 Research News
Winter
2008
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| Region 2 University Transportation Research Center |
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Director’s Letter • Improvements in NYMTC Data Products • Two Partnerships with RPA Research Grants News • Best Paper Competition • Student of the Year Award Upcoming Seminar: Yoram Shiftan • Best Practices in Household Travel Surveys Real-Time Traffic Prediction • Region II Universities at TRB 2008 Presentations at Protect NY Conference • News and Notes |
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The intensity of discussion in New York City and New Jersey about profound transportation changes has underscored the research community’s concern over reliable data. In New York City, the Traffic Congestion Mitigation Commission has recommended strategies to relieve congestion – up to 6.8% - in Manhattan. These include a mild form of congestion charging. In New Jersey, the Governor in an attempt to both get the State budget back in balance and renew the State Transportation Fund has proposed major periodic increases in tolls on the NJ toll roads. What we hear from residents of each is the pain these measures would create. What we don’t hear is any analysis of the actual benefits they will experience based on current well constructed travel behavior surveys. In NYC, the most recent data are over a decade old. And we know there have been regional shifts in attitudes towards modes of travel post-9/11. We also know that the regional population has shifted; there has been a major influx of immigrants, there have been major household shifts related to the expansive (and expensive) housing market. We also know that gasoline is at record – and climbing – prices, transit is at capacity, and trucks are an increasing sight on the transportation landscape. So – how would a worker, a commuter, a truck driver respond to price changes? What are the alternatives that travelers face or will face – including relocating home or place of employment. We need a new robust data set, using state of the art and well tested survey techniques as well as analysis of population demographics and economics using multivariate techniques – remember, transportation, land use and traveler characteristics are not three independent dimensions. We, in the research community are eager to see the new surveys being developed by NYMTC and its member agencies, and are just as eager to cooperate in the design and analysis of them. We need 21st Century data for 21st Century problems. Robert E. Paaswell P.E. Ph.D Distinguished Professor of Civil Engineering Director, UTRC |
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Quality Data, Quality
Research:
Improvements on NYMTC Data Products As in any other science- or engineering-based field, the availability, utility, and quality of data is a prerequisite to properly addressing the wide range of research questions, management challenges, and forecasting needs we face in the transportation field. From policy planning to performance evaluation, from model development to impact studies, good quality data is essential to generate ideas and clear-cut solutions to be implemented by transportation professionals and decision makers. To improve data quality and utility within a continuous quality assessment and management framework, research organizations and agencies constantly look for the latest methodologies and technological tools for data management. In recognition of this need, the New York Metropolitan Transportation Council (NYMTC) recently awarded an 18-month project titled, “Improvements on NYMTC Data Products” to UTRC Consortium faculty Dr. Kaan Ozbay (Rutgers), Dr. Dilruba Ozmen-Ertekin (Hofstra), and Dr. Cynthia Chen (City College). The project will seek to modernize the Council’s existing data products and improve their value to its member agencies and the public. It will address issues related to the timeliness of data, automation of access through web-based databases, and integration of data from different sources and formats, among other concerns. It will also focus on identifying specific issues and problems relating to the intrinsic, contextual, accessibility, and representational dimensions of data quality. The analysis will suggest appropriate solutions for any issues identified in these dimensions, while taking into consideration the latest technological tools, results of NYMTC’s stakeholder survey, and best practices. The project will propose a data quality framework with protocols for ensuring the quality of information over its complete “lifecycle,” including its creation, distribution, access, updating, and retirement. These dynamic procedures, which might potentially be applied on a regular basis (bi-annually or whenever a new data is produced and needs to be disseminated) will consist of a generalized guideline that will allow the NYMTC personnel to decide how to create and disseminate a certain data product; tools to allow monitoring and assessment of the overall effectiveness of the data products; and a feedback mechanism to further improve the guidelines in the light of the results from periodic assessments. |
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Universities
Partner with RPA
for Two Innovative Projects
UTRC has long worked to develop partnerships between the region’s universities and the public sector. Our new strategic plan includes a continuing commitment “to break down barriers to research, cooperation, and innovation in the transportation field, by fostering partnerships across intellectual fields, across academic institutions, and across the university-government-private sector divides.” In 2008, UTRC will further this tradition by launching two innovative projects in partnership with the Regional Plan Association. Transportation
