The Wisconsin DOT issues both single- and multi-trip permits for Oversize–Overweight (OSOW) vehicles. As the number of OSOW vehicle permits issued in Wisconsin have increased in recent years, the management and analysis of OSOW permit data has become more labor-intensive and time-consuming. This "Research Pays Off" feature in  TR News edition 324 (November-December 2019), by Hani Titi, Nic...

States and localities are beginning to recognize and act on the connection between health and transportation. A growing number of entities have produced a number of resources, guidance documents, and strategic plans on the topic. The TRB National Cooperative Highway Research Program's  NCHRP Research Report 932: A Research Roadmap for Transportation and Public Health builds upon this body ...

This article is adapted from The Transportation Research Board, 1920–2020: Everyone Interested Is Invited , to be published by the National Academies Press in January 2020. TRB can be best understood as an infrastructure—one that people purposely designed, carefully constructed, and devotedly maintained to share and strengthen knowledge about transportation. The core missions and structures tha...

The November-December 2019 issue of TR News - with a focus on climate change resilience - is available in hard copy and digital copy for subscribers. For those who are not subscribers, the table of contents is available. Other feature articles in the issue include ones on the history of both TRB and transportation in general and a preview of the TRB Annual Meeting slated for January in Washingt...

Self-driving cars, rising temperatures and sea levels, increasingly strong weather events, changing citizen preferences, and innovations in technologies that are revolutionizing purchasing behavior, social interaction, financial transactions, communications, and travel—the transportation world is changing very rapidly. Transportation Research Circular E-C256: Managing Transportation Systems in ...

Recent studies show that organizations with the most diverse workforces realize better decision-making and more efficiency, innovation, and profitability than do their less-diverse peers. This article in TR News Issue 323 (September/October 2019) details demographic trends shaping the nation’s workforce—the large millennial population, the rise of neurodiverse workers, and dramatically increase...

The U.S. transportation system is developed, operated, and managed by private and public enterprises and, as of 2012, employs approximately 4.3 million people. This number is even larger when it accounts for people whose jobs are entirely dependent on the transportation system, from delivering fresh lettuce year-round to a fast response to a fire alarm to the reliable delivery of children to sc...

Medium and heavy duty vehicles (MHDVs) are a significant contributor to energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S., accounting for approximately 22 percent of U.S. transportation energy consumption. The fuel consumption of MHDVs has only recently begun to be regulated at the federal level. To provide scientific and technical advice on MHDV efficiency, the Energy Independence an...

Guidance to public and private stakeholders on mitigating and adapting to logistical disruptions to supply chains resulting from regional, multi-regional, and national adverse events, both unanticipated and anticipated, is provided in  NCFRP (National Cooperative Freight Research Program) Research Report 39: Freight Transportation Resilience in Response to Supply Chain Disruptions . The re...

Global business and tourism depend heavily on the efficient operation of airports and movement of passengers, baggage, and cargo across many areas. With increasing demand and connectivity requirements for airports comes the need for more sophisticated simulation and modeling tools to validate design assumptions. Furthermore, airport design and planning decisions have significant impacts on poli...

NCHRP Web-Only Document 261: Case Studies of Truck Activity Data for Emissions Modeling consists of seven case studies that are appendices A to G of NCHRP Report 909: Guide to Truck Activity Data for Emissions Modeling. NCHRP Research Report 909 explores methods, procedures, and data sets needed to capture commercial vehicle activity, vehicle characteristics, and operations to assist in estimat...

TRB’s National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Research Report 909: Guide to Truck Activity Data for Emissions Modeling explores methods, procedures, and data sets needed to capture commercial vehicle activity, vehicle characteristics, and operations to assist in estimating and forecasting criteria pollutants, air toxics, and greenhouse gas emissions from goods and services movemen...

A featured article in the March-April 2019 issue of the TR News explores TRB's most recent list of the critical issues facing transportation today. Theses issues include transformational technologies and services; serving a growing and shifting population; energy and sustainability; resilience and security; safety and public health; equity; governance; system performance and management; fu...

The Transportation Research Record (TRR): Journal of the Transportation Research Board, through SAGE Publications, has released full text articles of the most read and cited papers of 2016 and 2017. This collection highlights the unparalleled depth and breadth of coverage the TRR provides to the transportation community. Submit comments and suggestions at trr@nas.edu. The TRR presents the lates...

TRB Special Report 329: Renewing the National Commitment to the Interstate Highway System: A Foundation for the Future explores pending and future federal investment and policy decisions concerning the federal Interstate Highway System. Congress asked the committee to make recommendations on the “features, standards, capacity needs, application of technologies, and intergovernmental roles to up...

