A new prestressing system, named Adaptive Prestressing System, has been proven in this study to be an innovative technique that holds great promise as a transformative, more efficient, and safer prestressing method for concrete crossties in railway systems. The TRB IDEA (Innovations Deserving Exploratory Analysis) Program's Rail Safety IDEA Final Report 33: Adaptive Prestressing System for Conc...

The TRB Centennial Book is available for purchase in ebook or print format. In The Transportation Research Board, 1920–2020: Everyone Interested Is Invited , author Sarah Jo Peterson tells the story of how people and institutions created and have continued to shape TRB. In a compelling narrative accompanied by more than 150 images exploring the history of transportation and research, she argues...

Ballast is an important part of railroad infrastructure. It is used as a support base for bearing the load from the track, as well as facilitating drainage of water from the track. Hence, the ballast layer serves an important role in track performance. The TRB IDEA (Innovations Deserving Exploratory Analysis) Program's Rail Safety IDEA Final Report 30: Ballast Real-time Information System ...

The full issue of the July-August edition of the TR News is now available. This issue  focuses on types of trespassing in passenger and freight rail: the importance of the issue, possible strategies to prevent trespassing, and effects on the rail transportation system. Articles present an overview of the prevalence of trespassing deaths and address a variety of preventive strategies and te...

This IDEA Program Announcement 2020 describes the IDEA programs and how they are administered, provides instructions and documents for submitting proposals for funding, and lists general research topics derived from program goals.

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...

This annual report presents a summary of progress on investigations conducted as part of the Rail Safety Innovations Deserving Exploratory Analysis (Rail Safety IDEA) program sponsored by the Federal Railroad Administration and overseen by the Transportation Safety IDEA Program Committee. The Rail Safety IDEA program provides funding for projects that promote innovative approaches to improving ...

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...

In recent public policy debates, much emphasis has been placed on proposals to shift freight from highways to rail. This emphasis is based on goals of reducing emissions and highway congestion. However, prudent planning requires an understanding of the basics of mode choices, what could change those choices, and what the impacts will be. The TRB National Cooperative Freight Research Program's N...

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...

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...

TRB’s National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Research Report 901: Prioritization Procedure for Proposed Road–Rail Grade Separation Projects Along Specific Rail Corridors is designed to assist state and local planners in making prioritization and investment decisions for road–rail at-grade crossing separations. The report provides a comprehensive means of comparing similar project...

TRB's Transit Research Analysis Committee (TRAC) has delivered a letter report to Mr. Vincent Valdes, Associate Administrator for Research, Demonstration, and Innovation at the Federal Transit Administration (FTA). The April 22, 2019 letter report provides feedback to FTA on its innovation initiatives that are a focus of the administration’s research plan. TRAC, an interdisciplinary committee o...

TRB's Transit Innovations Deserving Exploratory Analysis (IDEA) Program Final Report 86: Advanced Neutral Temperature Estimation using Solitary Waves (ANTEUSW) explores a new nondestructive evaluation method able to determine the axial stress and the neutral temperature of continuous welded rails. Continuous welded rails (CWRs) are widely used in rail transportation. Typically, they are laid un...

TRB's Rail Safety Innovations Deserving Exploratory Analysis (IDEA) Safety Project 34: Prototype System for Managing and Analyzing Enterprise Rail Transport Risks of Hazardous Materials summarizes a project that resulted in a web-based prototype system designed to support railroads with new risk data visualization and decision-making capabilities. The prototype system addresses the following: •...

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...

This annual report presents a summary of progress on investigations conducted as part of the Rail Safety Innovations Deserving Exploratory Analysis (Rail Safety IDEA) program sponsored by the Federal Railroad Administration and overseen by the Transportation Safety IDEA Program Committee. The Rail Safety IDEA program provides funding for projects that promote innovative approaches to improving ...

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 Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP) Research Report 200: Contracting Commuter Rail Services, Volume 1: Guidebook is the first of a two-volume set that provides an evaluation of the advantages and disadvantages of each potential approach for providing commuter rail service. The guidebook includes an overview of the primary functions for commuter rail delivery—train operations, disp...

TRB's Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP) Research Report 200: Contracting Commuter Rail Services, Volume 2: Commuter Rail System Profiles describes the 31 commuter rail services in North America and the various delivery approaches, and documents a broad range of strategies and approaches for managing the operation and maintenance issues associated with the contracting of commuter rail ...

TRB's Rail Safety Innovations Deserving Exploratory Analysis (IDEA) Program has released its final report for Project 31: Modeling and Validation of Standards for a Sleeping Compartment on Accessible Passenger Rail Vehicles. This report explored designs for accessible sleeping compartments on single level and bi-level intercity trains that accommodate up to four passengers traveling together in...

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 August 24, 2018 report describes the committee’s understanding of the Strategic Transit Automation Research (STAR) Plan and provides advice to FTA regarding this plan. TRAC, an interdi...

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...

TRB's Rail Safety Innovations Deserving Exporatory Analysis (IDEA) program has released Safety Report 32: Railroad Bridge Inspections for Maintenance and Replacement Prioritization Using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) with Laser Scanning Capabilities. Measuring bridge movement under trains in the field is difficult and expensive because a fixed reference point is not normally available, thus c...

A featured article in the May-June 2018 issue of the TR News examines how deregulation has played out over the intervening 40 years and what this experience means for the future of transportation. The Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 deregulated the railroad, trucking, and intercity bus industries. The TR News is TRB's bimonthly magazine featuring timely articles on innovative and state-of-the-...

A featured article in the May-June 2018 issue of the TR News examines how deregulation has affected the airline industry. The author discusses the changes to the airline industry as a result of the Airline Deregulation Act, including business practices, service realignments, and safety features. The TR News is TRB's bimonthly magazine featuring timely articles on innovative and state-of-the-art...