic, in-vehicle measurement of driver gap acceptance at an instrumented intersection
2. Alert and warning algorithms to be used to appropriately inform drivers in a timely fashion of dangerous conditions
3. A deployable sensor system used both to compute the dynamic “state” of the intersection, and to feed the alert and warning algorithms necessary data
4. A field validation and subsequent field operational test to quantify the performance and safety benefits of such systems

For more information on the Intersection Decision Support research program, visit www.its.umn.edu/research/applications/ids/.

Transportation Infrastructure

CE names associate director of Pavement Research Institute

Derek Tompkins has been appointed associate director of the Pavement Research Institute (PRI), a joint program of the Department of Civil Engineering and CTS.

Tompkins reports to the director of the institute, Michael Darter (see November CTS Report).

Tompkins is a doctoral candidate in civil engineering at the University of Minnesota, advised by Professor Lev Khazanovich. His current research projects include a review of the first ten years of the MnROAD pavement research program; an analysis of dowel performance in jointed pavements using MinneALF, an accelerated loading facility; and his thesis project modeling early-age effects in concrete slabs.

In his new role, Tompkins will collaborate with faculty, staff, and funding organizations to strengthen materials and pavement research, covering topics ranging from pavement mechanics to the characterization of pavement materials.

Transportation & the Environment

Flexible models help select erosion control measures for construction sites

Sediment runoff from construction sites is a significant contributor to groundwater contamination, so effective sediment control plans are required to reduce the potential environmental impact of construction activities. But with numerous control measures available, choosing the appropriate solutions for a particular project can be a challenge.

Led by Professor Bruce Wilson, a research team in the Department of Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering has developed a tool to help planners assess erosion risk at construction sites. The tool is designed to assist in making decisions about which measures are most appropriate for a project. The research results are described in a new report by Wilson, research associate Aleksey Sheshukov, and graduate student Reid Pulley.

The tool is based on a model developed by the researchers: the Watershed Assessment Tool for Environment Risk (WATER). An important component of this model is the prediction of daily weather and storm characteristics, a function which in turn relies on a sub-module known as WINDS, or Weather Input for Nonpoint Data Simulations. Using data from a nationwide network of climate and precipitation stations, the system allows users to incorporate weather patterns into analysis of typical conditions at construction sites.

The tool combines weather data on processes such as surface runoff, plant growth, evapotranspiration, and erosion to predict sediment losses. Recognizing that there is no single best modeling approach for all sites, the system allows users to select from a variety of modeling algorithms for most of the processes; the algorithms range from largely empirical to fundamental process-based models.

Erosion Risk Assessment Tool for Construction Sites (Mn/DOT 2006-27) is available from the CTS Web site. Additional information on Wilson’s research appeared in the January 2005 issue of the Research E-News.

Transit & Alternative Modes

TCRP research publications available online

The federal Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP), administered by the Transportation Research Board, provides practical transit research to address technical and operational issues. TCRP emphasizes putting research results into the hands of organizations and individuals that can use them to solve problems.

Recent TCRP publications include:

• Center Truck Performance on Low-Floor Light Rail Vehicles (TCRP Report 114)
• Bus Transit Service in Land Development Planning (TCRP Synthesis 67)
• Fixed-Route Transit Ridership Forecasting and Service Planning Methods (TCRP Synthesis 66)

Journal of Public Transportation

The Journal of Public Transportation, Vol. 9, No. 5, 2006, published by the National Center for Transit Research at the University of South Florida, includes these articles, available at www.nctr.usf.edu:

• Modeling Bus Priority Using Intermodal Dynamic Network Assignment-Simulation Methodology
• Slugging in Houston—Casual Carpool Passenger Characteristics
• Office Development, Rail Transit, and Commuting Choices
• Predicting the Impact of Demand- and Supply-Side Measures on Bus Ridership in Putrajaya, Malaysia
• Smart Bicycles in an Urban Area: Evaluation of a Pilot Scheme in London
• Development, Evaluation, and Selection of Advanced Transit Signal Priority Concept Directions

Announcements

University of Minnesota, Mn/DOT, Metropolitan Council presenters at TRB Annual Meeting

Transportation system planning, emergency evacuation, traffic simulation, and pavement design will be among the topics covered by presenters from the University of Minnesota, the Metropolitan Council, and the Minnesota Department of Transportation at the Transportation Research Board’s 86th annual meeting, January 21–25, 2007.

University of Minnesota faculty, researchers, and graduate students will be represented at a variety of panels and poster sessions throughout the five-day event in Washington, D.C., that brings together researchers, students, and professionals from around the world.

For a complete list of presentation topics and session times for U of M, Mn/DOT, and Met Council presenters, download the Minnesota Guide to TRB Annual Meeting Presentations (834 KB PDF).

University of Minnesota faculty, staff, and students will include:

CTS Staff:
Chen-Fu Liao, Ted Morris

Mechanical Engineering:
Pi-Ming Cheng, Max Donath, Alec Gorjestani, Arvind Menon, Bryan Newstrom,
Craig Shankwitz

HumanFIRST Program:
Janet Creaser, Nic Ward

Civil Engineering (faculty and researchers):
Gary Davis, Ahmed El-Geneidy, Lev Khazanovich, Joseph Labuz, David Levinson, Henry Liu, Mihai Marasteanu, Panos Michalopoulos, Rania Wasfi, Feng Xie

Civil Engineering (graduate students):
Xiaozheng He, Saif Jabari, Woosung Kim, Xinjun Li, Wenteng Ma, Raul Andres Velasquez, Qiang Wang, Thomas Westover, Ryan D. Wilson, Xinkai Wu, Wu-Ping Xin, Shanjiang Zhu, Adam Zofka

Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs:
Michael Iacono, Adam Kokotovich, Kevin Krizek, Lee Munnich, Kristin B. Thompson,
Elizabeth J. Wilson

University of Minnesota, Morris – Division of Social Science:
Stephen V. Burks

Northland Advanced Transportation Systems Research Laboratories (NATSRL):
Eil Kwon

Upcoming Events

Here are selected events related to transportation research. Visit the CTS Web site, www.cts.umn.edu/events, for more comprehensive event information. You may also subscribe to e-mail event announcements using our subscription form.

February 8, 2007
CTS Winter Luncheon with Bruce Simons-Morton, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Contact Electra Sylva, 612-624-3708, conferences5@cce.umn.edu. More

March 1, 2007
Transportation Career Expo, Minneapolis. Contact Mindy Carlson, 612-625-1813, carlson@cts.umn.edu. More

May 1-2, 2007
18th Annual CTS Transportation Research Conference, RiverCentre, St. Paul. Contact Electra Sylva, 612-624-3708, conferences5@cce.umn.edu. More