TRB's Truck Size and Weight Limits Research Plan Committee has issued its second and final report, Research to Support Evaluation of Truck Size and Weight Regulations, to the U.S. Department of Transportation. The report presents a research plan to reduce the major sources of uncertainty in projections of the consequences of proposed changes in truck size and weight limits. The report defines a...

TRB's Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) latest Impacts on Practice explores the impact ACRP Synthesis 39 : Airport Wildlife Population Management has had on integrated wildlife management plans at airports. A wildlife biologist at Orlando International Airport utilized this report to develop a holistic approach to mitigating bird strikes with a specific species of heron that thrives i...

The full edition of the November–December 2017 TR News is now available. This edition explores a design competition to re-envision the essential transportation facility. It also follows up on the innovations presented by participants in the TRB Six-Minute Pitch Competition since 2013 and finds inspiring successes. Other articles describe policy studies related to transportation by other units o...

TRB's National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Synthesis 515: Practices for Preventing Roadway Departures identifies and summarizes practices being used by state departments of transportation (DOTs) to prevent roadway departure crashes and to identify the data-driven advantages and disadvantages of these practices. More than half of all traffic fatalities result from roadway depart...

A featured article in the March-April 2018 issue of the TR News explores highlights from the 2018 TRB Annual Meeting. This article provides information about the number of attendees and sessions. It includes pictures of individual events, presenters, and award winners.   The TR News is TRB's bimonthly magazine featuring timely articles on innovative and state-of-the-art research and practi...

TRB's Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP) Synthesis 136: Contracting Fixed-Route Bus Transit Service documents the state of the practice in contracting bus services. Today many transit agencies contract out their fixed-route bus transit services; however, there is not enough research that focuses on the procurement and oversight process of these contracts. This synthesis will assist tra...

To keep pace with accelerating rate of research distribution, the Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board is now publishing articles as soon as they are finalized. The latest papers to be published are as follows: Use of a Laser Diffractometer to Obtain the Particle Size Distribution of Fine-Grained Soils Interstate Speed Profiles Conditioning and Testing Pr...

TRB's Special Report 325: Safely Transporting Hazardous Liquids and Gases in a Changing U.S. Energy Landscape reviews how the pipeline, rail, and barge industries have fared in safely transporting the increased volumes of domestically produced energy liquids and gases. The report, sponsored by TRB, reviews the safety record of the three transportation modes in moving these hazardous shipments a...

TRB Special Report 324: Designing Safety Regulations for High-Hazard Industries, examines key factors relevant to government safety regulators when choosing among regulatory design types, particularly for preventing low-frequency, high consequence events. In such contexts, safety regulations are often scrutinized after an incident, but their effectiveness can be inherently difficult to assess w...

The full edition of the July–August 2017  TR News  magazine is now available.  Moving research into practice is the theme of feature articles in this edition. Authors describe today’s successes, present a systematic approach that has proved effective at a state department of transportation, describe federal programs encouraging innovations at the state level, discuss initiatives ...

The full edition of the May-June 2017 TR News is now available. This edition explores the role of transportation in economic development. Articles feature information about benefit-cost analysis, freight production models, transportation satellite accounts, and right sizing strategies. The TR News is TRB's bimonthly magazine featuring timely articles on innovative and state-of-the-art research ...

TRB's National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Innovations Deserving Exploratory Analysis (IDEA) has released Final Report 181: Development of Small Specimen Geometry for Asphalt Mixture Performance Testing. The use of small specimen geometries in Asphalt Mixture Performance Tester (AMPT) offer a means to measure as-built pavement layers. Small specimen geometries may improve the e...

TRB's National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Research Report 854: Guide for Identifying, Classifying, Evaluating, and Mitigating Truck Freight Bottlenecks provides transportation agencies state-of-the-practice information on truck freight bottlenecks using truck probe data rather than traditional travel demand models. The report embraces a broad definition of truck freight bottle...

TRB’s Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 2609 consists of 10 papers that explore freight systems, including: Hierarchical Value Chains Encompassing Freight Transportation and Logistics Sectors in the United States: Network Analysis Approach Probabilistic Modeling of Single and Concurrent Truckloads on Bridges Development of a Duty Cycle for the Des...

TRB’s Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 2637 consists of 12 papers that explore motorcycles, trucks, buses, and roundabouts, including: Safety Effects of Horizontal Curve Design on Motorcycle Crash Frequency on Rural, Two-Lane, Undivided Highways in Florida Investigating Total Annual Average Daily Traffic as a Surrogate for Motorcycle Volumes in E...