The collection and sharing of data are essential in an airport’s risk management process. The data can allow the airport to benchmark against the industry, monitor performance, and proactively understand trends. The TRB Airport Cooperative Research Program's ACRP Research Report 222: Collecting and Sharing of Operations and Safety Data identifies data sources, best practices, and the challenges as...

Transportation Research Record (TRR) will be publishing a special, open-access issue featuring research relating to COVID-19 and transportation. In addition to papers submitted for TRBAM 2021 and recommended by TRB committees, we are also accepting additional submissions until October 31. We invite papers that address all aspects of pandemic-related effects on transportation, including: The COVID-...

The amount of data surrounding the application of emerging technologies is expanding, producing “big data” at magnitudes not previously seen. While a few agencies have found some success with individual projects, most are uncertain on how to handle this level of big data at an organizational level. The TRB National Cooperative Highway Research Program's NCHRP Web-Only Document 282: Framework for M...

The procedures detailed in the 6th Edition of the Highway Capacity Manual (HCM) estimate capacity and several operational measures, including those determining Level of Service, for freeway facilities as well as surface streets. The TRB National Cooperative Highway Research Program's NCHRP Web-Only Document 290: Highway Capacity Manual Methodologies for Corridors Involving Freeways and Surface Str...

With the advent and increasing prevalence of driverless train operation, dispatch centers are becoming more central to reliable and safe transportation worldwide. Dispatchers are, however, highly susceptible to the detrimental effects of sleepiness and related impairment of work performance. The TRB IDEA (Innovations Deserving Exploratory Analysis) Program's Rail Safety IDEA Final Report 40: Using...

This 2018 study published in TRB's journal, Transportation Research Record , examined the increasing penetration of online shopping on physical stores. "Accessibility or Innovation? Store Shopping Trips versus Online Shopping," by Kees Maat and Rob Konings of Delft University of Technology. is one of the most read TRR articles of the past 6 months. The study determined, as of 2017, that online sho...

Structural supports of signs, luminaires, and traffic signals are an integral part of the transportation system. The promising results in this analysis present an opportunity to address the longstanding issue of fatigue-related failures in traffic signal structures. The TRB Highway Innovations Deserving Exploratory Analysis (IDEA) Program's Development of a Novel Aerodynamic Solution to Mitigate L...

This report summarizes an event focused on the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic response and its impact on the operational and economic recovery of airports. The TRB Airport Cooperative Research Program's Conference Proceedings on the Web 27: Flight Plan to Recovery: Preparing Airports for the Return of the Traveling Public includes presentations from airport industry leaders who discussed current and on...

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted transportation agencies across the U.S. in a variety of ways. On July 15, 2020, TRB's Transportation Asset Management Committee hosted a webinar that featured executives and CEOs from state, regional, and transit agencies. Transportation Research Circular E-C266: Transportation Asset Management in a COVID-19 World captures the details of the discussion on how the...

Most laws, ordinances, and rules concerning truck routes are established for through trucks; however, trucks with local origins or destinations may use other roads and streets to travel to and from the established truck routes. The TRB National Cooperative Highway Research Program's NCHRP Research Report 943: Design and Access Management Guidelines for Truck Routes: Planning and Design Guide helps...

Gating allows guardrails to form a plastic hinge, and a portion of that guardrail will swing open, like a gate, and allow the vehicle to pass behind. Before now, gating was a feature of all guardrail terminals. The TRB Highway Innovations Deserving Exploratory Analysis (IDEA) Program's Non-Gating Guardrail Terminal is the final report for the National Cooperative Highway Research Program's IDEA Pr...

TRB hosted the Transportation Resilience 2019: 2nd International Conference on Transportation Resilience to Natural Hazards and Extreme Weather Events (TR2019) at the National Academy of Sciences Building in Washington, D.C., November 13–15, 2019. The primary purpose of TR2019 program was to present advancements made in transportation systems resilience to natural hazards, climate change, and impa...

State Departments of Transportation (DOTs) and other government agencies recognize the value of connected vehicle (CV) technologies in helping achieve the strategic objectives of saving lives and relieving congestion. Several agencies are currently planning and preparing for a future where CV technologies could become a part of their routine business operations. A core consideration in any such pl...

The Alabama Department of Transportation (DOT) incorporated post-construction stormwater management design into the overall roadway design process. The Texas DOT developed the approval process for products used in the construction of a roadway to promote vegetation. And the Virginia DOT improved the management of data associated with stormwater infrastructure best management practices to effective...

The July-August 2020 issue of TR News —with a focus on stormwater—is available in hard copy and digital copy for subscribers. For those who are not subscribers, the table of contents is available. Feature articles in the issue include "Integrating Stormwater Infrastructure into State Department of Transportation Processes," "Transportation Perspective on Virginia’s Nonpoint Source Nutrient Credit ...

