Safety and Security

Safety and Security

Using Lighting to Alter Driver Behavior

Safety and traffic flow issues are related to drivers selecting inappropriate speeds when driving. For example, at some curved interchange exit ramps, drivers may go too fast, increasing the risk of rollover crashes, especially for heavy trucks. At other locations, perceived 'bottlenecks' in roadway geometry may cause some drivers to slow down more than is appropriate, resulting in variations among vehicle speeds, and increasing the likelihood of traffic congestion, delays and rear-end crashes.

Protection Technologies for Bridges Against Overheight Impacts

Impact by overheight trucks on highways bridges has been identified to be a serious problem by numerous studies in the past, including a detailed study by the PI in 2011.  Most of the countermeasures for preventing impact of trucks on bridges utilize monitoring for truck heights to warn truck drivers.  However, despite these systems being installed, bridges are still being impacted and some bridges suffer serious damage, particularly to fascia girders and decks.  

Connected and autonomous systems Safety and security

Safety and traffic flow issues are related to drivers selecting inappropriate speeds when driving. For example, at some curved interchange exit ramps, drivers may go too fast, increasing the risk of rollover crashes, especially for heavy trucks. At other locations, perceived 'bottlenecks' in roadway geometry may cause some drivers to slow down more than is appropriate, resulting in variations among vehicle speeds, and increasing the likelihood of traffic congestion, delays and rear-end crashes.

Dr. Alain Kornhauser

Dr. Alain Kornhauser is Professor of Operations Research & Financial Engineering at Princeton University. He studied Aerospace Engineering at Penn State earning a BS and MS and Princeton, earning a PhD. In 1971 he joined the Aerospace Engineering faculty at U of Minnesota where he applied automation, network analysis and optimal control to the design of Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) Systems. He returned to Princeton in 1972 extending his pivotal work to more conventional forms of transportation. In 1979 he founded ALK Technologies, Inc.

Performance Evaluation of Asphalt Mixtures Statewide

Currently, asphalt mixtures are design using volumetric concepts to determine optimum asphalt content levels with no means of verifying mixture performance prior to field production and placement. A new design methodology called Balanced Mixture Design (BMD) promotes the use of evaluating and design asphalt mixture using rutting and fatigue cracking methods and criteria to achieve an optimum asphalt content that will result in an asphalt mixture performing well in rutting and fatigue cracking scenarios – thereby “balancing” the asphalt mixture performance.

On-Road Energy Harvesting for Traffic Monitoring

The highway transportation plays a very significant role in the nationwide economy and society development, including in UTRC2 area. For the routine traffic management and future planning of the highway infrastructure and other transport systems associated with it, a reliable traffic monitoring system is highly needed along the highways. Inductive loop is the most widely used method for the real-time traffic information nowadays. However, the cost-effective, convenient and reliable power supply needed for the traffic monitoring system is still a big challenge.

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