and Land Use Visioning on Long Island
The first project, “Long Island 2035: Building Public Consensus around a Sustainable Future,” is sponsored by the New York Metropolitan Transportation Council and the New York State Department of Transportation. The project will play a supporting role to the Long Island Sustainability Plan, being lead by the Long Island Regional Planning Board (LIRPB) in close consultation with Nassau and Suffolk counties as well as local governments. Under the UTRC umbrella, the project team has two halves. On the academic side, it includes William Solecki (Hunter College), Robert Paaswell and Ellen Thorson (UTRC/City College), Sachi Dastidar (SUNY Old Westbury), and Ruth Brandwein and Howard Schneider (Stony Brook University). On the civic side, it will include Christopher Jones, Robert Yaro, Tom Wright, Robert Lane, Robert Pirani, Jeff Zupan, Robert Freudenberg, and Jennifer Cox (RPA), as well as participants from Vision Long Island and Sustainable Long Island. Project managers on behalf of UTRC are Christopher Jones (RPA) and Harry Schwartz (Senior Fellow with the CUNY Institute for Urban Systems). The Project Manager for NYMTC will be Gerry Bogacz, and the LIRPB and other entities involved in the Long Island Sustainability Plan will provide additional guidance and oversight. The
LI2035
project brings together for the first time efforts by both civic groups
and
governments to develop a broad, regional, consensus for how Long Island
should
develop – efforts that had previously been taking place on separate
tracks. UTRC’s
scope of work includes identifying
and building consensus around guiding principles for development in
Long
Island, designing a public education strategy, completing baseline
analysis and
projections of possible land use futures, and conducting at least one
visioning
workshop for the public. Some
expected
outcomes are for the work to become a major component of the Long
Island
Sustainability Plan; help align land use decisions with transportation
investments; and help advance the state-of-practice land use modeling
and
visioning techniques. Overall,
through
a complex process of bringing key entities together, it is hoped that
this
project will contribute significantly in fostering regional cooperation
on
growth and land use priorities in Long Island as well as stronger
cross-sectoral working relationships among the region’s universities,
civic
groups, and governments. Maximizing
Transportation
Benefits Along the I-278 Corridor
The other project, “Study of Goods Movement through the Interstate-278 Corridor,” was authorized in the latest Federal transportation bill at the request of Representative Jerrold Nadler, and will examine freight infrastructure needs and freight-oriented economic development opportunities in the corridor stretching from Staten Island to the Bronx. The I-278 Corridor includes highway segments that have long been planned and managed discretely, rather than as a coherent system: the Staten Island Expressway, the Gowanus Expressway, and the Brooklyn Queens Expressway. It also includes the proposed Cross Harbor Rail Freight Tunnel and the under-developed rail freight infrastructure on the East side of the Hudson. The project will seek to complement the cross-harbor rail freight alternatives analysis being led by the Port Authority by examining what additional policies and infrastructure are needed to maximize the benefits of a rail tunnel if it is built. It will include extensive outreach to the many agencies involved with different aspects of this complex system to seek new ways to achieve environmental and economic gains for the region. The
project team includes José Holguín-Veras and Satish Ukkusuri (RPI); Fan
Yang
(City College); Robert Paaswell, Herbert Levinson, and Ellen Thorson
(UTRC);
and Richard Barone, Chris Jones, and Jeff Zupan (Regional Plan
Association). Managing
the project on
behalf of UTRC will be Benjamin Miller, Senior Fellow at the CUNY
Institute for
Urban Systems. |
| Research Grants News
2008 Mini-Grant Program An Epidemiological Approach to Multimodal Transportation Safety Greg Chen , Associate Professor of Public Affairs, Baruch College/CUNY (with Michael Bartron, Al Logie, and Maxine Lubner) The
proposed study
would use an epidemiological approach to examine possible predictors of
and
current interventions for safety in aviation, highway and marine modes
of
transportation in two regions with widely different safety records: New
York
and Tanzania. The
research will examine predictors of safety, with an understanding of
how each
region’s problems and successes can inform the others. Though the threat of terrorism includes the threat to subway structures due to bombing blasts, there is a scarcity of work evaluating the structure integrity of existing subways and the guidelines for the design of new underground structures to minimize the effects of internal blast loading. The topic is timely and vital due to the potential for significant damage and loss of life. In this paper, Professor Liu will propose to develop a reliable method to perform this evaluation. Assessing the Usefulness of a Regional Transportation Services Index George Wang, Assistant Professor of Finance, College of Staten Island/CUNY Leading
indicators of changes in the business cycle can assistant
governments and the private sector with decision-making.
However, the indicators
currently available focus
primarily on the manufacturing industry and under-represent the service
sector. Lahiri et
al. have developed a Transportation
Services Index to fill this void for the transportation industry
nationally. But
there is no comparable indicator in the New
York Metropolitan region, where the transportation sector and the
general
economy have a particularly critical relationship.
