Advanced warning of brake problems can lead to benefits in increased transit safety and operating efficiencies. Transit safety will be improved through fewer accidents and injuries due to brake failures. The TRB IDEA (Innovations Deserving Exploratory Analysis) Program's Transit IDEA Final Report 94: Evaluation of Transit Vehicle Brake Inspection through Ultrasonic Emissions Analysis details a new approach for improving transit safety by analyzing ultrasonic sounds emitted by braking. Vehicle brakes emit...

Real-time transit data has been shown to have many benefits and is, in comparison with many other potential operational or capital improvements to bus or rail service, an affordable means of increasing ridership. The TRB IDEA (Innovations Deserving Exploratory Analysis) Program's Transit IDEA Final Report 93: An Open Platform for Transit Agencies to Improve the Quality of Their Real-Time Data details a prototype platform that makes General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) Realtime validation tools readi...

Automatic passenger counters (APCs) provide passenger boarding and alighting information associated with time and location data. They are a standard tool used by many transit authorities to measure and report monthly ridership to the National Transportation Database, with resulting federal subsidies calculated solely based on the data they provide. The TRB IDEA (Innovations Deserving Exploratory Analysis) Program's Transit IDEA Final Report 84: Development of a Mass-Based Automated Passenger Counter deta...

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 choices when procuring new systems and often leads to agencies experiencing vendor lock-in where an incumbent ve...

Commuter rail services bring travelers from the rural and suburban fringes to the inner neighborhoods and central business districts of many large metropolitan areas in the U.S. The isolated nature of these rural and suburban commuter rail parking lots makes it difficult and expensive to secure and safely operate these transit assets. Further, as the more than two dozen commuter rail systems in the U.S. try to avoid cash payments for fares and parking fees, they must embrace consumer-friendly options and...

The condition of sidewalks and pathways affect all pedestrians, but people with disabilities, older adults, and injured veterans are especially affected by them. For instance, among wheelchair users surveyed in the U.S., the wheelchair and the physical environment were the most significant factors limiting community participation. The TRB IDEA (Innovations Deserving Exploratory Analysis) Program's Transit IDEA Final Report 87: Development of pathNav: A Pedestrian Navigation Tool that Utilizes Smart Data ...

TRB's Transit Innovations Deserving Exploratory Analysis (IDEA) Program Final Report 86: Advanced Neutral Temperature Estimation using Solitary Waves (ANTEUSW) explores a new nondestructive evaluation method able to determine the axial stress and the neutral temperature of continuous welded rails. Continuous welded rails (CWRs) are widely used in rail transportation. Typically, they are laid under tension in order to counteract the thermal expansion that occurs in warm days. Ideally the state of stress i...

TRB's Transit Innovations Deserving Exploratory Analysis (IDEA) Program Final Report 85: Location Aware Networks Optimizing Use of Transit Systems by Blind Travelers explores the development and testing of the feasibility of LookingBus as a Smart City solution that is designed to improve the accessibility of public transportation for people with disabilities, including people with visual impairments.

TRB's Transit Innovations Deserving Exploratory Analysis (IDEA) Program Final Report 83: Track Circuit Monitoring Tool Standardization and Deployment at Chicago Transit Authority explores the transformation of a tool used by the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority into an independent stand-alone track circuit integrity monitoring system to help identify safety critical failure conditions of track circuits. The report explores updates made to existing software to current and state-of-the-art so...

TRB's Transit Innovations Deserving Exploratory Analysis (IDEA) Final Report 80: Enhancing Safety and Security of Transit Systems using Computer Vision explores the development of a fatigue monitoring system that detects distraction and fatigue in truck drivers. The report examines a computer vision technology that is based on a single camera and uses deformable model technology to track the geometry and expressions of faces, and measures slow eyelid closure, which is directly related to fatigue. The non...