TRB’s Conference Proceedings 48: Financing Surface Transportation in the United States: Forging a Sustainable Future—Now summarizes a May, 2010 conference that focused on developments in innovative funding techniques and options for securing continued revenue to support national infrastructure and mobility needs. Views presented in Conference Proceedings 48 reflect the opinions of the individua...

Roundabouts have seen unprecedented growth across the United States, from just a handful a decade ago to more than 2,000 and counting. National guidance had to keep pace with the needs of states and communities planning and implementing roundabouts, and NCHRP took a lead role.

TRB’s National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Synthesis 428: Practices and Procedures for Site-Specific Evaluations of Earthquake Ground Motions identifies and describes current practice and available methods for evaluating the influence of local ground conditions on earthquake design ground motions on a site-specific basis. The report focuses on evaluating the response of soil de...

In regions across the nation, bridge engineers know that the next major seismic event is coming—maybe tomorrow, maybe centuries from now. DOTs have the critical charge of designing for earthquakes and protecting the lives of travelers.

TRB’s Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 2261 consists of 21 papers that explore the economic impacts of high-speed rail and intercity passenger rail service, safe high-speed rail operation, fire development and spread in passenger rail vehicles, geometry of high-speed turnouts, and international variation in cost–benefit analysis of urban rail pro...

TRB’s Safety Innovations Deserving Exploratory Analysis (IDEA) Final Report for Safety IDEA Project 15: Determination of Longitudinal Stress in Rails explores longitudinal stress in rails using the polarization of Rayleigh surface waves as a means to reduce buckling and fracture.

TRB’s National Cooperative Freight Research Program (NCFRP) Research Results Digest 3, NCFRP: A Status Report is a staff digest of the progress and status of the program. The NCFRP is a cooperative research program sponsored by the Research and Innovative Technology Administration (RITA) and administered by the Transportation Research Board. The program was authorized in 2005 with the passage o...

TRB’s Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 2238 consists of 11 papers that explore evaluating pricing strategies for storage in import container terminals, reducing train turn times, policy and logistical efficiency in a regional context, scheduling under uncertainty for single-hub intermodal freight system, real-time dispatching control, the history...

TRB’s Transportation Research E-Circular E-C159: Teamwork in U.S. Railroad Operations: A Conference is a summary of the proceedings from an April 2009 conference that explored how modern teaming strategies might assist in improving the safety of railroad operations in the United States. The circular includes background papers, presentations, and summaries of breakout sessions held during the co...

TRB’s Hazardous Materials Cooperative Research Program (HMCRP) Research Results Digest 2: Hazardous Materials Cooperative Research Program: A Status Report provides an update on the industry-driven, applied research program that develops near-term, practical solutions to improve the information used in managing risk associated with the transportation of hazardous materials.

TRB’s National Cooperative Freight Research Program (NCFRP) Report 12: Framework and Tools for Estimating Benefits of Specific Freight Network Investments provides a framework and tools designed to help estimate the private and public benefits of potential freight infrastructure investments. The evaluation framework is intended to assist public planning and decision-making processes regard...

TRB's Transit Research Analysis Committee (TRAC) has delivered a letter report to Mr. Vincent Valdes, Associate Administrator for Research, Demonstration, and Innovation, Federal Transit Administration (FTA). The November 16, 2011, letter report provides guidance to FTA as it considers early and promising areas of research to support the ability of transit agencies to better understand the inte...

TRB’s Transportation Research Record, Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 2219 includes 12 papers that explore driver comprehension and assessment of traffic control devices, managing trams and traffic at intersections with hook turns, analysis and mitigation of safety issues at curbside tram stops, light rail systems free of overhead wires, context-sensitive design concepts for s...

TRB’s National Cooperative Freight Research Program (NCFRP) Report 6: Impacts of Public Policy on the Freight Transportation System describes the numerous ways that government policy decisions can affect the freight system and, in turn, how understanding the differing concerns and priorities of governments is crucial to better consideration of the potential impacts of public policy.  The r...

TRB’s Hazardous Materials Cooperative Research Program (HMCRP) Report 6: Feasibility of a Consolidated Security Credential for Persons Who Transport Hazardous Materials discusses the feasibility of consolidating several existing security credentials, which are necessary under current regulations and policies, into one credential for all transportation modes. The report evaluates the credentiali...

