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UTRC Research News is published bi-monthly by the Region 2 University Transportation Research Center, a 12-university consortium serving New Jersey, New York, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. UTRC is supported by a grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation and is based at the City University of New York. | |
In this issue: | |
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Director's Message
Robert "Buz" Paaswell, Ph.D. |
2006 has been a busy, eventful year for the UTRC family. We have again been designated by USDOT as the Region 2 (NY, NJ, PR, VI)
University Transportation Center. With an expanded budget, we have begun an extended set of activities, including a program to stimulate innovative research by emerging scholars, new associations with high tech organizations, and an emphasis on moving research from result to implementation. We will report on the successes of these programs in forthcoming newsletters and seminars. I want to thank all of the many faculty, students, staff and agency colleagues who have worked so hard for UTRC in achieving this measure of success. May you all have a healthy and rewarding New Year.
R Paaswell |
UTRC Welcomes New Employee
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Melissa Budsock has joined the UTRC staff as our new Communications and Outreach Coordinator. She will help the UTRC Consortium with its publications, media relations and event/meeting coordination.
Ms. Budsock has a Marketing background with a degree from Kean University and as been working on New Jersey Transit's Access to The Region's Core (ARC) Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS).
Ms. Budsock has facilitated and planned many public events and meetings to gain public support for the project.
One of Ms. Budsock’s many goals as the new Communications and Outreach Coordinator is to get the public involved and excited about the work being done at UTRC. She looks forward to working with the Consortium.
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Sander named MTA Executive Director | |
New York State Governor- elect Eliot Spitzer recommended Elliot (Lee) Sander for appointment as the executive director and chief executive officer of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Sander is the corporate senior vice president at DMJM Harris, a transporation engineering firm, and director of the Rudin Center for Transportation Policy and Management at NYU. Sander is also the former transportation commissioner for New York City and an active participant in UTRC. Congratulations Lee!
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New Book: The Geography of Transport Systems |
 Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue, Associate Professor of Geography at Hofstra University, recently completed a new textbook, The Geography of Transport Systems, with co-authors
Claude Comtois
(Universite de Montreal) and Brian Slack (Concordia University). The textbook was designed to support undergraduate courses in transport geography with a variety of media elements such as maps, GIS datasets, and PowerPoint presentations. It is divided in nine chapters, each covering a specific conceptual dimension including networks, modes terminals, international transportation, urban transportation and environmental impacts. Each chapter also covers methodologies linked with transport geography such as accessibility, spatial interactions, graph theory and Geographic Information Systems for transportation. The book was published in July by Routledge (ISBN 0415354412). Dr. Rodrigue also maintains a website on the topic of transport geography that provides comprehensive supplementary materials (http://people.hofstra.edu/geotrans/).
Dr. Rodrigue's own research focuses on the geography of logistics and freight transportation as well as the setting of global production networks. He will be giving a seminar on "Intermodal Transportation and Commodity Chains: New York and the Global, Regional and Local Nexus" at NYMTC in May, 2007.
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In Memoriam: Mel Webber | |
A long time friend of UTRC, Mel Webber, passed away recently at the age of 86. Webber was a giant as a transportation scholar and urban planning educator for many decades. He was a valued colleague as the first director of our sister center, the University of California Transportation Center, and as editor of Access magazine. His wisdom and intellect will be missed.
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Chatman & Wittig receive 2006 UTRC Emerging Scholar Grants
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In the summer of 2006 Daniel G. Chatman and Beth Wittig received the first Emerging Scholar Program Grants from UTRC. This program was established to provide mini-grants to facilitate research and publications by junior faculty within the UTRC consortium.
Dr. Daniel G. Chatman, Assistant Professor of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University, is conducting research on transportation credit mortgage (TCM) programs, which are intended to reduce auto use and increase housing options for low- and moderate-income house-holds. The "location efficient mortgage" was the first example, initiated in 1995 in a few US cities; since then the "smart commute mortgage" has been made available in 39 cities and more than 50 counties in the United States. It is hoped, first, that a higher share of those living near transit and in "walkable" neighborhoods will consist of households who ride transit and walk to work, etc.; second, that there
will be more housing provided in places that enable such travel patterns. This paper explores the possibility that both outcomes depend on conditions that may not hold. In markets where policy interventions are most needed, and where TCMs have often been targeted, they are particularly unlikely to work as intended.