Dr. Wang proposes to assess the applicability of the
Lahiri Index
to the New York metro area, and identify the metrics, data, and
methodologies
needed for developing a New York Metropolitan Area Index. There is an ongoing need in the New York Metropolitan Area for computational strategies that can help estimate how travelers will respond to changes in transportation network capacity and road pricing and tolling policies. This paper will propose a more realistic, iterative, stochastic approach to making these difficult forecasts. Designing an Automatic Real-Time Traffic Data-to-Vehicle Emissions System Based on Video Vehicle Detection Data Ke Max Zhang, Assistant Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Cornell University Intelligent transportation systems (ITS) have been gradually implemented to reduce congestion, improve traffic flow, promote transportation safety and enable people to make smart travel choices. This project will develop an integrated vehicle-video detection system to quantify time-resolved vehicle emissions from the real-time data generated from commercially available video vehicle detection units. The intersection of Highways I-81 and 690 in downtown Syracuse will be used as a test bed. Re-Identifying Race and Technology: Streetcars in Nineteenth Century Philadelphia Geoffrey D. Zylstra, Assistant Professor of History, NYC College of Technology/CUNY This paper will make two scholarly contributions based on a review of the streetcar system in Philadelphia in the 1860s when the streetcar system became a focal point in the reorganization of race relations as whites tried to define the new transportation system as a symbol of racial superiority and excluded black people from riding in the cars. The analysis will connect race and technology and explain that when cities undergo technological transformations, as Philadelphia did in the nineteenth century when it industrialized, groups of people have opportunities to reinvent their identities via new technologies and reposition themselves socially. This point is germane to many US cities today that are shedding identities as industrial cities and reinventing themselves as service oriented cities. Other Recent Research Grants
The following is a list of new projects awarded since the last edition of this newsletter. In the interest of increasing awareness of research underway regionwide, we are including projects being conducted both inside and outside the UTRC consortium. Automated Pedestrian Counter (awarded by NJDOT to Kaan Ozbay, Rutgers Univ.)* Crosswalk Demonstration Project: Design & Evaluation of Effective Crosswalk Illumination (awarded by NJDOT to John D. Bullough and Mark S. Rea, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute) Customer Behavior Relative to Gap Between Platform and Train (awarded by NJDOT to Janice R. Daniel, NJIT)* Development of Falling Weight Deflectometer Procedures Manual (awarded by NJDOT to Nenad Gucunski, Rutgers Univ.)* Diesel Retrofit Assessment (awarded by NYSDOT to Oliver Gao, Cornell Univ.) Energy Savings/Cogeneration Plant (awarded by NJDOT to Frank A. Felder, Rutgers Univ.)* Evaluation of the Automated Distress Survey Equipment (awarded by NJDOT to Ali Maher, Rutgers Univ.)* Heavy Metal Contamination in Highway Marking Beads (awarded by NJDOT to Kauser Jahan, Rowan Univ.)* Impact of Demographic Changes on Transit Patterns in New Jersey (awarded by NJDOT to Dan Chatman, Marc Weiner, Jon Carnegie, Rutgers Univ.)* New Jersey Motorcycle Fatality Rates (awarded by NJDOT to Yusuf Mehta, Rowan Univ.)* Non-Contact Skid Resistance Measurement (awarded by NJDOT to Jay N. Meegoda and Geoff Rowe, NJIT)* Transportation Impact on the Economy (awarded by NJDOT to Joseph J. Seneca, Kaan Ozbay, and Jon Carnegie, Rutgers Univ.)* Warm Pavement Technology (awarded by NJDOT to Thomas Bennert, Rutgers Univ.)* * Not funded through the UTRC Consortium
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| Yoram Shiftan, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at The Technion in Israel, will talk at the next NYMTC Brown Bag Lunch on the topic, A Practical Policy Sensitive Activity-Based Model, on March 25, 2008, 12:00-1:00 PM. Activity-based modeling treats travel as being derived from the demand for personal activities. Travel decisions, therefore, become part of a broader activity scheduling process based on modeling the demand for activities rather than merely trips. The explicit modeling of activities and the consequent tours and trips enables a better understanding of travel behavior and more credible analysis of response to policies and their effect on traffic and air quality. This talk will describe how to construct a practical policy sensitive activity-based model using the example of the model developed for the metropolitan area of Tel-Aviv, Israel and currently at its final implementation stages. The case study will show how one can develop such an advanced model that on one hand captures the key behavior aspects and policy sensitivities, and on the other hand, is practical and requires reasonable computational resources so that it can be widely used for decision-making. Extension of activity-based model to longer term decisions such as auto ownership and residential location will also be discussed. Dr. Shiftan specializes in areas of travel behavior, demand modeling, transportation economics and transportation and air quality. Prior to joining the Technion, Dr. Shiftan was a Senior Associate at Cambridge Systematics Inc. in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he led major transportation projects across the U.S. Dr. Shiftan is currently on sabbatical at Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning at University of Michigan. |
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UTRC Advances
Best Practices in
Household Travel Surveys
As
the New York
Metropolitan Transportation Council prepares
to launch its first regional household travel survey in over a decade,
UTRC has
been working closely with the Council to assist with its planning
efforts.
Recently,
UTRC
staff organized a workshop at NYMTC’s request
on “Contemporary Issues in Household Travel Behavior Survey Design and
Management: Best Practices and Pitfalls to Avoid.”
