TRB’s Technical Activities Division has released Transportation Research Circular E-C245: Transportation Oral History: State of the Practice and a Path Forward that highlights the availability of more than 1,000 transportation oral histories and includes a proposal for the creation of a guidebook that transportation organizations could use to create their own oral histories. The circular also explores core topics associated with the collection of new oral histories including purpose, interviewee selectio...

TRB’s Forum on Preparing for Automated Vehicles and Shared Mobility has released Transportation Research Circular E-C247: TRB Forum on Preparing for Automated Vehicles and Shared Mobility.  The circular provides a summary of a February 2019 mini-workshop on the importance and role of connectivity within the automated vehicles and shared mobility environment. Key takeaways from the workshop suggest that (1) more needs to be done to create consumer awareness of the differences between and the benefits...

TRB's Technical Activities Division has released Transportation Research Circular E-C246: Structural Monitoring as a primer to convey an understanding of how structural monitoring (SM) technology can be used most effectively. The circular is designed to help bridge owners understand the different purposes of structural health monitoring (SHM). Effective use of SHM can help determine the most cost-effective course of action for resolving some difficult performance or deterioration structural issues. SHM, ...

TRB has released Transportation Research Circular E-C244: Mobility on Demand: A Smart, Sustainable, and Equitable Future is the synopsis of a January 13, 2019, workshop that explored the current state of mobility on demand (MOD), examined next steps for preparing for transition to autonomy, and discussed ways to optimize sustainability and ensure equitability. The workshop emphasized the role of public transit, share mobility, and automation shaping the future of mobility. The market for personal mobilit...

TRB's Transportation Research Circular E-C243: SHRP 2 Safety Data Student Paper Competition 2017-2019 contains student papers that were selected from a competition to promote use of the SHRP 2 Safety Data. A call for abstracts was issued in October 2017 to graduate students across the country, soliciting innovative ideas for using the data. The Review Panel for the SHRP 2 Safety Data Student Paper Competition selected eight students to conduct their research. These students subsequently received a d...

The notion of an aging and under-funded infrastructure in the United States is widely accepted. Current legislation calls for performance targets to be established to aid not only in the administering of funds, but also to assist states in identifying high-risk practices and roadways within their own networks. In addition to the performance targets, agency officials are looking to design and construct longer-lasting pavements through performance specifications. In the late-1980s and early-1990s, the Stra...

TRB's Transportation Research Circular E-C242: A Literature Review of Rail Trespassing and Suicide Prevention Research reviews and summarizes available research reports and data sources related to the issues of railroad trespassing and suicide, focusing on research from 2013 onwards. This report explores incidences of rail-related trespassing and suicide based on several factors, including lethality, age, gender, and risk factors. It also discusses trespassing and suicide countermeasure findings.

TRB's E-Circular 239: Arterial Roadways Research Needs and Concerns: Informing the Planning, Design, and Operation of Arterial Roadways Considering Public Health explores the planning, design, and operation of arterials considering public health. This report presents a series of descriptive examples where arterials and health concerns appear in practice and identifies how and where health could be included in TRB's arterial-related research. It also highlights crosscutting issues relevant to the cas...

TRB's E-Circular 238: 2018 National Household Travel Survey Workshop explored users' experiences with the 2017 National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) dataset at an August 2018 workshop in Washington, D.C. Conducted by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), the NHTS is the authoritative source on the travel behavior of the American public. It is the only source of national data that allows one to analyze trends in personal and household travel. The NHTS includes daily non-commercial travel by all mod...

TRB's E-Circular 240: Workshop on Implementing a Freight Fluidity Performance Measurement System explored emerging tracking and measurement technologies, including blockchain, and examples of multisector data sharing to capture multimodal freight performance as discussed during a September 2018 conference. Performance of the freight transportation system is important to shippers and carriers, planners and policy-makers, as well as the general public because it affects the efficiency and costs of goods an...