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and equity issues will be included soon in   Critical Issues in Transportation 2019 . In this report, which is updated periodically by the TRB Executive Committee, a series of challenging questions are posed to explore issues and opportunities that may arise 10 to 20 years into the future. These questions, 63 in all, have been organized into 12 topic areas ...

Issue 326 of TRB's magazine dives into details from the TRB 99th Annual Meeting, which had a record crowd of nearly 14,000 attendees gathered January 12–16, 2020, in Washington, D.C. The March–April 2020 TR News features photo highlights from the Annual Meeting along with more coverage of the conference. TR News is TRB's bimonthly magazine featuring timely articles on innovative and state-of-the-a...

There is a wide disparity between the goals that state departments of transportation (DOTs) have for priced managed lanes and the public assumption for those goals. The public tends to be highly skeptical of priced managed lanes because the concept is difficult to explain to a nontechnical audience. The TRB National Cooperative Highway Research Program's NCHRP Synthesis 559: Emerging Challenges to...

Should speed limits in the U.S. still follow rules that were established in the early 1900s? This Transportation Research Record (TRR) journal paper considers the question. "Eighty-Five PercentSolution: Historical Look at Crowdsourcing Speed Limits and the Question of Safety"  was published on June 30, 2020. It was authored by Brian D. Taylor and Yu Hong Hwang of the Institute of Transportati...

This 2014 issue of the journal Transportation Research Record (TRR) is still relevant today, as we are seeing a busy hurricane season in the U.S., among other natural disasters. It summarizes ways to plan post-disaster operations in a highway network; mobility benefits of intermediate crossovers on contraflow facilities during hurricane evacuation;  a model for investigating traffic incident ...

This 2010 TRB report on planning, design, construction, maintenance, and operation of roundabouts remains useful in helping to explain the trade-offs associated with roundabouts. The TRB National Cooperative Highway Research Program's NCHRP Report 672: Roundabouts: An Informational Guide – Second Edition  updates the U.S. Federal Highway Administration’s Roundabouts: An Informational Guide , ...

The high-resolution micro traffic data (HRMTD) of all roadway users is important for serving the connected-vehicle system in mixed traffic situations. The roadside LiDAR sensor gives a solution to providing HRMTD from real-time 3D point clouds of its scanned objects. "Automatic Background Filtering Method for Roadside LiDAR Data" proposed an algorithm based on the spatial distribution of laser poi...

Emmett Municipal Airport, outside of Boise, Idaho, “took every bit of advice” from the TRB Airport Cooperative Research Program's ACRP Synthesis74: Combining Mixed-Use Flight Operations Safely at Airports .   Since incorporating the procedures detailed in the report into its operations, the Emmett airport has not reported any further complaints from airplane pilots about the safety of paramot...

Integrated Corridor Management (ICM) is an operational concept that seeks to reduce congestion and improve performance by maximizing the use of available multimodal capacity across a corridor, including highways, arterial roads, and transit systems. The TRB National Cooperative Highway Research Program's NCHRP Web-Only Document 287: Planning and Implementing Multimodal, Integrated Corridor Managem...

Few resources provide information related to selecting the most appropriate traffic signal phasing for the various geometric and operational situations encountered in the field. This is especially true for left-turn signal phasing decisions with respect to the level of control for the left-turn movement and whether left turns should precede or follow the main through movement. The TRB National Coo...

The May–June 2020 issue of TR News is a special edition illuminating the many hidden aspects of tunnels as well as the benefits of tunnel technology to modern transportation systems. Articles highlight the contribution of tunnels to the economy and how transportation operators use the best technology to keep tunnels efficient and safe.

There are three major perspectives on transit reliability: from the customer, agency, and operator points of view. The TRB Transit Cooperative Research Program's TCRP Web-Only Document 72: Developing a Guide to Bus Transit Service Reliability finds, through a transit agency survey, that most agencies do not have a formal bus service reliability improvement program. The guidebook presents a framewo...

Transit reliability is critical to the operation and attractiveness of public transportation services. With the current unprecedented evolution in transportation services, including new competition from mobility service providers such as Uber and Lyft, improving transit reliability has taken on an even greater level of importance. The TRB Transit Cooperative Research Program's  TCRP Research ...

Trajectory data are reported to have served many different mobility purposes. Vehicle travel trajectories are acquired via real-time communication between a data center and in-vehicle gadgets such as smartphones and GPS navigators. "Real-Time Piecewise Regression: Application to Effective and Economical Collection of GPS Trajectory Data," by Yang Zhang, Yuandong Liu, and Lee D. Han, looks at the e...

The Conference on Health and Active Transportation brought together leaders from the transportation and health disciplines to chart a course for the future of active transportation. TRB's Transportation Research Circular E-C264: Conference on Health and Active Transportation compiles comments of the plenary sessions and individual breakout sessions.