This Research Pays Off article documents the use of high-performance thin overlay (HPTO) material to upgrade First Avenue in Manhattan, New York City by adding a dedicated bus lane and separated bike lanes. Project required the rehabilitation of 53 cityblocks—and 11,000 tons of asphalt mix. The construction included micromilling the existing surface, joint sealing and patching with a hot applied polymer material, and applying a pavement fabric. This was followed with a 1.5-in. application of special HPTO...

TRB's Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) Research Report 201 provides guidance and tools for airports to aid in effective communication with passengers and persons with disabilities, including those with cultural and language differences. The report includes a primer that discusses issues, techniques, and the unique requirements and challenges of communicating with people with disabilities and others who have access or functional needs. The report explores uses of technology and other methods t...

Papers released the week of July 8 through the Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board OnlineFirst portal include the following: Perturbation Methods for Protection of Sensitive Location Data: Smartphone Travel Survey Case Study - Zachary Patterson, Godwin Badu-Marfo, Bilal Farooq Privacy Implication of Location-Based Service: Multi-Class Stochastic User Equilibrium and Incentive Mechanism - Runzhe Liu, Haitao Hu, Zhanbo Sun, Xia Yang For more than 50 years, the Trans...

TRB’s Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP) Research Report 208 explores the use and effectiveness of strategic communications in building public support for transit-priority projects. Transit priority projects are efforts to improve transit service, particularly in terms of speed and reliability, by prioritizing the movement of transit vehicles over automobiles. The report analyzes the communication approaches used by cities and transit agencies in the delivery of transit-priority projects, and th...

TRB Special Report 331 concludes that with sustained and adequate funding and modest improvements in research, development, and technology (RD&T), the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and the Intelligent Transportation Systems Joint Program Office (ITS JPO) will continue to serve and advance the national interest and international competitiveness well into the future. TRB’s Research and Technology Coordinating Committee, which produced the report, believes that rapidly advancing technology, new ...

The May-June 2019 TR News includes a featured story that outlines the need for gender-sensitive transportation data collection. Transportation policies that affect both men and women require multiple data collection methods to ensure appropriate statistical analysis; however, research shows that sociodemographics are not sufficiently studied. Collecting more comprehensive and useful data on women’s travel patterns and caregiving trip activities can lead to more effective and inclusive policy. The TR News...

TRB’s National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Synthesis 538: Practices for Online Public Involvement summarizes current practices regarding online public participation strategies being used by state departments of transportation (DOTs), as well as explores the effectiveness of using these strategies and tools. Online public participation methods offer agencies the potential for expanded participation and also present new challenges and demand new thinking about the appropriate mix of techni...

Papers released the week of July 1 through the Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board OnlineFirst portal include the following: Bicyclist Crash Comparison of Mixing Zone and Fully Split Phase Signal Treatments at Intersections with Protected Bicycle Lanes in New York City - Sean M. Quinn, Carl A. Sundstrom, Roger Weld Total Recycled Asphalt Mixes: Characteristics and Field Performance - Imad L. Al-Qadi, Hasan Ozer, Fazal R. Safi, Kamal Hossain Capacity of Urban Arter...

The May-June 2019 TR News includes a featured story that explores how when someone feels unsafe, it can affect their travel intentions, behavior, and patterns. This constrained travel behavior—which manifests variously as avoiding certain modes, changing routes, and employing self-defense measures—is still a fairly unexplored topic. The authors present the methodology and findings of their study, based in Austria, of the ways in which harassment, assaults, and other frightening situations have affected w...

TRB’s National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Synthesis 537: Impact of Asphalt Thickness on Pavement Quality documents transportation agency policy for lift thickness and minimum compaction requirements on resultant asphalt pavement quality. To achieve expected pavement performance, it is important that asphalt concrete (AC) have adequate density. A critical factor in achieving this density is the ratio of lift thickness to nominal maximum aggregate size (t/NMAS). The information in the rep...