What's New in Data and Information Technology

Autonomous vehicles (AV) took center stage at the Chair’s Luncheon of the Transportation Research Board’s Annual Meeting this week. U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Elaine L. Chao announced “AV 4.0,” a new DOT-White House initiative created to unify AV efforts across 38 federal government entities, focusing chiefly on the potential of increased safety with less human error. One part ...

TRB's National Cooperative Highway Research Program has issued a request for proposals to demonstrate the feasibility and practical value of Big Data approaches to improve traffic incident management. Proposals are due February 18, 2020.

TRB is sponsoring the Measuring and Managing Freight System Resilience Workshop from September 9-10, 2020 in Washington, DC. The workshop will focus on costs and consequences of freight network disruptions caused by natural events, accidents, and intentional acts are significant at the local and national levels.

TRB gathered a group photo at the Annual Meeting to celebrate attendees and a record year of attendance at 13,900+. The result was a magnificent display of many of the world's best and brightest thinkers in the world of transportation, also showing what a multimodal group the annual meeting brings together of people from all over the world. For the full-size photo that allows you to scroll clos...

TRB released a new video, Your future in transportation , at the TRB Annual Meeting. As the Transportation Research Board of the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine turns 100 on November 11, 2020, we are focused on the role of research and taking the lessons learned into the future of transportation. Along with the video, we released a companion book, The Transportation...

Intermodal terminal design and operations are now facing different kinds of challenges, with escalating volumes, rising customer expectations, and increased community concerns over emissions and traffic congestion. The Standing Committee on Intermodal Freight Terminal Design and Operations (AT050) has evolved by both broadening the scope of the intermodal terminal issues it addresses and foster...

TRB officially turns 100 on November 11, 2020. To help celebrate the centennial TRB is asking you to “Tell Us ‘Our’ Story.” This month’s question is: How has TRB helped enhance the quality of life, safety, and/or economy of your physical community? Please submit your responses in to this month's question by January 31, 2020. TRB welcomes all stories: small or large, profound or light-hearted, ...

Congratulations to TRB Division Committee chair Chris Hendrickson! On Saturday, January 11, Dr. Hendrickson received the Council of University Transportation Centers’s CUTC-HNTB Lifetime Achievement Award for Transportation Education and Research. He is recognized for decades of research and professional leadership as well as his unparalleled impact on the field of transportation through nurtur...

Transit agencies in the US use four primary communications mechanisms to dispatch, monitor and manage the operations of their mobile assets: private radio systems, Wi-Fi communications, cellular communications, and track circuits and signaling. Most data communications in the transit industry today are still based on vendor proprietary communications protocols and messaging. This limits agency ...

New sources of data that may improve safety planning are investigated in Data Mining to Improve Planning for Pedestrian and Bicyclist Safety , a report from the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute. This report explores data from multiple sources to inform bicycle and pedestrian safety improvements.

The Wisconsin DOT issues both single- and multi-trip permits for Oversize–Overweight (OSOW) vehicles. As the number of OSOW vehicle permits issued in Wisconsin have increased in recent years, the management and analysis of OSOW permit data has become more labor-intensive and time-consuming. This "Research Pays Off" feature in  TR News edition 324 (November-December 2019), by Hani Titi, Nic...

States and localities are beginning to recognize and act on the connection between health and transportation. A growing number of entities have produced a number of resources, guidance documents, and strategic plans on the topic. The TRB National Cooperative Highway Research Program's  NCHRP Research Report 932: A Research Roadmap for Transportation and Public Health builds upon this body ...

Problem statements are now being accepted for the FY 2021 Behavioral Traffic Safety Cooperative Research Program (BTSCRP) identify potential research needs and form the basis for selection of the annual BTSCRP research program. Problem statements should be no longer than three pages, and should be sent in a Microsoft Word attachment to BTSCRP@NAS.EDU . Problem statements are due by February 21,...

The engineering post-hazard assessment of bridges is detailed in Post-Hazard Engineering Assessment of Highway Structures using Remote Sensing Technologies , a report from the U.S. Federal Highway Administration. This report focuses on geo- and hydraulic hazards, and its goal is to collect engineering data related to the behavior and damage to bridges.

TRB's National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) has issued a request for proposals to develop and validate a statistically valid predictive methodology to quantify the effect of vehicle mix on crash frequency and severity for various facility types. Proposals are due January 23, 2020.

Nearly 14,000 people – including industry leaders, policymakers, administrators, and researchers from government, industry, and academia – gathered for the Transportation Research Board’s 99th Annual Meeting (you can still register at this link too)  in Washington, D.C., from Jan. 12-16, 2020. TRB is celebrating its centennial with the launch of a book chronicling the history of how the o...

