 Research News
Spring/Summer
2008
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| Region 2 University Transportation Research Center | ||
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Director's Letter • The City College Launches UTMSC • CUNY Faculty Examine New Jersey Road Monetization • Staten Island Conference on Development • NYMTC Hosts Workshop on Land-Use Models • Closing the Gap in Transportation Finance • Visiting Scholars Seminar • Research Grants News • UTRC is Hiring! • News and Notes |
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Have
we finally found the price of a gallon of gas that makes us change
travel behavior? It would seem so during these last weeks of June 2008.
With gas at $4+ per gallon (half the cost of many European Countries)
news from DOT says that VMT are down 2%. And we also see anecdotal
evidence on the news of carpooling, trips foregone and even moving to
public transit. One problem, of course, is that we have made little
public investment in transit and we – nationally – are beginning to
feel a capacity crunch. Researchers at UTRC are working in a number of
areas to address this current transit crisis. First, we are examining
new funding opportunities to sustain a healthy and needed capital
program and to insure stable operating assistance. Second, we are
looking at ways of gaining efficiencies in the capital program. And, we
are looking at modern management approaches that can help transit
agencies address the emerging sets of problems coming from unstable
financial markets, rising fuel costs, increased demand and changing
workforce needs. Of course, this is also a time for UTRC researchers to
develop new baselines on travel behavior. The house-job location
decisions, the decision to buy – or not buy a second car, the rising
costs of transportation as a per cent of household expenses, and
overall household travel needs will all look quite different in 2010
than they did in 2000. We at UTRC would like very much to get your
thoughts on these behavioral changes and will present them in a future
newsletter.Robert E. Paaswell P.E. Ph.D Distinguished Professor of Civil Engineering Director, UTRC |
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The City
College Launches Universal Transportation Model Simulation Center
Manhattan Borough President Scott M. Stringer and CCNY President Dr. Gregory H. Williams were on hand to inaugurate the Universal Transportation Model Simulation Center (UTMSC) at The City College of New York (CCNY) on March 26th. The center will run real-time model simulations and analyze and offer solutions for transportation problems in the New York metropolitan area.
Dr. Neville A. Parker, Herbert Kayser Professor of Civil Engineering at CCNY and Director of the CUNY Institute for Transportation Systems (CUNY ITS), will direct the UTMSC. Dr. Kyriacos Mouskos, Research Professor at CUNY ITS, will oversee the operations of the UTMSC lab. He will also serve as liaison to the Center's partners, including the Vista Transport Group and agencies in foreign countries. The Center is located in the Marshak Science Building on the campus of the City College of New York (CCNY-CUNY). "CCNY-CUNY is the ideal entity to establish this center because this initiative will involve a number of entities that rarely work closely together, but which all maintain close relationships through research and other projects with CCNY-CUNY," said Professor Parker. Creation of the UTMSC was made possible through a strategic partnership with the Manhattan Borough President's Office, which made a contribution of $500,000 during fiscal year 2006, the Vista Transport Group, which made a contribution of $160,000 in DTA computer software and other software support, and SGI. In addition, CCNY provided a $200,000 grant for the UTMSC lab, site renovation and operational start-up. President Williams said "Thanks to this collaboration we now have a much needed and operational hi-tech resource that will prove invaluable in analyzing road traffic and offering solutions to challenges in the nation's busiest commuter hub." UTMSC
Brings New Modeling Capabilities to the Region
The Universal Transportation Model Simulation Center (UTMSC) will
establish a set of test beds in the New York/New Jersey metropolitan
area that will be used to run various simulation models. The
"signature" test bed for its operations will assess and mitigate the
noise and air pollution burdens experienced by East Harlem. However,
the UTMSC will analyze and address efficiency and security issues
arising across the New York metropolitan area.The facility will be used by a broad spectrum of institutions and agencies. Among these are state and city engineers, emergency and security agencies within the metropolitan area, trucking companies and freight forwarders. Planning agencies at all levels, CCNY students and other colleges and universities will also have access to the UTMSC. The modeling capabilities of the system include travel demand estimation and prediction through activity-based modeling, traffic flow characteristics estimation and prediction through Dynamic Traffic Assignment (DTA), incident management, congestion management, ambient air quality estimation and prediction, efficiency and security of trade corridors, protection of critical infrastructure, and sustainable transportation systems. The planning and simulation software at the UTMSC is called the