What's New in Data and Information Technology

TRB's Rail Safety Innovations Deserving Exporatory Analysis (IDEA) program has released Safety Report 32: Railroad Bridge Inspections for Maintenance and Replacement Prioritization Using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) with Laser Scanning Capabilities. Measuring bridge movement under trains in the field is difficult and expensive because a fixed reference point is not normally available, thus c...

The National Governor’s Association has released a report that outlines strategies for governors to employ in order to embrace transportation innovations. These innovations include autonomous and connected vehicles, electric vehicles, ride-hailing and car-sharing, and unmanned aerial vehicles.

The U.S. Federal Highway Administration has released a report that determines the potential utility of alternative safety data sources and approaches of identifying predisposing factors for crashes occurring on horizontal curves and at unsignalized intersections along rural two-lane roads. This report seeks to identify data needs (versus data availability) for studying the precipitating events,...

The Institute for Transportation at Iowa State University has released a report that develops visualizations for displaying pavement performance data and information. This report focuses on identifying information about the different types of cracks, relationships between them, relationships between condition and distress data, and performance in Iowa districts and counties.

The Future of Transport in the United Kingdom has released a report that provides a record of the procedure used to derive the local equilibrium correction factors (LECFs) applied to the 2017 skid resistance survey data. To manage skid resistance, Highways England conducts annual skid resistance surveys, and these surveys are corrected for seasonal variations by the application of LECFs.

The Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) has released a report that presents the results of several rock specimens tested under uniaxial and triaxial compression. Information from these tests may be used to expand the MnDOT database of rock properties and allow for improved designs.

The University of Texas at Austin has released a report that demonstrates a variety of smart-transport technologies, policies, and practices for highways using connected autonomous vehicles, roadside equipment, and related technologies. The goal of this report is to maximize the benefit of these technologies in terms of improved driver safety, reduced congestion, and agency cost savings.

The Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development has released a report that evaluates the accuracy of the Annual Average Daily Traffic (AADT) counts garnered from cell phones, navigation systems, building permits, and other publicly available AADTs. There are more than 200,000 unique roadways in Louisiana, and this report seeks to find a practical, cost-effective, and progressive meth...

The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) has released Autonomy on Land and Sea and in the Air and Space: Proceedings of a Forum that summarizes the presentations and discussions of the 2017 NAE Annual Meeting. Autonomy is multidisciplinary, multicultural, and global in its development and applications. Autonomous vehicles rely on communications, artificial intelligence, sensors, virtual and en...

The Competitive Enterprise Institute has released a report that provides an overview of following-too-closely (FTC) statutes and regulations in order to identify specific changes for FTC rule exemptions for automated vehicle (AV) platoons. Although platoons of AVs are not explicitly prohibited in most states, many current FTC statutes would not allow platooning AVs.

TRB will conduct a webinar on Thursday, September 6, 2018 from 1:00 PM to 2:30 PM ET that will examine the impacts of technologies such as connected/autonomous vehicles and ridesharing services on transportation revenues. As these technologies change the way people travel, they are displacing traditional revenue streams for transportation programs. This webinar will address the current and anti...

TRB will conduct a webinar on Tuesday, September 18, 2018, from 1:00 PM to 2:30 PM ET that examines how to process large marine vessel automatic identification system (AIS) datasets in order to maximize their usage. AIS data has evolved from simple tasks, such as mapping port traffic patterns, to more complex tasks, such as assessing locations for offshore wind farms, estimating air quality imp...

Twenty-seven percent of fatal crashes occur at horizontal curves, although they account for less than 10 percent of public roadway miles. Knowing where horizontal curves are located and their geometric characteristics are key to successfully addressing curve safety issues. Curve information is also essential for accurate placement of warning signs as safety treatment, especially where a curve h...

TRB has released a new video highlighting the 2018 Automated Vehicles Symposium, held in San Francisco California July 9-12, 2018. Plan to attend the 2019 symposium, scheduled for July 15-18, 2019, in Orlando, Florida.

TRB conducted a webinar on Tuesday, August 7, 2018 from 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM ET that will discuss highlights from the 12 th National Conference on Asset Management . The conference provided an opportunity for practitioners from all sectors to share ideas about how asset management is changing the way transportation agencies operate. This webinar focused on how the practice of asset management is ...