Dr. Beth Wittig, Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the City College of New York, is developing a dimensionally accurate model of the 145th St 1-line subway platform in Autocad. This model will be used to investigate pollutant intrusion, dispersion and convection, and exhaust in complex indoor spaces by
developing (1) a physical scale model for particle image velocimetry experiments in a wind tunnel and (2) a numerical model to simulate the experimental results and to evaluate the accuracy of the subway environmental simulation model.
UTRC recently solicited proposals for another round of Emerging Scholar Grants. The results of this competition will be announced in January, 2007.
Department of Transportation Annual Secretary's Award Ceremony | | |
UTRC is very pleased to acknowledge that on November 29, 2006 Amy Stearns and Robin Kline received a Team Award from Secretary of Transportation Mary E. Peters in recognition of their fine work for the DOT University Transportation Centers Program. The Team Award is presented by the Secretary in "recognition of groups and teams whose performance exemplifies teamwork and whose efforts contribute significantly towards the accomplishment of the mission and goals of the Department (of Transportation)". Congratulations Amy and Robin!
The Conference of European Ministers of Transport- PARIS 2006 | | |
The Conference of European Ministers of Transport (CEMT), held a small meeting in
Paris
November 23 -24, 2006 to discuss public transport privatization and regulation. After more than a decade of approaches to incorporate forms of privatization in most European countries, the CEMT wanted to take stock of the impacts. Twenty nine of us, 3 from the
US
(Martin Wachs of the
RAND
corp., Ken Small of UC Irvine, and I) joined the others representing some public agencies, academic institutions and transit providers. I have written a detailed summary of ideas and thoughts for the Transportation Journal, published by the
Rudin
Center
(forthcoming). Briefly, there were no focused conclusions; no one size or type privatization fits all. All transit is highly local -- as in the
US
, and local governments have differing objectives in the provision of public transit. There have been successes in cost reductions, but subsidies continue and levels of service come into question. These discussions are important because US transit systems, especially the older bus/rail systems will continue to have pressures on their operating budgets. The quick temptation to "contract out" must be met with detailed analysis of costs and impacts as well as the very many lessons now learned from our European counterparts. UTRC will continue this discussion with a Visiting Scholar Seminar in February.
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(Left to right Joseph Berechman, University of British Columbia, Robert Paaswell, City College of New York, David Banister, Oxford University). |
Workshop on Transportation Lighting Research | |
On December 14, 2006, the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute's Lighting Research Center (LRC) welcomed a group of over 30 researchers and practitioners to discuss research needs and opportunities in transportation lighting. This meeting, hosted by Jay Higle of NYSDOT and Dr. Mark Rea, Director of the LRC, included a review of lessons learned from RPI's and NYSDOT's previous studies, a discussion of how UTRC can help foster greater collaboration in this area, and a brainstorming session on research needs. A wonderful tour of the LRC's unique research facilities was also provided.
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UTRC Launches 2006-07 Research Initiative | |
The University Transportation Research Center recently announced five projects that will be funded through its 2006-07 Research Initiative. The Initiative is a competitive matching grant program for faculty-initiated research projects. The objectives of the program are to (1) promote innovative research by university faculty on transportation problems relevant to the region; (2) encourage interdisciplinary and multi-university collaboration; (3) provide practical and workable contributions and solutions to the region's transportation community; and (4) further the education of transportation students by involving them in scholarly research. This year, UTRC received thirteen excellent submissions in response to its annual Call for Proposals. After careful evaluation on a competitive basis by peers at universities outside the region and by professionals at public agencies within the region, five proposals were selected for
accomplishing the program objectives. Descriptions of these five winning projects are featured in this newsletter. |
The Effects of Technological Change in the Aviation Industry
on Spatial Development Patterns
Dr. Michael Lahr, Assoc. Professor of Planning and Public Policy, Rutgers U
Edward A. Checchio, Ph.D. Candidate, Planning and Public Policy, Rutgers U
Martin E. Robbins, Director, Voorhees Transportation Center, Rutgers U
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The aviation industry is in throes of technological advances that could radically alter the landscape for certain types of air travel. Aircraft technology advancements are enabling smaller craft to run both more efficiently and quietly, and are making possible the next generation of air traffic management technology. Combined these improvements promise to make better use of existing airport facilities and air travel space but also should enable safe, reliable air travel to hundreds of airports not served by commercial airlines today.