Visual Interactive System for Transportation Algorithms (VISTA). VISTA uses a mesoscopic/microscopic simulation called RouteSim and a DTA routine to emulate the behavior of individual drivers as they distribute themselves on the transportation network. The model outputs the path chosen by every driver from their origin to their destination, as well as the corresponding departure and arrival time. Given the individual paths of all vehicles, the analyst can obtain various measures such as link/path travel time distributions, traffic flow rate, and air pollution emissions per vehicle class and time period of the day and day of the week. This methodology can be applied to analyze Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) technologies including the location of variable message signs, detectors, and route diversion plans; traffic operations issues including signal timing plans, transit signal priority plans, flooding, and weather conditions; and transportation planning issues such as congestion pricing policies, demand management policies, construction plans, and changes in roadway capacity. DTA can provide a more realistic representation of the traffic patterns on a network given the time-dependent demand. VISTA uses a cell transmission model for traffic propagation, in which the network is divided into cells and vehicles move from one cell to the next in each time step in accordance with hydrodynamic flow principles. The level of detail may be adjusted by reducing the cell length and time step can be reduced for a higher degree of detail. The mesoscopic traffic simulator requires about a half an hour to simulate four hours of traffic within a 9000-node network. The system can handle a total of 20 simultaneous simulations in about two hours. The system also includes a microscopic traffic simulator similar to CORSIM which can be invoked to study specific links within the network. In addition to being able to handle the running of a number of different simulations simultaneously, VISTA can be accessed through the Internet by authorized users. This allows transportation agencies to create, continuously update, and run their models remotely. VISTA's DTA model can also function as a real-time traffic forecasting tool. The first step is to develop a calibrated 24-hour VISTA DTA model for the transportation network under consideration. This model is based on historical traffic flow data (OD per vehicle class (auto, trucks), bus/train routes and schedules, traffic counts, travel time, speed), infrastructure data (GIS, roadway geometry), traffic control data (signal timing, speed limit, lane designation, turn prohibitions, vehicle class preferences/prohibitions, etc), and traveler information (Variable Message Signs, In-vehicle navigation systems, internet, messaging) data. The second step is to interface the VISTA DTA model with the traffic monitoring system. Ideally, traffic count and travel time/speed data for every x-time interval (usually 5 to 15 minutes) are used to calibrate the model in real-time, which then predicts the future traffic conditions over a 24-hour time horizon. The accuracy of the model is expected to be best for the next 5, 10, 15, 30 minutes to one hour due to potential events (demand or supply changes) that may affect the future traffic conditions of the network. This process is very computationally expensive when applied to realistically large networks in real-time. An interim solution is to first generate the base DTA model and run the traffic simulator only for real-time traffic prediction on preselected routes. The VISTA RouteSim traffic simulator needs about one eighth of the actual time horizon to run (e.g. a four hour simulation time requires about 30 minutes to be executed). An accurate estimation of the dynamic OD matrix requires a good spatial coverage of the traffic monitoring system and up to date OD surveys. While there is very little experience in the interfacing of DTA models in real-time traffic monitoring systems, once implemented it creates a continuously calibrated DTA model that can be used for traffic management and operations, short term and long term planning as well as real-time traveler information systems. |
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CUNY
Faculty Examine New Jersey Road Monetization
Financing of public transportation is a topic of much concern at this time as we struggle to find long term financing for continuously increasing needs. UTRC has been involved in this issue in a number of ways including participating as a co-sponsor in the NYU Rudin Center's symposium about regional finance on June 4, and holding a Visiting Scholar Seminar on "The Future of Private Infrastructure" on April 25 (see articles below). UTRC also looks forward to assisting the Ravitch Commission as it develops recommendations for financing the MTA. In addition, various faculty members have been carefully monitoring a number of proposed remedies, including Mayor Bloomberg's recent congestion pricing proposal and the monetization of state tollways proposed by Governor Jon Corzine of New Jersey. In January, 2008, Governor Corzine proposed a major set of initiatives to solve the general financial problems of the state. A key component of that proposal was monetization of a number of existing toll roads in the state as well as the addition of tolls to a five mile segment of an existing highway. The plan would transfer