This event, held at NYMTC on January 9-10, 2008,
featured survey
and model managers from MPOs around the nation, as well as other
leading
experts on survey design and implementation.
Speakers included:
The presentations addressed a wide range of issues, including improving survey response rates, sampling techniques for hard-to-reach populations, applications of GPS technologies in household travel surveys, and benefits of panel surveys and stated preference questions. The workshop was attended by over 30 staff members of NYMTC and its member agencies, and provided a rare opportunity to question experts and colleagues from around the country who have recently been through the process of travel survey design and implementation. Presentations from this workshop are available at the UTRC website. Previously, Prof. Catherine T. Lawson of the University at Albany helped NYMTC begin thinking about its new survey by conducting a review of the 1996-1997 Regional Travel Household Interview Survey. Her report distilled some lessons learned from this previous survey effort, and summarized best and emerging practices in household survey design as reported at a recent international conference on the topic. It is available at the UTRC website.For more information, please visit UTRC’s website at www.utrc2.org |
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Video and the
presentation from this event are available at
the UTRC
website. |
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Faculty,
staff,
and students from Region II universities
attended the 2008 TRB annual meeting in force this past
January. Below is a list of
presentations, panels,
and poster sessions by academic researchers in the region.
Bekir Bartin
and Kaan Ozbay (Rutgers), Comparison of
Tolls with Estimated Full Marginal Costs: Theory Meets Reality
Thomas A.
Bennert (Rutgers), and Jean-Valery
Martin (Innophos, Inc.), Polyphosphoric Acid in
Combination with
Styrene-Butadiene-Styrene Block Copolymer: Laboratory Mixture Evaluation
Thomas A.
Bennert and Ali Maher (Rutgers), Field and
Laboratory Evaluation of a Reflective Crack Interlayer in New Jersey
Maria Boilé,
Sotirios Theofanis (Rutgers), Christine
Mastrogiannidou and Athanasios Ziliaskopoulos (Univ. of Thessaly), Intraterminal
Transport Problem: System Description, Literature Review, and Research
Recommendations
Ralph Buehler
and Nora Lovrien (Rutgers), Using National
Travel Data in State Energy Master Planning: Gaps and Opportunities in
National
Transportation Data
Stephanie
Camay, Laxmi Ramasubramanian, Brandon Derman, Eric
Bohn, Jochen Albrecht, William Milczarski (Hunter College/CUNY), Maria
Boilé
and Sotiris Theofanis (Rutgers), Ferry Parking and Landside
Access Study:
Implementing Public Outreach and Impact Assessment
Daniel G.
Chatman (Rutgers), Deconstructing Development
Density: Quality, Quantity, and Price Effects on Household Nonwork
Travel
Daniel G.
Chatman (Rutgers), Residential Self-Selection
and Nonwork travel: Evidence Using New Data and Methods
Robert Checchio
(Rutgers), Impact of Noncommercial
Airports on Regional Economic Growth
Cynthia Chen
(City College/CUNY), presided at session on Dynamics
of Travel Behavior
Jason Chen,
Cynthia Chen (City College/CUNY), and Harry J
.P. Timmermans (Eindhoven Univ. of Technology), Accessibility
Trade-offs in
Households: Residential Relocation Decisions
Stuart S. Chen
(Univ. of Buffalo/SUNY), Three-Dimensional
Modeling Application for Bridge Fabrication, Construction, and Beyond Lili Du, Satish V. Ukkusuri, and ShivKumar Kalyanaraman (RPI), Characterizing Interference in Vehicle Ad Hoc Network on Freeway Segment Under Various Traffic Flow Conditions
Jean Paul
Freyssinier, John D. Bullough and Mark S. Rea
(RPI), Performance Evaluation of Semipermanent High-Mast
Lighting for
Highway Construction Projects
Thomas Furlani
(Univ. of Buffalo/SUNY), Visualization in
Transportation Planning
H. Oliver Gao
and Ameya Bapat (Cornell), Diesel
Particulate Matter Number Emissions: Evaluation of Existing Modal
Emission
Modeling Approaches
Mihalis Golias,
Sotiris Theofanis, Maria Boilé (Rutgers),
and Heidi A Taboada (Univ. of Texas at El Paso), Post-Pareto
Analysis
Approach for Discrete and Dynamic Multiobjective Berth Allocation
Problem
Cameron Gordon
(Univ. of Canberra), Risk Allocation -
What It Is and Its Importance in Assessing Equity for Major Project
Investments
Nenad Gucunski,
Ali Maher, Thomas Bennert (Rutgers), Greg
Slaubaugh, Zhe Wang and Tong Fang (Siemens), Visualization
and
Interpretation of Impact Echo Data from Bridge Deck Testing
Daniel Baldwin
Hess (Univ. of Buffalo/SUNY), Access to
Public Transit for Older Adults in Buffalo, New York, and in San Jose,
California
José
Holguín-Veras (RPI), Necessary Conditions for
Off-Hour Deliveries and Effectiveness of Urban Freight Road Pricing and
Alternative Financial Policies in Competitive Markets
José Holguín-Veras and Matthew Bromm (RPI), Trucking Costs: Comparison Between Econometric Estimation and Cost Accounting
José
Holguín-Veras, Miguel Jaller Martelo, Satish V.