TRB’s Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP) Synthesis 90: Video Surveillance Uses by Rail Transit Agencies explores the current use of electronic video surveillance technology solely by passenger rail agencies onboard railcars, along rights-of-way, and more.

The TRB Standing Committee on Intercity Passenger Rail has released the latest issue of its Intercity Rail Passenger Systems Update. The online newsletter is published intermittently and is designed to disseminate information about current research and developments in intercity rail passenger systems. Articles in this issue highlight a discussion with the new U.S. House of Representatives Railr...

TRB’s Hazardous Materials Cooperative Research Program (HMCRP) Report 3: Guidebook for Conducting Local Hazardous Materials Commodity Flow Studies is designed to support risk assessment, emergency response preparedness, resource allocation, and analyses of hazardous commodity flows across jurisdictions. The guidebook updates the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Guidance for Conducting Hazard...

TRB’s Hazardous Materials Cooperative Research Program (HMCRP) Report 4: Emerging Technologies Applicable to Hazardous Materials Transportation Safety and Security explores near-term (less than 5 years) and longer-term (5–10 years) technologies that are candidates for enhancing the safety and security of hazardous materials transportation for use by shippers, carriers, emergency responders, or ...

TRB’s National Cooperative Freight Research Program (NCFRP) Report 10: Performance Measures for Freight Transportation explores a set of measures to gauge the performance of the freight transportation system. The measures are presented in the form of a freight system report card, which reports information in three formats, each increasingly detailed, to serve the needs of a wide variety of user...

The latest issue of Ignition, a periodic news magazine from TRB's Innovations Deserving Exploratory Analysis programs, examines converting bus service data to near real-time information that transit system operators and passengers can use to make decisions, membership-based casual carpooling as a means to promote carsharing and transit use, the Independent Transportation Network, and more. Inno...

TRB’s Committee for Review of the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) Research, Development, and Demonstration (RD&D) Programs has issued a letter report to Joseph Szabo, Administrator, FRA, as part of the committee’s annual review and evaluation of the FRA’s RD&D programs. According to the report, the committee is impressed with the management team and believes that the senior staff ...

TRB’s Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 2192 contains 18 papers that explore simulation-based optimization of the maximum green setting, wireless magnetometer vehicle detectors at signalized intersections, management of signalized arterial capacity, arterial signal coordination, crosstalk detection in loop detectors at signalized intersections, ra...

TRB’s Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 2197 contains 14 papers that explore the vehicle routing problem for emissions minimization; allocating departure time slots to optimize dynamic network capacity; optimal all-stop, short-turn, and express transit services under heterogeneous demand; railway capacity model and decision support process for str...

TRB has released the latest issue of the Intercity Rail Passenger Systems Update. The online newsletter is published intermittently and is designed to disseminate information about current research and developments in intercity rail passenger systems. Articles in this issue explore high-speed train developments in the United States, the legislative prospects for Amtrak, New York's high-speed ra...

TRB’s Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP) Web-Only Document 51: Guiding the Selection and Application of Wayside Energy Storage Technologies for Rail Transit and Electric Utilities is designed to help identify and implement effective wayside energy storage systems for rail transit.  Energy storage applications addressed in the report include braking energy recapture, power quality ...

TRB’s Hazardous Materials Cooperative Research Program (HMCRP) Research Results Digest 1: Hazardous Materials Cooperative Research Program: A Status Report provides an update on the industry-driven, applied research program that develops near-term, practical solutions to improve the information used in managing risk associated with the transportation of hazardous materials.

TRB’s Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 2146 includes 16 papers that explore an innovative transport solution for suburban areas, how to expand subway and urban railway networks, track geometry for light rail systems, vehicle and pedestrian safety at light rail stops, a solution to rail overcrowding, and improving metro networks. This issue of the...

TRB’s National Cooperative Freight Research Program (NCFRP) Report 7: Identifying and Using Low-Cost and Quickly Implementable Ways to Address Freight-System Mobility Constraints explores standardized descriptions of the dimensions of the freight transportation system, identifies freight mobility constraints in a multimodal context, highlights criteria for low-cost and quickly implementable imp...

TRB’s second Strategic Highway Research Program (SHRP 2) Report S2-R16-RR-1: Strategies for Improving the Project Agreement Process between Highway Agencies and Railroads examines the process by which highway agencies and railroads develop agreements for highway projects which interact with railways. The report examines the underlying causes of delay in the project-agreement process and develop...