What's New in Design

The Florida Department of Transportation has released a report that explores the development of a test to evaluate the healing behavior of a dense- and open-graded asphalt mixture.

TRB standing committees have issued  calls for papers for the TRB 92nd Annual Meeting, January 13-17, 2013, in Washington, D.C, and the Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board (TRR). While papers addressing any relevant aspect of transportation research will be considered, some committees are soliciting papers in specific subject areas to help potential...

TRB’s National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Report 718: Fatigue Loading and Design Methodology for High-Mast Lighting Towers provides criteria for the fatigue design of high-mast lighting towers. The report also includes a series of proposed revisions with associated commentary to the fatigue design provisions of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Offic...

This fall, TRB will release Rockfall: Characterization and Control, which will address rockfall hazard identification and evaluation, investigation process, mitigation options, and maintenance and management programs. The 400 page publication will include a DVD with video clips of rockfall field tests and several historical movies documenting rockfall field activities. Because of the expec...

The Utah Department of Transportation has released a report that explores monitoring concrete precast panels for bridge decks that are reinforced with Glass Fiber Reinforced Polymer (GFRP) bars.

The New Zealand Transport Agency has released a report that explores the relationship between the dimensions of audio tactile profiled road-markings and the noise and vibration generated inside a vehicle when it traverses the road-markings.

The Colorado Department of Transportation has released a report that investigates the hydraulic efficiencies of bar inlets, vane inlets, and curb-opening inlets for street and roadway drainage.

The U.S. Federal Highway Administration has released a report that provides information for the planning and hydraulic design of culverts. The publication updates Hydraulic Design Series Number 5 and adds new information on software solutions, aquatic organism passage, culvert assessment, and culvert repair and rehabilitation.

TRB will conduct a webinar on July 11, 2012, from 2:00 p.m.-3:30 p.m. ET that will explore National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Report 707: Guidelines on the Use of Auxiliary Through Lanes at Signalized Intersections . Participants must register in advance of the webinar, and there is a fee for non-TRB Sponsor employees. A certificate for 1.5 Professional Development Hours (PDH...

TRB is cosponsoring the 4th Urban Street Symposium on June 24-27, 2012, in Chicago, Illinois. The symposium is designed to explore improvements in suburban and urban street design practices, foster discussions on alternative street design practices, examine alternative street designs, and facilitate the transfer of urban street research findings to state agencies and to local governments. Early...

TRB’s National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Synthesis 432: Recent Roadway Geometric Design Research for Improved Safety and Operations reviews and summarizes roadway geometric design literature completed and published from 2001 through early 2011, particularly research that identified impacts on safety and operations. The report is structured to correspond to chapters in th...

The Oregon Department of Transportation has released a report that evaluates laboratory tests on ten full-size reinforced concrete girders, representative of in-situ bridge members, to determine the performance of near surface mounted-carbon fiber reinforced polymer (NSM-CFRP) retrofitting for shear strengthening.

Roundabouts have seen unprecedented growth across the United States, from just a handful a decade ago to more than 2,000 and counting. National guidance had to keep pace with the needs of states and communities planning and implementing roundabouts, and NCHRP took a lead role.

TRB’s National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Synthesis 428: Practices and Procedures for Site-Specific Evaluations of Earthquake Ground Motions identifies and describes current practice and available methods for evaluating the influence of local ground conditions on earthquake design ground motions on a site-specific basis. The report focuses on evaluating the response of soil de...

The Mineta Transportation Institute has released a report that examines policies and strategies governing the design and operations of bus lanes in major congested urban centers. 

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has released a report that examined the prevalence of pedal application errors and the driver, vehicle, roadway, and environmental characteristics associated with pedal misapplication crashes.

The Center for Dirt and Gravel Road Studies at Penn State University has released a report that quantifies sediment generation rates from oil access roads in the Allegheny National Forest and determines differences in sediment production after placing new aggregate on four of the tested sites.

In regions across the nation, bridge engineers know that the next major seismic event is coming—maybe tomorrow, maybe centuries from now. DOTs have the critical charge of designing for earthquakes and protecting the lives of travelers.

TRB’s National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Web-Only Document 187: Seismic Design of Geosynthetic-Reinforced Soil Bridge Abutments with Modular Block Facing explores design methods and construction guidelines for using geosynthetic-reinforced soil (GRS) systems in bridge abutments in seismically active regions. The report focuses on single-span, simply-supported bridges subjecte...

TRB’s National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Legal Research Digest 57: Tort Liability Defense Practices for Design Flexibility focuses on tort liability defense practices and cases involving the exercise of discretion in design. The report is designed to help provide a framework for determining potentially successful strategies to employ when defending design decisions made follo...

TRB conducted a webinar on April 10, 2012, that explored techniques for maintaining and managing granular surfaced roads. Participants must register in advance of the webinar, and there is a fee for non-TRB Sponsor employees. Contact Reggie Gillum at RGillum@nas.edu to request a recording of the webinar. Webinar presenters will share techniques for maintaining and managing granular surfaced roa...

The Colorado Department of Transportation has released a report that explores a cost-benefit analysis of constructed hot mix asphalt projects using three and five-year warranty specifications.

Austroads has released a report that explores four on-road public transport priority treatments including full bus lane, set back bus lane, queue jump bus lane, and no priority. The report is free after registering on the website.

The Florida Department of Transportation has released a report that explores the cause of failures in several cantilever sign structures that occurred as a result of four major hurricanes during a six-week period, and explores design potential improvements that can be made to these structures.

The World Bank has released a report that explores the outlook for world air transport energy consumption; discusses air transport’s impact on the environment; and highlights potential energy efficiency gains in aircraft design, air service operations, and infrastructure design.  The report also examines potential policy options for countries with respect to air transport energy efficiency.

The New Zealand Transport Agency has released a report that explores a statistical modeling exercise to develop a means for predicting the expected in-service skid resistance of rural sections of the New Zealand state highway surfaced with chip seal.

The New Zealand Transport Agency has released a report that explores tensile fatigue design criteria of aggregates bound by stabilizing agents for use in pavement design.

The National Research Council Canada has released a report that describes a decision-making approach designed to address sustainable design and management of highway bridge decks.  Factors that the approach attempts to balance include minimization of the owner’s costs, users costs, and environmental impacts.

TRB is cosponsoring the 29th International Bridge Conference (IBC 2012) on June 12-13, 2012, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Conference attendees will have the opportunity to participate in technical sessions, workshops, special interest sessions, and seminars. Topics that will be addressed during the conference include design, rehabilitation, construction, research, inspection, and rehabilitation...

TRB is sponsoring the symposium on the Relationship Between the Design and Construction of Rockfall Mitigation Techniques on May 7, 2012, in Redding, California, the venue for the 63rd Highway Geology Symposium. The TRB symposium is designed to help designers and constructors of rockfall mitigation systems to develop enhanced practical designs and design elements that can be successfully constr...