Ukkusuri, Matthew Bromm,
Lynne H. Irwin
and David Paul Orr (Cornell), Fundamentals
of Pavement Deflection Analysis: Methods for Backcalculation with
Application
to Mechanistic Pavement Design Catherine T. Lawson (Univ. at Albany/SUNY), and Roberta Weisbrod (Partnership for Sustainable Ports), Freight Ferries: Factors for Success George C. Lee(Univ. of Buffalo/SUNY), Innovative Technologies and Their Application to Enhance Seismic Performance of Highway Bridges Herbert S. Levinson (UTRC), Rail Shuttles: Concepts and Case Studies Herbert S.
Levinson (UTRC), Street-Running
Bus Rapid Transit
and Light-Rail
Transit Operations
Herbert S.
Levinson (UTRC), Kelly Blume, Alan Danaher
(Kittelson & Associates), and Samuel L. Zimmerman (World Bank),
Bus
Rapid Transit: Assessing Costs and Effects
style
Herbert S.
Levinson (UTRC), Jerome Steven Gluck (Urbitran
Associates), Janet M. Barlow (Accessible Design for the Blind), Ronald
W. Eck
(West Virginia Univ.), and William F. Hecker (Hecker Design), Driveway
Design Practices: Overview
Rongfang Liu
(NJIT), Automated People Mover Connections
in Beijing, China
Rongfang Liu
(NJIT), and Changqian Guan (U.S. Merchant
Marine Acad.), Container Volume and Truck Trip
Generations at
Marine
Container Terminals: Behavioral Analysis
Rongfang Liu
(NJIT), and Yi Deng (Parsons Transportation
Group), Developing Statewide Weekend Travel Demand
Forecast
and Mode Choice
Models for New Jersey
Ayaz H. Malik
(RPI), presided at session on Seismic
Retrofitting of Long- and Multispan Bridges
Jay N. Meegoda,
Thomas M. Juliano, and Sameer Wadhawan
(NJIT), Estimation of the Remaining Service Life of
Culverts
Yusuf A. Mehta,
Jeffrey Owad (Rowan), Robert W. Sauber
(NJDOT), and Jared Krause (Everland Shourds Assoc.), Lessons
Learned During
Implementation of Mechanistic-Empirical Pavement Design Guide
Sandeep
Mudigonda, Kaan Ozbay (Rutgers), and Harsh P. Doshi
(Schoor DePalma), GIS-Based Decision Support Tool
for
Evaluation and
Selection of Adaptive Traffic Control Strategies on Transportation
Networks
Hani Nassif,
Kagan Aktas, Husam Najm (Rutgers), and Nakin
Suksawang (Florida Int’l Univ.), Assessment of
Cracking
Potential in
High-Performance Concrete Under Restrained Conditions
David Paul Orr
(Cornell) presided at session on Characterization
of Detrimental Effects of Moisture and Frost on Pavements
Kaan Ozbay and
Eren Erman Ozguven (Rutgers), Nonparametric
Bayesian Estimation of Freeway Capacity Distribution from Censored
Observations
Kaan Ozbay,
Hong Yang, Bekir Bartin, Sandeep Mudigonda
(Rutgers), Derivation and Validation of New
Simulation-Based
Surrogate
Safety Measure
Eren Erman
Ozguven and Kaan Ozbay (Rutgers), Performance
Evaluation of Simultaneous Perturbation Stochastic Approximation
Algorithm for
Solving Stochastic Transportation Network Analysis Problems
Dilruba
Ozmen-Ertekin (Hofstra), Kaan Ozbay, Sandeep
Mudigonda (Rutgers), and Anne Cochran (Urban Engineers, Inc.), A
Simple
Approach to Estimating Changes in Toll Plaza Delays
Jonathan Peters (College of Staten Island/CUNY), and
Cameron Gordon
(Univ. of
Canberra), Results Not Guaranteed: Road Pricing in
New York
and London
John Pucher and
Ralph Buehler (Rutgers), Cycling for
Everyone: Lessons from Europe
Gitakrishnan
Ramadurai, Satish V. Ukkusuri, Jinye Zhao and
Jong-Shi Pang (RPI), Dynamic Equilibrium in
Multiuser Class
Single-Bottleneck Models: Complementarity Formulation
Laxmi
Ramasubramanian (Hunter College/CUNY), and Jennifer L.