control of the toll roads to a public benefit corporation using a concession agreement that would allow for a series of four 50% increases as well as inflation escalations. The compounded impact of these effects would be an approximately 788% increase in tolls over the period 2007 to 2022. By implementing these changes, the State stood to realize a cash infusion of $32-$37 billion. This income would be used to retire a significant portion of the state's general debt and fund future transportation projects. Reaction to the plan was mixed, with significant opposition to the proposal coming from areas of the state that would be particularly hard hit by the toll increases. These included the coastal areas of Central New Jersey, where there are limited options in terms of highway services other than the toll roads. In cooperation with the CUNY High Performance Computing Facility at the College of Staten Island and the University Transportation Research Center, Dr. Jonathan Peters performed a detailed analysis of existing and proposed tolls based upon toll collection data proved by the Gannett New Jersey Organization from the New Jersey Turnpike Authority. This data base provides at a Zip Code level combined Business and Residential toll data for electronic toll collection users on both the New Jersey Turnpike as well as the Garden State Parkway. Analysis of these data showed that the proposed monetization program would represent a significant change in the burden of taxation in New Jersey, both with respect to geography and with respect to socioeconomic equity. It found that a significant number of towns with relatively low incomes have very high burdens under existing tolls. The full report, "Preliminary Analysis of the Regional and Social Impacts of the Proposed Monetization of the New Jersey Toll Roads," is available in the publications section of the UTRC website. Prof. Peters and UTRC Director Robert Paaswell presented this technical analysis to the Communication Workers of America and members of the New Jersey State Senate and Assembly. Currently, Gov. Corzine's proposal is on hold. However, significant interest in toll road monetization continues to be explored in other states. Recently, Governor Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania proposed either the leasing of the Pennsylvania Turnpike or the imposition of tolls on I-80 as a means to solve the significant transportation funding short falls in Pennsylvania. This research provides an approach to analyzing the impacts of these proposals, in cases where electronic tolling is already in place. |
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Staten
Island Conference on Development
On April 11, 2008, The Center for the Study of Staten Island, in partnership with the UTRC hosted their fourth annual public policy conference entitled "Development on Staten Island: The Housing/Transportation/Employment Nexus." Staten Island struggles with development as it is the only county in a 50 mile radius of Manhattan without a rail connection to the Central Business District. In addition, Staten Island had the highest population growth rate from 1990 to 2000 of any county in New York State. Staten Island's future promises a much larger population, raising questions of where these new residents will live, how development will be managed, and how the borough can continue to offer affordable housing to the middle class. Featured speakers included Rae Rosen of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York who discussed the regional housing market and the sub-prime credit crisis. Martin Robins of the Voorhees Transportation Center at Rutgers, Alfred Fazio of New Jersey Transit and Meagan Devereaux of the SI Borough President's Office spoke on the issues related to the development of light rail projects as well as the potential to expand the Hudson Bergen Light Rail to Staten Island. Other speakers included R. Randy Lee, Leewood Real Estate Group; Vicki Been, NYU; Jonathan Bowles, Center for the Urban Future; Michael Friedman, NYS Mortgage Agency (SONYMA); Margaret Becker, SI Homeowner Defense Project; and Claire Mitchell-Dumas, Neighborhood Housing Services of SI. They discussed some of the conflicting goals and objectives of the current government policies and laws regarding affordable housing and the impact of the subprime housing market on local low income homeowners. The potential for revised land use laws as a tool for accommodating transit oriented development as a means of providing mixed use housing and commercial development as well as an affordable housing component. A report on the housing issues on Staten Island by Cameron Gordon of the University of Canberra, Australia and Jonathan Peters of the College of Staten Island will be released in July 2008. |
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NYMTC
Hosts Workshop on Land-Use Models
NYMTC and UTRC held a
workshop on Land-Use Models in Transportation
Planning on May 1, 2008 at NYMTC headquarters. The workshop
was
attended by about 60 people, including staff from NYMTC and its member
agencies, and university faculty from around the region. In
addition,
staff from several MPOs from around the country participated by
speakerphone. The purpose of the workshop was to inform NYMTC
member
agencies about what land-use models can do, and how they are being used
by peer agencies across the country.
 The keynote speaker, Dr.
