Accurate traffic forecasts for highway planning and design help ensure that public dollars are spent wisely. Forecasts inform discussions about whether, when, how, and where to invest public resources to manage traffic flow, widen and remodel existing facilities, and where to locate, align, and how to size new ones. The TRB National Cooperative Highway Research Program's NCHRP Report 934: Traff...

Incompatible land uses can threaten the safe utility of airports and expose people living and working nearby to potentially unacceptable levels of noise or safety risk. At the state level, all 50 states have enacted some form of airport zoning legislation since the 1950s. The majority of states (90 percent) have enacted laws mandating or enabling local governments to adopt, administer, and enfo...

Measures that are effective at reducing speed, such as speed humps and mini traffic circles, are sometimes used in low-speed areas such as school zones. But they are often not recommended or allowed (via local policy) on the higher-speed streets typically associated with the highest injury severity for pedestrians. For those higher-speed streets, redesigning them to communicate lower speed, suc...

Introduction of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) will pose safety, economic, operational, regulatory, community, environmental, and infrastructure challenges to airports. These risks are further complicated by the dynamic nature of UAS technological development. Experiences and lessons learned from recent major aviation system changes demonstrate the critical importance of ensuring that airports...

It is anticipated that unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) will increase in activity within the airport environment and will expand due to market demand, operational requirements, and changes in UAS specifications (such as size, weight, and payload). To date, the majority of small UAS, defined as less than 55 pounds, operate outside of the airport environment. However, some public airports are curr...

"Big data" is not new, but applications in the field of transportation are more recent, having occurred within the past few years, and include applications in the areas of planning, parking, trucking, public transportation, operations, ITS, and other more niche areas. A significant gap exists between the current state of the practice in big data analytics (such as image recognition and graph an...

Examples of transformational technologies—many are discussed in technical and popular media—include wireless telecommunications, shared vehicles, connected vehicles, fully autonomous vehicles, alternative-fuel vehicles, smart cities and communities, big data analytics, internet-of-things, as well as UAVs or drones, 3-D printing, and more. Public agencies face significant challenges continuing t...

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...

As transit agencies, local governments, and citizens look for ways to improve existing, and start new, transit service, many of them are turning to the Quick-Build (Tactical Urbanism) methodology. This approach uses inexpensive, temporary materials and short-term tactics as a way of implementing projects in the short-term, while longer-term planning takes place. The pre-publication draft of Tra...

Turning movement count data is key to evaluating the performance of signalized intersections and is also a crucial component of data-driven decision-making processes of transportation agencies. Unfortunately, the availability of quality turning movement count data is not the norm for transportation agencies. The National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Innovations Deserving Explora...

TRB's National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Research Report 889: Performance Measures in Snow and Ice Control Operations presents approaches for monitoring the performance of snow and ice control activities by public agencies and proposes a core set of performance measures that can be customized and used by agencies to meet their snow and ice control objectives. The report inclu...

TRB’s Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) Conference Proceedings on the Web 23: Economic and Social Sustainability at Airports is a compilation of the presentations and a summary of the ensuing discussions at May 7-8, 2018, forum in Washington, D.C. The meeting brought together individuals from airports, airlines, academia, consulting, local and regional government, general sustainabili...

TRB’s Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) Conference Proceedings on the Web 23: Economic and Social Sustainability at Airports is a compilation of the presentations and a summary of the ensuing discussions at May 7-8, 2018, forum in Washington, D.C. The meeting brought together individuals from airports, airlines, academia, consulting, local and regional government, general sustainabili...

TRB’s National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Research Report 891: Dedicating Lanes for Priority or Exclusive Use by Connected and Automated Vehicles identifies and evaluates opportunities, constraints, and guiding principles for implementing dedicated lanes for connected and automated vehicles. This report describes conditions amenable to dedicating lanes for users of these vehic...

TRB has released 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 and provide a way to frame future areas of research, policy analys...

TRB’s National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Web-Only Document 256: Assessing Interactions Between Access Management Treatments and Multimodal Users describes operational and safety relationships between access management techniques and the automobile, pedestrian, bicycle, public transit, and truck modes. This contractor's report may help assist in the selection of alternati...

TRB’s National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Research Report 900: Guide for the Analysis of Multimodal Corridor Access Management describes operational and safety relationships between access management techniques and the automobile, pedestrian, bicycle, public transit, and truck modes. This report may help assist in the selection of alternative access management techniques ...

TRB's National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Research Report 897: Tools to Facilitate Implementation of Effective Metropolitan Freight Transportation Strategies provides transportation practitioners and decision makers with guidance for implementing effective metropolitan freight transportation strategies. The report outlines thirty strategies that are tailored to the specific ci...

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...

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 Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) Legal Research Digest 36: Legal Issues Related to Implementation and Operation of SMS for Airports provides a review of potential legal issues, an in-depth analysis of identified issues, and the benefits experienced by airports that develop and operate a Safety Management Systems (SMS). Implementation of SMS in the airport and aviation sector ha...

TRB's Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) Research Report 188: Using Existing Airport Management Systems to Manage Climate Risk integrates current and projected climate change related risks into airport management systems and planning. The handbook identifies ways to reduce airport vulnerabilities to current and projected impacts of climate change, including extreme weather events. It a...

The full edition of the July–August 2018 TR News is now available. This edition examines 20 years of research and TRB activities on alternative contracting methods (ACM) and success stories from implementing research innovations. Explored are pioneering tools and contracting techniques used by state departments of transportation such as Georgia and Colorado, along with tested project delivery m...

TRB's National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Research Report 896: Updating Regional Transportation Planning and Modeling Tools to Address Impacts of Connected and Automated Vehicles, Volume 1: Executive Summary summarizes guidelines to help agencies update their modeling and forecasting tools to address expected impacts of connected and automated vehicles (CAVs) on transportation...

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...

TRB's Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) Research Report 190: Common Performance Metrics for Airport Infrastructure and Operational Planning serves as a reference guide and introduces common performance metrics for airport infrastructure and operational planning. The reference guide includes information on how to interpret performance metrics that can be used for analysis among airport...

A featured article in the September-October 2018 issue of the TR News explores observations and lessons from the August 2017 total solar eclipse to better understand successful strategies and areas for improvement so that transportation agencies can prepare for the next total one in 2024.   The TR News is TRB's bimonthly magazine featuring timely articles on innovative and state-of-the-art...

The latest edition of Research Pays Off explores the Georgia Department of Transportation (DOT)'s use of alternative delivery methods to compress and accelerate the delivery of projects from engineering through construction through public–private partnerships (PPPs) and design–build (DB) methods.This article discusses the legislation that allowed Georgia DOT to build partnerships with private f...

A featured article in the July-August 2018 issue of the TR News investigates how risk is addressed in both the traditional project delivery method and in alternative project delivery methods used by departments of transportation across the country.  The TR News is TRB's bimonthly magazine featuring timely articles on innovative and state-of-the-art research and practice in all modes of tra...

A featured article in the July-August 2018 issue of the TR News examines the latest application and implementation of alternative contracting methods for faster project delivery of transportation infrastructure. The TR News is TRB's bimonthly magazine featuring timely articles on innovative and state-of-the-art research and practice in all modes of transportation. It also includes brief news it...