Weeks (Parsons Brinckerhoff), Evaluating
Effectiveness of
Widely Available
Three-Dimensional Visualization Tools in Support of Public Participation
Martin Robins
(Rutgers), Northeast Corridor Action Plan:
Call for New Federal-State Partnership
Jakub Rowinski,
Keir Opie, and Lazar N. Spasovic (NJIT), Development
Of Method to Disaggregate 2002 FAF2 Data Down to County Level for New
Jersey
Kelvin R.
Santiago-Chaparro, Benjamín Colucci-Rios and
Alberto M. Figueroa Medina (Univ. of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez), Development
and
Evaluation of a Software Tool that Integrates GPS and Video Data from a
Road
Alignment to Perform Road Condition, Safety Audits and Inventory Surveys
Darrell B.
Sonntag and H. Oliver Gao (Cornell), Evaluation
of Driving Schedule Methodology in EPA's MOVES
Darrell B.
Sonntag, H. Oliver Gao (Cornell), and Britt Holmen (Univ. of
Vermont), Variability of Particle Number Emissions
from
Conventional and
Hybrid Diesel-Electric Buses in Real Driving Conditions
Feng-Ming Tsai,
I. Jy Chien and Lazar N. Spasovic (NJIT), Optimizing
Distance-Based Fares and Headway of an Intercity Transportation System
with
Elastic Demand and Trip Length Differentiation
Satish V.
Ukkusuri (RPI), and Pamela Murray-Tuite (Virginia
Polytechnic Inst.), Challenges in Modeling
Transportation
Network
Vulnerability
Satish V.
Ukkusuri (RPI), S. Travis Waller, Kara Kockelman
(Univ. of Texas, Austin), and Ampol Karoonsoontawong (Maricopa Assoc.
of
Govts.), Simulation-Based Heuristic Approach for
Dynamic
Marginal Cost
Pricing
Satish V.
Ukkusuri (RPI), and Gopal R. Patil (Univ. of
Vermont), Sample Average
Approximate
Method for Flexible Network Design Problem
Thomas H.
Wakeman (Stevens), Developing a Course of
Action for Ameliorating Air Emissions Associated with the Import Supply
Chain
Thomas H.
Wakeman (Stevens), Why Are Ports Incapable of
Solving Problems with International Freight Growth on Their Own?
Qian Wang and
José Holguín-Veras (RPI), An Investigation
on the Attributes Determining Trip Chaining Behavior in Hybrid
Micro-Simulation
Urban Freight Models
Trefor P. Williams (Rutgers), Using Information Technologies to Support Better Construction Management James J. Winebrake, Aaron Falzarano, Scott Hawker, Karl Korfmacher, Steve Zilora, Sai Ketha (Rochester Inst. of Tech.), and James J. Corbett (Univ. of Delaware), Minimizing Energy and Environmental Impacts of Intermodal Freight Transport: Development and Application of a Geospatial Routing Tool Fan Yang (City College/CUNY), Day-to-Day Dynamic Optimal Tolls with Elastic Demand
Fan Yang (City
College/CUNY), Chanyoung Lee (Univ. of South
Florida), Bin Ran (Univ. of Wisconsin), and John Shaw (Wisconsin DOT), Analysis
of Alternate Route Choice Behavior with Variable Message Signs using
Hybrid
Tree Method
Ozlem
Yanmaz-Tuzel, Kaan Ozbay, Sandeep Mudigonda and Bekir
Bartin (Rutgers), Quantification of Possible Impacts
of
Capacity Expansion
Projects on Transportation Costs via Trip-Based Full Marginal Cost
Estimation
Methodology Wilfredo F. Yushimito, and Satish V. Ukkusuri (RPI), Location-Routing Approach for Humanitarian Prepositioning Problem |
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A conference organized by Protect New
York on
safeguarding New York from terrorism and disaster was held on January
10-11, 2008 at the Levin Institute of the State University of New
York. Ernest Sternberg, Professor of Urban & Regional
Planning at the University at Buffalo, is president of Protect New
York, and UTRC was one of the conference co-sponsors. Many
topics of direct and indirect transportation interest were presented at
the conference. A panel on transportation security was
convened by Daniel B. Hess, Assistant Professor of Urban and Regional
Planning at the University at Buffalo, and a panel on emergency
logistics was convened by José Holguín-Veras, Professor of Civil
Engineering at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Here is
a sampling of the presentations: James Ercolano (NYSDOT), Pedestrian Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management of Mass Evacuations on Foot: State-of-the-Art, and Best Practices Norman Groner and Robert Till (John Jay College of Criminal Justice/CUNY), Designing Complex Subway Emergency Response Systems Using Desirable Systems States José Holguín-Veras, Noel Pérez, and Satish Ukkusuri (RPI); and Tricia Wachtendorf and Bethany Brown (University of Delaware), Emergency Logistics Issues Impacting the Response to Katrina: A Synthesis and Preliminary Suggestions for Improvement José Holguín-Veras, Miguel Jaller, Satish Ukkusuri, Matthew Brom, and Coral Torres (RPI); and Tricia Wachtendorf and Bethany Brown (University of Delaware), An analysis of the temporal distribution of requests for critical supplies after Hurricane Katrina Earl Rusty Lee (University of Delaware) and William Wallace (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute), Restoration of Services in Interdependent Infrastructure Systems Owen McShane, Director of Investigations, NYS Department of Motor Vehicles, and University at Albany, The Impacts of Terrorism on Drivers License Issuance Harvey Molotch and Noah McClain (New York University), The Promise and Pitfalls of Worker Vigilance in the Subway: Preliminary Findings Jennifer Richmond-Bryant (Hunter College/CUNY) and Ann E. Wittig (City College of New York/CUNY), Transport and Dispersion of Threat Agents in a Scale Model of a Subway Station Zhigang Zhu (City College of New York/CUNY), Fast Response in New York City: Real-time Airborne 3D and Motion Reconstruction for Security and Planning of Urban Transportation Rae Zimmerman and Jeffrey S. Simonoff (New York University), Transportation Density and Opportunities for Expediting Recovery to Promote Security Rae Zimmerman and Carlos E. Restrepo (New York University), Research Directions for Analytical Tools to Portray and Monitor Infrastructure Vulnerability for Resource Allocation |