Eric Miller, Professor of Civil Engineering from the University of
Toronto, provided an overview of land-use modeling on issues such as
urban form – transportation interactions, need for integrated urban
models, key design elements and issues, and the current state of
modeling.After the keynote, a panel of representatives from four MPOs followed, offering their agency's perspectives on the use of land-use models. These speakers included Sonny Conder of Portland Metro discussing Metroscope; Jamie Bridges of Baltimore Metropolitan Council discussing the development experience with PECAS; Dmitry Messen of Houston-Galveston Area Council discussing UrbanSim; and Mike McCoy of the University California Davis, discussing the CALTRANS model development from a number of California MPOs. The panelists described their individual models, strengths, weaknesses, history of development and applications for use. Though each model may differ in its characteristics, the advantage of integrated models is that they allow for testing of a wide variety of policy, planning and investment alternatives. Ali Mohseni, NYMTC Manager of Modeling, presented some background information on an earlier project to develop a land use model for the New York metro region. After lunch, the participants organized into groups, representing their level of agreement with the idea of developing a land-use model for the New York City region, and were asked to identify questions and issues that would need to be addressed prior to making a final decision about implementing a model. NYMTC staff plans to compile this information, obtain answers and disseminate to the NYMTC members, who will then discuss further action to be taken by NYMTC regarding model development. Presentations from the event are available at the UTRC website. |
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Closing
the Gap in Transportation Finance
 On June 4, 2008, the New York
Metropolitan Transportation Council and
the NYU Wagner Rudin Center for Transportation Policy &
Management
co-hosted a symposium titled, "Closing the Gap: Financing the Region's
Transportation Needs." The event drew more than 300 people
and
featured local, regional and national transportation
experts. It was
co-sponsored by UTRC, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, The
Port Authority of NY & NJ, CSX Transportation, the American
Planning Association, and Wagner Transportation Association. The symposium addressed what some consider a national crisis in financing transportation operating and capital needs with long-term funding sources. The keynote speaker was Pennsylvania Governor Edward Rendell, who discussed Building America's Future, a coalition working on behalf of large-scale infrastructure reinvestment that he co-founded with California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Other speakers included:
Video from the event is available at the Rudin Center website, and a summary of the symposium is forthcoming. |
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| Visiting
Scholars Seminar: José A. Gómez-Ibáñez on The Future of Private Infrastructure  Enthusiasm
for the private provision of infrastructure – such as
highways, railroads, electricity and water – seems to be waning among
the developing countries just as it is increasing in the United States
and Europe. José A. Gómez-Ibáñez, Derek C. Bok Professor of
Urban
Planning and Public Policy, Harvard University Kennedy School of
Government and the Graduate School of Design, spoke to an audience of
about 150 people at the April 25, 2008 UTRC Visiting Scholar Seminar at
Baruch College about the extent private provision of infrastructure has
been successful in developing countries and what that experience
suggests for the future of private investment in the United States.His talk, "Private Participation in Infrastructure: Real Efficiency Gains vs. Transactions Costs," emphasized that there is a difference between true cost savings, resulting in real efficiency gains, and cost shifting causing costs to merely transfer from one party to another. To achieve true success, efficiency from more or better output with the same or fewer inputs, is necessary. Some examples of cost shifting include charging higher prices for the same services, shedding excess labor into an existing weak labor market, or just a shift in whether a public or private entity provides financing. According to Dr. Gómez-Ibáñez, privatization in developing nations began around 1989 in the areas of telecommunications, energy, transport and water with about 1.3 trillion dollars being invested privately since 1990, with varying trends by sector. Before that, utilities were privately owned during the 19th century and became public after World War II. Results have shown that there are limitations to private capital in terms of achieving efficiency, however. Negative influences have included non-efficiency motivations for privatizing, cancellations, and expected economic surges and slowdowns by region and sector. Some motives, for example, such as immediate budget relief achieved through divestiture or tapping into private capital markets by selling concessions of a new infrastructure do not necessarily achieve more output for less or the same input. Economic downturns and volatile contracts also contribute to problems. Dr. Gómez-Ibáñez cited several high profile controversies from private investment in infrastructure from 1990 to the present in both developing nations and the United States. Examples of privatization in the United States come from trends with financing of U.S. highways, the first round from 1986-1995 and the second after 2000 involving new toll roads, monetizing existing toll roads and initiating tolls on the approximately 40,000 miles of the un-tolled U.S. Interstate System. Issues that need to be worked out include dealing with the mistrust of foreign investment in the U.S. or developing more domestic financing options, political risk in developing countries, transaction cost levels and regulations of contracts. Dr. Gómez-Ibáñez concludes that private participation is "economically sensible and politically acceptable" when efficiency gains are high with little cost transfer and low transaction costs. A presentation and video from the event are available on the UTRC Website. |
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| Research Grants News
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 region-wide, we are including projects being conducted both inside and outside the UTRC consortium. Bridge – Vehicle Impact Assessment (awarded by NYSDOT to Anil K. Agrawal, CCNY) Energy Efficient and Safe Roadway Travel (awarded by NYSDOT to Richard E. Scammell, RPI)* Solarized Bus Stops on Central Avenue (awarded by NYSDOT to Kristina Younger, Capital District Transportation Authority)* Statewide Traffic Video Network (awarded by NYSDOT to Kevin M. Barron, TrafficLand, Inc.)* Modeling Air Quality and Energy Use of NYSDOT Highway ROW Practices (awarded by NYSDOT to Dr. Huaizhu (Oliver) Gao, Cornell University) Quantify the Energy & Environmental Effects of Using Recycled Asphalt and Recycled Concrete for Pavement Construction (awarded by NYSDOT to Dr. Haifang Wen, President, National Technology Development, LLC)* Light Isn't Just for Vision Anymore: Implications for Transportation Safety, Part 2 (Awarded by UTRC to Mariana Figueiro, RPI, through the UTRC Faculty Development Initiative) The Diesel Retrofit Puzzle Extended: Optimal Fleet Owner Behavior over Multiple Time Periods (Awarded by UTRC to Oliver Gao, Cornell, through the UTRC Faculty Development Initiative) *Not funded through the UTRC Consortium |
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| UTRC is Hiring!
