University of Minnesota brings transportation research findings to 2026 TRB Annual Meeting

8:00–9:45 a.m. Eastern

Lectern Session 2011—Safer Winter Road Maintenance

• In-Vehicle Auditory Alerts During Snow Removal Operations: Preliminary Analysis and Guidelines; A. K. M. Ashikuzzaman, Curtis Craig, Nichole Morris

10:30 a.m.–12:15 p.m. Eastern

Lectern Session 2049—Land Use, Accessibility, and Policy: Tools and Evidence for Smarter Transportation Decisions

• Elements of Access Change: Travel Times and Land Use; Andrew Owen

Lectern Session 2051—Challenges and Solutions for Electric and Mixed Fleets

• Barriers to Local Government Electric Vehicle Fleet Transitions: Insights from Minnesota; Nastaran Tork, Kwangho Baek, Alireza Khani
• Planning Charging Infrastructure Network and Fleet Size for Mixed Fleets in Staged Electrification with Budget Constraints; Nastaran Tork, Behnam Davazdah Emami, Kwangho Baek, Alireza Khani

Poster Session 2074—Physics-Informed State Estimation for Traffic System Monitoring

• PMA-diffusion: A Physics-guided Mask-aware Diffusion Framework for Traffic State Estimation from Sparse Observations; Lindong Liu, Seongjin Choi

Poster Session 2081—Research in Transit Facilities and Infrastructure

• Multi-Fidelity Surrogate-Based Optimization for Passenger-Centric Bus Berth Allocation in Urban Transit Hubs; Seunghee Ryu, Seongjin Choi

Poster Session 2082—Research in Transit System Planning

• Supporting High-Speed Rail with a Hub-and-Shuttle Approach: Transforming Long-Haul Conventional Rails into Shuttle Services; Kwangho Baek

1:30–3:15 p.m. Eastern

Poster Session 2113—Sensing, Detection, and Perception for Intelligent Transportation

• Video-Based Vehicle Surveillance in the Wild: License Plate Make and Model Recognition with Self Reflective Vision-Language Models; Pouya Parsa, Seongjin Choi

4:00–5:45 p.m. Eastern

Lectern Session 2137—Travel Behavior in Flux: Insight from Surveys, Ridership, and Forecasting

• Longitudinal Analysis of Transit Rider Behavior Using AFC and Survey Data Fusion via Machine Learning: A COVID-19-Driven Commute Pattern Changes; Kwangho Baek, Alireza Khani

Poster Session 2158—AI and Machine Learning for Safer, Smarter Transportation

• A Gentle Introduction to Deep Generative Models in Transportation Research; Seongjin Choi

6:15–7:45 p.m. Eastern

Poster Session 2170—The Impact of Location, Infrastructure, Housing, and Social Factors on Community Travel Behavior and Access

• Transportation Changes Land Use: How the St. Croix Bridge Shaped Accessibility, Housing Values, and Travel Behavior; Matthew Hockert, Eric Lind

8:00–9:45 a.m. Eastern

Lectern Session 3002—Human Considerations for Level 4 Automated Vehicle Interactions and Mixed Fleet Operations

• Nichole Morris, presiding

Lectern Session 3003—Traffic Simulation: New Calibration Methods and Applications

• Deep Reinforcement Learning for Dynamic Origin-Destination Matrix Estimation in Microscopic Traffic Simulations Considering Credit Assignment; Seongjin Choi

Lectern Session 3007—AI and Machine Learning in Travel Demand Forecasting

• Transformative Impacts of Machine Learning Applications in Land Use-Travel Research; Xinyu Cao

Poster Session 3027—Intelligent Transportation Platforms for Data-Driven Operational Insights

• Comparative Performance Evaluation of Max Pressure Ramp Metering Algorithm with KAdaptive Algorithm on Real-World Freeway Networks in Minnesota; Arian Zare, Simanta Barman, Raphael Stern, Michael Levin

Poster Session 3029—Urban Accessibility and Infrastructure Resilience Frameworks for Assessment

• From Network-wide Resilience Assessment to Link-level Grading: An Integrated Framework for Urban Road Transportation Systems under Minor Disturbances; Lexing Zhang

Poster Session 3030—Modeling Traffic Speed and Network Performance Under Disruptive Events