| Notes
And News Daniel
B. Hess
, Assistant
Professor of Urban and Regional
Planning at the University of Buffalo, has recently completed two
research
papers. The first,
Influence of
Proximity and
Access
on Transit Ridership for Older Adults, explores
associations between
older adults who do and do not ride fixed-route public transit and
their
neighborhood walking access to buses and trains.
The research tests whether or not the distance
between a trip
origin or destination and a transit stop or station is a significant
factor in
predicting frequency of transit ridership.
Data from a survey of older adults in California and
New York was used
to regress older adults’ frequency of riding public transit against
explanatory
variables, including demographic and socioeconomic variables, access
and
mobility measures, and neighborhood characteristics.
Findings suggest that self-reported walking distance
to transit
has a statistically significant influence- in San José,
California, but
not in Buffalo, New York – in predicting transit ridership frequency
and
whether or not a survey respondent is a
driver.
Partial funding for the development of this paper
was provided
by the UTRC Faculty Development Minigrants program.
Prof.
Hess’ second paper, co-authored with Julie Gotham, is titled,
"Multi-Modal
Mass Evacuation in Upstate New York: A Review of Disaster Plans
. Following the devastating
aftermath from Hurricane
Katrina, this paper examines the case for evacuation
planning in Upstate New York that considers the "carless" by paying
special attention to the movement of people to safety using a
combination of
methods—by foot, public transit, coaches, and vans. Many Upstate New
York
places are ill prepared for the large-scale evacuation of the carless
that may
result from an extreme event. The share of households without vehicles
in
several Upstate cities— Albany
(28 percent),
Buffalo (31 percent), and Syracuse
(27
percent)—surprisingly meets or exceeds the share in New
Orleans when Hurricane
Katrina struck.
This study identifies strengths and weaknesses within upstate written
disaster
plans in regards to multi-modal evacuation. Findings suggest that many
upstate
places—except for those near nuclear power plants—have inadequate
written plans
for mass evacuation, especially when considering the carless
population. For more information see,
Hess and Gotham
(2007), "Multi-Modal Mass Evacuation in Upstate New
York: A Review
of Disaster Plans," Journal of Homeland
Security
and Emergency Management: Vol. 4 : Iss. 3, Article 11. Marina G. Figueiro, John D. Bullough, and Mark S. Rea of RPI recently completed a working paper titled, “Light Isn’t Just for Vision Anymore: Implications for Transportation Safety.” The paper, partially funded by a UTRC Faculty Development Minigrant, reviews how recent research has begun to illustrate the many ways that light and lighting systems affect humans in terms of circadian photobiology, including the characteristics of light necessary to regulate the circadian system. It is well established that light can increase alertness at night or shift the timing of one’s sleep to daytime hours instead of nighttime hours. The paper summarizes this research with the objective of providing a framework for integrating circadian photobiology into transportation lighting practice. The application of light for impacting the circadian system can be a non-pharmacological tool to increase alertness and possibly reduce sleep related accidents at night. A framework for future research needed to integrate knowledge of light’s impact on nighttime alertness is also discussed. H. Oliver Gao and Timon Stasko of Cornell University, recently compelted a working paper titled, “The Retrofit Puzzle: Optimal Fleet Owner Behavior in the Context of Diesel Retrofit Incentive Programs.” Potential government regulations and financial incentives for encouraging pollution reduction retrofits on diesel vehicles are discussed in this paper. An integer program is developed to model profit-maximizing fleet owner behavior in the context of potential government programs. The model is intended as a tool both for fleet owners and for government administrators. It allows for mandated retrofits, mandated percent reductions of specified emissions, fixed grants for performing retrofits, and grants per gram of pollution prevented. It treats the fleet size and miles remaining for each vehicle as fixed and known at the time retrofits are made. Retrofits are all assumed to take place in the present, but benefits and costs are distributed over time. A case study is used to demonstrate how a sample fleet owner would respond to various incentives. Partial funding for the development of this paper was provided by the UTRC Faculty Development Minigrants program.This semester, UTRC is pleased to welcome two Scholars in Residence at our offices.  Rachel