The TRB “Tell Us ‘Our’ Story centennial activity is designed to allow as many of you (TRB’s volunteers and friends) as possible to participate in the TRB Centennial Celebration through the submission of your stories. The “Tell Us ‘Our” Story” Centennial activity consists of a series of monthly questions that will help capture your stories. According to Sharid Amiri, Senior Transportation Engin...

In an effort to ensure that the talent of TRB’s thousands of volunteers can best focus on 21st century critical and emerging transportation issues, the Technical Activities Council and Technical Activities Division of TRB are announcing a new volunteer structure. TRB is positioning itself to be the premier source of ideas, knowledge, and innovations. A key part of this effort is a review and st...

As of June 2019, transportation network companies (TNCs) such as Uber and Lyft operate in the ground transportation markets at all major domestic commercial airports. The rapid emergence has presented multiple challenges to airport operators, states, regional transit authorities, and city governments. The pre-publication draft of the TRB Airport Cooperative Research Program's ACRP Research Repo...

Dr. Yu Zhang has been named a TRB Transit IDEA 2019 recipient. The $100,000 award will go to her project,  Multi-stage Planning for Electrifying Transit Bus Systems with Multiformat Charging Facilities . Dr. Zhang's project examines the role of the electrification of transport in reducing the footprint of greenhouse gas emissions. This is especially relevant research because the total numb...

The needs of airports may vary depending on the types of operations typically conducted at the airport, as well as the type of weather common to the airport. The TRB Airport Cooperative Research Program's ACRP Syntheis 105: Airport Surface Weather Observation Options for General Aviation Airports aims to provide the operators of general aviation (GA) airports a comprehensive source of informati...

The potential impacts of autonomous vehicles (AV) on transit and parking systems are examined in Challenges and Opportunities of Autonomous Vehicles to Urban Planning: Investigation into Transit and Parking , a report from the Center for Transportation Studies at the University of Minnesota. This report identifies general impacts of AVs, as well as their specific effects on transit and parking.

This article is adapted from The Transportation Research Board, 1920–2020: Everyone Interested Is Invited , to be published by the National Academies Press in January 2020. TRB can be best understood as an infrastructure—one that people purposely designed, carefully constructed, and devotedly maintained to share and strengthen knowledge about transportation. The core missions and structures tha...

The National Academies/TRB Forum on Preparing for Automated Vehicles and Shared Mobility will focus its 2020 efforts on identifying and preparing for future scenarios. These efforts are expected to include the following: Preparing summaries of top ten issues of concern to forum participants Identifying sample scenario(s) and their implications Developing visions and strategies Preparing impleme...

In a century when we google instead of perform manual searches, researchers can take instant information for granted. In the early 1960s, the Highway Research Board led the charge in developing “automated information systems” to replace searching by hand through card catalogs and publications such as Highway Research Abstracts. To learn the whole story, check out the latest release in the TRB H...

The Standing Committee on International Trade and Transportation (AT020) committee was initiated in 1986. Unlike more modally specific committees, AT020 did not follow a modal, regional, or even U.S. domestic focus, but was one of the earliest committees to explore the intersection of trade and transportation issues, recognizing that international trade is the seminal demand input for transport...

Critical roadside safety devices for truck platooning are identified in Implications of Truck Platoons for Roadside Hardware and Vehicle Safety , a report from the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute. Platooning is an extension of cooperative adaptive cruise control and forward collision avoidance technology, which provides automated lateral and longitudinal vehicle control to maintain short...

Interested in having a TRB Centennial component as part of a 2020 meeting or event your organization is sponsor? The TRB Centennial Roaming Exhibit is designed to allow organizations to have a TRB Centennial exhibit booth as part of a meeting or event they are hosting during 2020. The booth can be configured for a table top exhibit or for a 10 x 10 to 10 x 20 square foot booth. The booth is not...

The November-December 2019 issue of TR News - with a focus on climate change resilience - is available in hard copy and digital copy for subscribers. For those who are not subscribers, the table of contents is available. Other feature articles in the issue include ones on the history of both TRB and transportation in general and a preview of the TRB Annual Meeting slated for January in Washingt...

The U.S. Federal Highway Administration has released the latest issue of its bi-monthly Innovator newsletter , which is designed to help advance widespread implementation of innovations and technologies in the highway community and help chronicle a nationwide movement to improve the way highways are built. Articles in this issue feature: Accelerated bridge construction Data-driven safety analys...