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...

TRB's Transit Innovations Deserving Exploratory Analysis (IDEA) program has released Report 82: Active Safety-Collision Warning Pilot in Washington State that involved field testing and evaluation of the collision avoidance warning system placed on buses in revenue service over a three-month period. The system provides alerts and audible warnings to the driver about traffic conditions that could lead to a collision.

TRB's Transit Innovations Deserving Exploratory Analysis (IDEA) Report 79: Implementation of Smart Card Automatic Fare Collection (AFC) Technology in Small Transit Agencies for Standards explores a 90-day pilot operation to demonstratie the feasibility of the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) Contactless Fare Media System (CFMS) Standard on a small rural agency system. While many of the nation’s large transit agencies have adopted electronic automatic fare collection (AFC) and smart card ...

TRB’s Transit Innovations Deserving Exploratory Analysis (IDEA) Report 74: Apparatus for Gap Management explores an engineered solution to dynamically fill the gap between a commuter train and a high level platform. The solution includes safety provisions to avoid potential passenger accidents while eliminating the hazards and inconveniences of the gap.

TRB's Innovations Deserving Exploratory Analysis (IDEA) Transit Project 77: Development of a Prototype Retrofit Bumper for Improved Light Rail Vehicle (LRV) Safety explores an LRV bumper design concept aimed at improving the crash compatibility of LRVs with struck vehicles and pedestrians in shared right-of-way environments.

TRB's Transit IDEA Report 71: Transit Information Access for Persons with Visual or Cognitive Impairments explores ways to use technology to address the needs of passengers with visual impairments and of passengers with cognitive disabilities. This project envisioned a new location-based information access system that provides personalized transit information to each user, regardless of possible sensorial or cognitive impairments, with the goal of potentially increasing ridership to large segments of the...

TRB's Transit Coopertive Research Program (TCRP) Innovations Deserving Exploratory Analysis (IDEA) Report 56A: Detection of Explosives and Weapons in Transit Systems explores development of a small-size, low-cost, extremely low-power prototype device designed to detect explosives and weapons in transit systems.  During development the product was tested for its ability detect various components of improvised explosives devices including explosive compounds, liquid, and strong reflectors such as shra...