UTRC is looking for exceptional candidates to become our new Assistant Director for Research and Outreach. Please spread the word to qualified candidates in your organization. The Assistant Director for Research and Outreach will be responsible for administering UTRC's research and technology transfer programs. S/he will:
The ADRO will also spend approximately 25% of her/his time directly in UTRC research projects. While most of UTRC's research is conducted outside its immediate office (there are 12 universities in its consortium), a significant amount of research is done in-house. This research tends to focus on transportation economics, management, and planning; transit operations and management; intelligent transportation systems; safety; and many other topics. Involvement in these projects would be tailored for the ADRO's areas of interest and expertise. For more information on qualifications and application instructions, please see the UTRC website. Review of applications is beginning immediately. |
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| Notes And News
Dr. Anil Agrawal of the City College of New York was made Associate Editor of the Journal of Bridge Engineering. This appointment comes in addition to his present positions as Associate Editor of the Journal of Structural Engineering and Guest Editor of the Journal of Structural Control and Health Monitoring. On October 1, 2008, Dr. Agrawal will become the Chair of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Committee of Structural Control and Vice Chair of ASCE Committee on Bridge Inspection, Maintenance and Rehabilitation. Daniel B. Hess has earned tenure and has been promoted to the position of Associate Professor in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York. Rebecca Hoffman, a graduate student at the University at Buffalo pursuing joint degrees in urban planning and law, was selected for the prestigious STIPDG program (Summer Transportation Internship Program for Diverse Groups) sponsored by the U.S. Department of Transportation. Rebecca will spend 10 weeks interning this summer at the Federal Transit Administration headquarters in Washington DC. More information can be found at http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/education/Stipdg.htm. The Center for Advanced Infrastructure and Transportation at Rutgers released Plan4Safety, a GIS tool for analyzing crash data in New Jersey. On the basis that "a picture is worth a thousand lives," Plan4Safety compiles New Jersey crash data and allows it to be seen on a map, searched or filtered, or statistically analyzed. Plan4Safety has already helped many New Jersey localities to identify sites with high rates of crashes, as well as analyzing the risk factors in those areas. More information can be found at http://plan4safety.rutgers.edu/plan4safety/. Thomas H. Wakeman of Stevens Institute of Technology was selected by the New Jersey section of the American Society of Civil Engineers as the 2008 Educator of the Year. The award, presented to "an outstanding educator who has contributed substantially to the field of civil engineering education," was presented at the section's annual Awards Dinner on May 2nd. Professor Wakeman runs Stevens' graduate program in Maritime Systems, and also serves as the Executive Director of the National Center for Excellence in Port Security. Rae Zimmerman, Director of NYU's Institute for Civil Infrastructure Systems and Professor of Planning and Public Administration and NYU Professor Jeffrey S. Simonoff have addressed the serious security challenges posed by the dependence on transportation, areas of infrastructure density and bottlenecks, in an article entitled "Transportation Density and Opportunities for Expediting Recovery to Promote Security," which will appear in a forthcoming issue of the Journal of Applied Security Research, Volume 4, No. 1, 2008. The paper focuses on New York City, where the extent, capacity, and use of its transportation infrastructure is unique among metropolitan areas in the United States. In this paper, research addressing the reduction of security threats is proposed in terms of transportation operations and expediting recovery. Existing research is presented on transit recovery in the New York area after September 11, 2001 as a guide for future research into prevention of, and recovery from, disruptions to transit. The paper presents a statistical model for evaluating transit system recovery that is transferable to other situations and transportation systems. It is shown that recovery patterns of different transportation systems differed dramatically, depending on the damage suffered in the initial attacks, the ability to reroute trains and buses, the psychological status of the general New York City population in the months after the attacks, and mid-term and long-term planning and adjustments of the area's transit systems in response to the attacks. The matrix-like structure of transit systems in New York City, and the fact that some are interchangeable for riders, enabled a relatively rapid recovery to occur. The mechanisms by which such restoration occurred serve as a model for other transit systems, not only in the face of terrorism, but other catastrophes as well. |
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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.
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