The purpose of this project is to examine the repercussions of the anticipated aviation technology advances upon state and local economies. A prime focus of this project, therefore, is to identify the probable reactions of business travelers and businesses alike to these anticipated changes in aviation technology.
In spite of dramatic advances in communications technology, the need for business managers to conduct face-to-face meetings has increased over the past three decades. The technologies discussed above suggest many businesses that rely upon such meetings may soon be even less tied to certain core locales than they are today. Thus, a secondary focus of the study is to investigate how the behavior of establishments most affected by the technological change will alter the geography of economic development patterns.
This research addresses three major sets of questions:
1. Will changes in air travel technology affect where establishments locate? What are the key technologies involved, and what are their anticipated adoption horizons?
2. How do establishments that are sensitive to air travel differ from other establishments? Do their contributions to local and regional economies differ as well?
3. How will changes in air travel technology and resultant changes in business location decisions affect spatial development patterns?
The project will start with a review of anticipated aviation technologies. Subsequently a survey instrument will be developed to gather information from managers of Fortune 1000 firms. In a second phase, the research team will analyze anticipated decisions of air travel-sensitive firms from the returned survey data. A summary report containing all of the findings will conclude the project.
High-Precision Analysis of Blast Events on Highway Bridges
Dr. Anil Agrawal, Associate Professor of Civil Engineering, City College of New York
Dr. Mohammed Ettouney, Principal of Applied Research, Weidlinger Associates
Dr. Sreenivas Alampalli, Bridge Program & Evaluation Services, NYSDOT
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In 2003, a Blue Ribbon Panel on Bridge and Tunnel Security concluded that approximately 1000 of the 600,000 bridges in the
U.S.
country are vulnerable to substantial causalities, economic disruptions, and other societal ramifications from terrorist attacks. Strategies for making bridges and highways less susceptible to blast damages are urgently needed.
This project proposes to address this crucial need through the following tasks:
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Development of high-precision finite element models of bridge components based on current state of the art in high strain behavior of bridge component materials,
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Verification of high-precision FEM model through available experimental data on blast loads (experimental, intentional, unintentional and visual), and
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Simulation of behavior of bridge components during various blast event scenarios (under deck, above deck, proximity to columns, etc.).
The proposed research will lead to the development of a comprehensive and detailed approach to analyze the effects of blast loads on highway bridge components through a high precision finite element model. |
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A Decision Support Tool to Assess Importance of Transportation Facilities
Dr. Satish Ukkusuri, Asst. Professor of Civil Engineering, RPI
Dr. Didier Valdes, Assoc. Professor of Civil Engineering, University of Puerto Rico
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Assessing the importance of transportation facilities is an increasingly growing topic of interest to the federal and state transportation agencies. In the wake of recent terrorist attacks and the ongoing external threats (both manmade and natural), significant steps are needed to improve the security across New York's heavily used multi-modal networks. Assessing the cross-boundary impacts of the operations from a particular facility on the entire transportation system has the potential to dramatically strengthen the transportation system's resilience to external threats and lessen the impact of potential disruptions on New York travelers and shipments.
This project will develop a tool which will assist transportation professionals to assess the importance of different transportation facilities. Developing such a tool will help managers identify strategies to relieve congestion and maximize the safety and mobility of people and goods.