TRB will conduct a webinar on Thursday, August 30, 2018 from 2:00 PM to 3:30 PM ET that will identify recent attacks on transportation systems and describe practices that may avoid network breaches. As critical transportation infrastructure comes to rely on greater amounts of data, cyberattacks are an eminent threat. This webinar will explore systems that are resilient to attacks and will offer...

The Upper Great Plains Transportation Institute at North Dakota State University has released a report that develops a new method of data collection for maintenance activity planning. Maintenance management relies on collecting asset condition information to plan maintenance activities and budget allocation.

The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) has released a report that summarizes automated vehicle perspectives and insights from government, industry, and other experts at the Automated Vehicle (AV) 3.0 Listening Session held March 1, 2018, at DOT headquarters in Washington, D.C. The summit allowed a diverse group of stakeholders to bring their ideas, reactions, and concerns directly to DOT s...

The New Zealand Transport Agency has released a report that explores the technology diffusion rate and its subsequent impacts on the transportation system. This report aims to guide policymakers in thinking about how technology could affect the transportation sector concerning regulatory and investment decisions.

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Office of the Inspector General has released a report that evaluates the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)’s methodology for determining maintenance technician staffing levels and the FAA’s process for placing maintenance technicians. A properly sized technician workforce is important to the safety and efficiency of the National Airspace System, ...

TRB conducted a webinar on Thursday, August 2, 2018, from 2:00 PM to 4:00 PM ET that features research from the National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP)’s Research Report 868 : Cell Phone Location Data for Travel Behavior Analysis. The research evaluates the extent to which cell phone location data and associated products accurately depict travel. The presenters provided guidelines...

TRB's Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP) Research Report 195: Broadening Understanding of the Interplay Among Public Transit, Shared Mobility, and Personal Automobiles explores the effects of app-based transportation network companies on the cities in which they operate, including on public transit ridership, single-occupancy vehicle trips, and traffic congestion. Built upon the findin...

The U.S. Federal Highway Administration has released a report that introduces the user guide portion of the Long-Term Pavement Performance (LTPP) Climate Tool. The LTPP Climate Tool was developed to provide dissemination of climate data for infrastructure engineering applications.

TRB's National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Research Report 868: Cell Phone Location Data for Travel Behavior Analysis presents guidelines for transportation planners and travel modelers on how to evaluate the extent to which cell phone location data and associated products accurately depict travel. The report identifies whether and how these extensive data resources can be used...

The California Department of Transportation has released a report that addresses the implications for how automated vehicles (AV) may affect the automobile industry and the transportation sector. Specifically, this report makes predictions about the future of AVs based on economic models.

In 2012, Congress gave the U.S. Federal Transit Administration (FTA) the authority to establish a new comprehensive framework to oversee the safety of the country’s public transit systems. As part of that framework, state and local transit agencies are required to engage in safety planning. In the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act of 2015, Congress asked the National Academies of Scie...

The Missouri Department of Transportation has released a report that identifies opportunities for the adoption of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) technology in Missouri. This research identifies the ways in which other states are currently leveraging UAS technology to improve safety and efficiency in a cost-effective manner.

TRB conducted a webinar on Monday, July 23, 2018, from 1:00 PM to 2:30 PM ET that discusses how port authorities are using data portals to make current, actionable information available to the shipping community and the broader supply chain. In the past, port authority websites offered basic statistics about port performance. Newer data portals provide container status and availability, vessel ...

The International Council on Clean Transportation has released a report that compares the fleet characteristics and vehicle technology deployment in China, Europe and the U.S. from 2010 to 2014. This report also evaluates the response of the passenger vehicle market in China and lays the foundations for future technology development and cost assessments to establish 2025 to 2030 fuel consumptio...

The World Road Association (PIARC) has issued a call for papers for their World Road Conference from October 6-10, 2019 in Abu Dhabi, UAE. Topics for papers include the impact of disruptive technologies on the performance of transportation administration, the effect of digitization on the performance of transportation administration, the economic history or measurement of transportation systems...