Weinberger is an assistant professor in the Department of City and
Regional Planning at the University of Pennsylvania . In 2006-2007 she
served Mayor Bloomberg’s administration as the transportation policy
Senior Advisor for PlaNYC. Dr. Weinberger’s work is
focused
on urban transportation system productivity and urban travel
behavior. She will be a scholar in residence at
UTRC for
the spring ’08 semester and through the summer. Better
Understandings of Preference Formation for Auto Ownership;
Job
Quality and Commute Behavior; X-treme Commuting and
Housing/Neighborhood Amenities; and Efficient Allocations of Public
Rights-Of-Way are among several of her current research projects. Miquel Estrada is a Doctor in Civil Engineering at the UPC-Technical University of Catalonia (Spain). He has joined UTRC for 6 months. His topics of research are logistics and transportation terminals, and operations in public transportation. He has 2 years experience in the planning and management of railway projects and 5 years experience as an assistant professor in the Department of Transport and Territory Infrastructure at the UPC.  NYMTC's Sept. 11th Memorial Program for Regional Transportation Planning Academic Initiative promotes the academic and professional development of students by providing them with opportunities to participate in innovative research and planning projects, along with a stipend and tuition assistance. Applications are due April 4 2008. For complete information on eligibility and application instructions, please see the UTRC website. For more information, please visit UTRC’s website at www.utrc2.org |
|
Region
2 University Transportation Research Center
(Serving New Jersey, New York, Puerto Rico, and U.S. Virgin Islands) Robert
E.
Paaswell, Ph.D., P.E., Director
UTRC
Research News
is
published quarterly by the University Transportation Research
Center, which is based at the City College of New York, 910 Marshak
Hall, New
York, NY 10031. Editorial inquiries can be made by calling
Penny Eickemeyer
at 212-650-8074. For more information on our programs or to
notify us for
an address correction, please email nadia@utrc2.org.
CONSORTIUM
MEMBERS include
the
City University of New York, Columbia University,
Cornell University, New Jersey Institute of Technology, New York
University, Polytechnic
University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Rowan University, Rutgers
University, the State University of New York system, Stevens Institute
of
Technology, and the University of Puerto Rico.
|
The
winner of
the 2007 UTRC Best Paper Competition
was “An Investigation on the Effectiveness of Joint Receiver-Carrier
Policies
to Increase Truck Traffic in the Off-peak Hours.”
The lead author was José
Holguín-Veras, Professor and newly-appointed Interim
Department Head of
Civil and Environmental Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic
Institute. His
co-authors were Michael Silas, John Polimeni, and Brenda Cruz.
Professor
Holguín-Veras and the paper were honored at the 2008 Annual Leadership
in
Transportation Awards Ceremony sponsored by the NYU Wagner Rudin Center
for
Transportation Policy and Management on February 7th.
The two-part
paper was published in the journal 
Benjamin
Reim, the 2007 Student of the Year from UTRC, lived and grew up in
Palmer,
Massachusetts. He
attended Rensselaer
Polytechnic Institute to study engineering.
From 2001 to 2003, he was unsure on the field of
engineering he wished
to pursue, however a meeting with his advisor sparked an interest in
transportation engineering. In
the
remaining two years of his Bachelor’s program, he participated in two
summer
internships with Massachusetts Highway Department and Whiting Turner
Contractors. He
graduated with a B.S.
in Civil Engineering in 2005, and continued immediately into a M.S
program in
transportation engineering. 
Dr.
Hani S.
Mahmassani, William A.
Patterson Distinguished
Chair in Transportation, Northwestern University, delivered a UTRC
Visiting
Scholar Seminar on February
22 on Predictive Strategies for Real-Time
Pricing,
Information and Traffic/Access Control. He discussed the role
of pricing as
a real-time management tool, in conjunction with information supply,
along with
strategies for anticipatory pricing in conjunction with online network
state
prediction tools. The objectives for developing and applying these
tools are to
reduce congestion and improve environmental quality. These developments
will
allow our existing infrastructure to deliver significantly higher
throughput
than under previously designed operations. The presentation proposed
effective
algorithms based on predictions derived from sensors and data from
current
conditions. Instead of relying on real-time conditions to set pricing
and
management decisions, these strategies allow system managers to peer 20
minutes
or so in the future, and make decisions on the basis of those
anticipated
conditions instead. By
doing this, far
more reliable and effective management strategies can be devised,
because the
chances that the system will enter into a “breakdown” state where
traffic
volumes fall precipitiously can be significantly reduced.