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The Transportation- Healthcare Connection During Disaster:
Toward Improved Mitigation and Preparedness
Dr. George C. Lee, Professor of Civil Engineering, University at Buffalo
Dr. Ernest Sternberg, Professor of Urban and Regional Planning, University at Buffalo
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During terrorist attack, natural disaster, epidemic, or technological disaster, health care facilities may be internally disrupted, requiring the relocation of patients; or the facilities may experience a surge in patients from the disaster; or both. Though public health disasters and emergency transportation management are each well studied on their own, there has been no comprehensive study of the interrelationship. The purpose of this project is to identify the issues on this interrelationship and come up with a strategy that would work well for both transportation agencies as well as healthcare agencies.
The research will be done first by reviewing literature on transportation needs of health care facilities during the time of a disaster and on urban and regional transportation management for health care provision during disaster. Second, they will review transportation disaster plans (with respect to health care issues) and health care disaster plans (with respect to transportation issues), at national, state, metro, county, and hospital levels. Third, they will interview key informants in transportation and health care sectors, with a focus on transportation related to disaster (surge and evacuation/transfer) relating to Erie County Medical Center in Buffalo and Kings County Hospital Center in Brooklyn. In key informant interviews, they will seek to encompass the full qualitative range of topics, including the internal evacuation/shelter decision, outdoor site management, and joint
healthcare-transportation exercises.
At the conclusion of the project, the team will provide a conceptual overview of the issues related to the healthcare-transportation nexus in disaster, arranged in a logical framework and suitable for publication in a peer-reviewed journal. It will help transportation and health care agencies formulate common agendas for deliberation and decision. The report will also identify issues for future research.
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Rutting in a Flexible Pavement System
Dr. Yusuf A. Mehta, Assoc. Professor of Civil Engineering, Rowan U
Dr. Claude Villiers, Assist. Professor of Civil Engineering, Florida Gulf Coast U
Dr. Neville A. Parker, Herbert Kayser Professor of Civil Engineering, CCNY | |
Permanent deformation, commonly referred to as rutting, is a major failure mode in asphalt pavements. It is a consequence of excessive strains and deformations experienced by the pavement layers due to repeated loads. The majority of the rutting distresses occur under the wheel paths longitudinally along the roadway. Currently, the source of rutting is identified by cutting trenches and observing deflection profiles in the respective pavement layers, a procedure that can be costly, disruptive, and time-consuming. These shortcomings have led various state highway agencies to explore and adopt alternate means to identify sources of rutting without resorting to trenching. However, some of the developed techniques have led to inaccurate information on the in-situ pavement conditions, ultimately leading to inefficient pavement design and rehabilitation strategies. An accurate
determination of source of rutting would give designers the necessary information needed for rehabilitation, prevent unnecessary construction delay, and would be cost effective. It is, therefore, important to carefully evaluate the possible cause of current distress, so that the distresses are not simply repaired, but are also prevented from rapidly reoccurring.
The primary objective of this research is to develop a framework to identify the most likely source of rutting within the pavement system and the presence of mixture instability in the surface layer, even in the very first few years of the pavement life. Currently, the only accurate method of identifying the source of rutting is to cut trenches and observe deformation in the various layers of the pavement structure, a process that is inconvenient, destructive, and expensive. The proposed system encompasses analysis of routinely collected data, including rut profile, measurement of air voids (AV) content from field cores, and back calculation of in-situ moduli of each of the layers.
The method for identifying the source of rutting in a pavement system will use the 4 steps below.
Step 1: Determine contribution of rutting due to asphalt layer compaction.
Step 2: Determine if rutting was due to compaction of the subgrade layer.
Step 3: Examine the effect of base compaction on rutting.
Step 4: Evaluate the presence of instability or dilation in the surface layer. |
UTRC Advanced Technology Initiative:
Development of Portable Hydrocarbon Sensors
Michael Carpenter, Assistant Professor of Nanoscience, University at Albany
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The
University
Transportation
Research
Center
has announced the first project of its new Advanced Technology Initiative, the development of a manufacturable prototype of a portable hydrocarbon sensor. This project is the outgrowth of research that has been underway at Albany Nanotech for several years, funded by the New York State Department of Transportation and UTRC, on the development of the underlying technologies for portable hydrocarbon sensors.