• TrafficNetQA: Question Answering Benchmark for Evaluating LLM Performance on Traffic Network Files; Donghoon Kwon, Seongjin Choi
• Accuracy Comparison of Traffic Flow Models Against High-Resolution Vehicle Trajectory; Maziar Zamanpour, Amirhossein Kiani, Michael Levin, Raphael Stern

Poster Session 3163—Last-Mile and Behavioral Logistics

• Decoding Spatial Patterns, City Roles, and Community Structures in Intercity Express Delivery Network; Xinyu Cao

10:30 a.m.–12:15 p.m. Eastern

Poster Session 3068—Human Factors Research Medley 1

• Where Rubber Meets the Road: Evaluating the Influence of Stop Line Position on Driver Stopping Distances at Rural Stop-Controlled Intersections; Nichole Morris, Bradley Drahos, Katelyn Schwieters

1:30–3:15 p.m. Eastern

Poster Session 3116—Federated Spatiotemporal Prediction of Traffic Flow Patterns

• TrajFlow: A Generative Framework for Occupancy Density Estimation Using Normalizing Flows; Mitch Kosieradzki, Seongjin Choi

Poster Session 3118—Trajectory-Based Simulation for Evaluating Traffic and Driving Dynamics

• Human-Centric Reward Optimization for Reinforcement Learning-Based Automated Driving using Large Language Models; Yangfan He

Poster Session 3122—Eco-Driving and Energy Optimization Across Vehicle Technologies

• A Link Transmission Model of Eco-Approach AVs in Mixed Platoons to Predict the Impacts on Energy Consumption in City Networks; Maziar Zamanpour, Michael Levin

8:00–9:45 a.m. Eastern

Lectern Session 4014—Surface and Layer Improvements on Low Volume Roads

• Taconite Aggregate as an Enhanced Friction Surface Treatment (EFST) Alternative; Lawrence Zanko, Manik Barman, Mugurel Turos, Mihai Marasteanu, Matthew Aro

Poster Session 4027—Intersection Operations and Delay Reduction Using Advanced Signal Systems

• Phase-Aware Modeling of Autonomous Vehicle Behavior at Urban Signalized Intersections; Hwapyeong Yu

Poster Session 4028—Emerging Methods in Network Modeling and Optimization

• BO4Mob: Bayesian Optimization Benchmarks for High-Dimensional Urban Mobility Problem; Seunghee Ryu, Donghoon Kwon, Seongjin Choi, Aryan Deshwal
• Bi-Level Optimization of Detour Signage Placement Under Road Closures; Michael Levin

10:30 a.m.–12:15 p.m. Eastern

Poster Session 4057—Electric Vehicle Charging and Adoption: Infrastructure, Behavior, Policy

• Leveraging Time-of-Use Electricity Price to Manage Vehicle-to-Grid Activities of Electric Vehicles; Michael Levin
• An Exact Solution Algorithm for the Bi-Level Optimization Problem of Electric Vehicles Charging Station Placement; Mobina Nankali, Michael Levin

4:00–5:45 p.m. Eastern

Poster Session 4077—Enhancing Construction Aspects of Pavement Foundation

• Enhancing Aggregate Gradation of Base Layers to Mitigate Transverse Crack Tenting in Asphalt Pavements of Wet-Freeze Regions; Manik Chakraborty, Manik Barman, Chrysogonus Asante

Poster Session 4082—Accelerated Pavement Testing

• Using Long-Term Embedded Temperature Data and Spectral Analysis to Evaluate Performance Trends for Rigid Pavement; Zifeng Zhao, Joao Gabriel Da Costa De Souza Duarte, Mihai Marasteanu, Ketson Dos Santos

Poster Session 4083—Pavement Preservation

• Using Continuous Friction Measurement Technology to Measure Pavement Markings Friction Differential: A MnROAD Case Study; Mihai Marasteanu, Lawrence Zanko, Zifeng Zhao, Mugurel Turos

Poster Session 4086—Data-Driven Decision Support for Pavement Management

• Using Performance Curves to Evaluate Pavement Damage from Detours: A Case Study on CSAH 5 in Minnesota; Zifeng Zhao, Mihai Marasteanu, Mugurel Turos