This new project reaches beyond basic research and begins the process of creating a device suitable for actual field use. The goal of this project is to assemble and evaluate a next-generation hydrocarbon sensor testing assembly that will have a factor of 8 reductions in cost and a footprint of only 6x6 inches.
It is clear that significant cost savings at both the state and federal levels would occur if chemical sensors integrated with pattern recognition techniques were developed for continuous on-site environmental monitoring, specifically for analyzing groundwater well and soil samples. Testing of soils for environmental contamination must be conducted during planning, building, and post construction of many transportation capital projects and can be very expensive and time consuming. The New York State Department of Transportation spends almost $10-12 million annually on such testing, a figure that does not include the costly delays that can sometimes be introduced into a project’s construction schedule. By moving the majority of these tests from an off-site analytical lab to a field portable device, the overall cost of construction budgets will be significantly lower and construction
projects will experience fewer delays due to untimely analytical lab reports.
The unique nature of this project, which involves the development of prototypes for potential commercial production, distinguished it from the types of basic and applied research that UTRC and its public sector partners have traditionally funded. With this project and the launch of its Advanced Technology Initiative, UTRC hopes that this effort can serve as a model for continued university-government-industry cooperation in the future.
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Recommended
Readings
on Urban Transportation Planning | |
UTRC Research News asked Herbert S. Levinson, UTRC’s Icon Mentor, to develop a list of classic works in transportation planning that he would recommend to students in the field. Mr. Levinson himself is a book of knowledge on this topic. He has served as senior vice president of Wilbur Smith and Associates and served on the faculty of the
University of Connecticut and Yale University. Transportation Research Information Services (TRIS), American Society of Civil engineers (ASCE), ITE and a myriad of other organizations cite more than 200 of Herb’s papers. Mr. Levinson was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 1994, elected an Honorary Member of the Institute of Transportation Engineers in 1997, and received the ASCE Wilbur Smith Award.
Mr. Levinson's recommended reading list guides the reader on a tour of transportation’s profound impact on the evolution of cities, how the transportation planning and engineering field has grown through the years and the ideas that shaped the transportation systems we see today. The readings mainly represent articles from before 1982. Mr. Levinson plans to develop a list of more recent readings for future UTRC newsletters.
Of course, no list of great works is definitive. We invite readers with other perspectives to submit their own lists of classics on transportation topics. These will appear in future issues of UTRC Research News.
Important readings on Urban Transportation:
A. The Dynamics of Urban Transportation, A National Symposium sponsored by Automobile Manufacturers Association, October 23-24, 1962,
Detroit, Michigan.
- J. Douglas Carrol Jr., "Fitting Transportation Systems Plans to Urban Land-Use Projections"
- Fagin, Henry, "Transportation Systems Planning as an Influence on Urban Land Use"
- Fitch, L.C., "Prices and Costs In Urban Transportation Financing"
B. Row, A.T. and Levinson, H.S. "Observations on Urban Change and Planning," Traffic Quarterly, Vol. 18, No. 1, January 1964.
C. Tietze, F.S. and McKeown, J.E., eds, The Changing Metropolis, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1964.
- Moses, Robert, "Are Cities Dead?"
- Sternlieb, George, "The Future of Retailing in the Downtown Core"
D. Blumenfeld, H., "Are Land Use Patterns Predictable?" in H. Blumenfeld and P. Sprieregen, eds., The Modern Metropolis,
Cambridge, MA: M.I.T. Press, 1967.
E. Smerk, George M., Readings in Urban Transportation, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1968. (Chapters 6 and 7).
F. Webber, M. W., "Order in Diversity: Community Without Propinquity" in L. Wingo, Jr., ed., Cities and Space: The Future Use of Urban Land, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1973.
G. Levinson, H.S. and Weant, R.A., Urban Transportation Perspectives and Prospects, Westport, CT: ENO Foundation for Transportation, 1982.
- Haasell John S. "How Effective Has Urban Transportation Planning Been?"
- Heightchew R.E. "TSM: Revolution or Repetition?"
- Levinson, H.S. "Modal Choice and Public Policy in Transportation"
- Turner, F. "Moving People on Urban Highways"
- Pushkarev and Zupan "Where Transit Works, Urban Densities for Public Transportation"
H. Ewing, R., "Tipping Points: Fifty Years of JAPA Special Transport Issues," Journal of the American Planning Association, Vol. 72, No. 3, Summer, 2004.
I. Wachs, M., "Review Essay: Reading about Riding, Observations on 50 Years of Transportation Books" Journal of the American Planning Association, Vol. 72, No. 3, Summer, 2004.
J. Meyer, M.D. "Linking Safety-Conscious Planning and Context Sensitive Solutions," ITE Journal, Vol. 75, No. 8, August 2005.
K. Larwin, T.F. "Transit Planning for the 21st Century," ITE Journal, Vol. 75, No. 8, August 2005.
L. Litman, T. "Changing Travel Demand - Implications for Transport Planning," ITE Journal, Vol. 76, No. 9, September 2006.
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Portable, Solar-Powered Tag Readers Could Improve Traffic Management |
As part of ongoing efforts to improve traffic management in New
York state and across the country, a team of transportation researchers will be testing an array of wireless, solar-powered readers to monitor traffic flow. In the coming months, the units will be deployed to collect traffic data during the morning commute on busy Capital Region roads.
The portable units, which are based on the same technology as E-ZPass tag readers, could eventually be used to provide valuable data for a variety of applications, from decreasing congestion in work zones to assisting emergency evacuations.
The research is funded through a $3.9 million grant from the Federal Highway Administration to the Center for Infrastructure and Transportation Studies (CITS) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. The project also includes collaborators from the New York State Department of Transportation, the New York State Thruway Authority, Mark IV Industries Inc., Annese & Associates, and North Carolina State University. "We hope to use this technology to enable better management of our traffic system," said William "Al" Wallace, CITS director and professor of decision sciences and engineering systems at Rensselaer. In collaboration with Mark IV Industries, he and Jeffrey Wojtowicz, a research engineer in civil and environmental engineering at Rensselaer, have developed a prototype reader that is powered by solar panels, collects data on a laptop computer, and then sends the information wirelessly back to a server. The portable device sits on a trailer
that can be transported by a vehicle with a normal-duty hitch.
Beginning in mid-November, the team plans to deploy one test device to begin the initial collection of data.Then in early spring, the researchers will deploy six units across the Capital District Testbed area -- a busy stretch of road along Route 4 in Rensselaer County. Federal funding for the Testbed was secured with the help of Congressman Michael R. McNulty. "This is the first field experiment of its kind," Wallace said. "The goal here is to collect data, analyze it, and find out if this really works."
Traffic monitoring using E-ZPass tags began in 1994 when the Thruway Authority and TRANSCOM developed and deployed 15 permanent reader sites downstate. These sites were integrated into a system called "TRANSMIT" that provides traffic information to transportation agencies. TRANSMIT and the Rensselaer-led pilot project are separate systems from the E-ZPass toll collection system. Similar to the TRANSMIT system, this new project requires that any identifiable information from tags be automatically encrypted.
The TRANSMIT system has been expanded to include 26 newly installed readers at strategic locations around the Capital Region. But there are no functioning portable, wireless, and solar-powered units in use today, according to Wallace. The portable units could be particularly useful for decreasing congestion and providing travel time estimates in work zones, at special events, and during emergency evacuations. And planners could potentially deploy a network of readers to monitor driving route choices, helping them decide where to place new roads or other construction projects, such as malls and housing developments.
This Capital District Testbed is the same area where the researchers recently tested their Advanced Traveler Information System (ATIS), a dynamic routing system that collects real-time traffic data and uses it to alert drivers about congested roadways, offering alternative routes to avoid problem areas. ATIS consists of a personal digital assistant (PDA) device with a global positioning system (GPS) that is part of a wireless computer network. The network collects and processes traffic data from the device and feeds the results back to the driver through an electronic voice mechanism.
About 30 participants in the original ATIS project have volunteered to use the systems to collect data during the new experiment, which will help calibrate the solar-powered readers, Wojtowicz said.
Source: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute |
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