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 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 February 27, 2018, letter report provides feedback to FTA on its innovation initiatives that are a focus of the administration’s research plan. TRAC, an interdisciplinary committee of ...

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's Transit Innovations Deserving Exploratory Analysis (IDEA) Program Final Report 83: Track Circuit Monitoring Tool Standardization and Deployment at Chicago Transit Authority explores the transformation of a tool used by the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority into an independent stand-alone track circuit integrity monitoring system to help identify safety critical failure condit...

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 ...

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 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 Innovations Deserving Exploratory Analysis (IDEA) Program Safety 27: Field Evaluation of Ballast Fouling Conditions Using Machine Vision introduces a machine vision-based inspection system to assess ballast degradation levels for an in-service rail track. This system incorporates an approach to ballast sampling, procedures for image acquisition of horizontal and vertical ballast cross sec...

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 Committee on the Review of the Department of Transportation's (DOT) Testing of Electronically Controlled Pneumatic (ECP) Brakes has issued its final letter report. In response to a Congressional request, the committee reviews the conduct of DOT's tests, reports of test results, and analysis comparing the performance of ECP brakes relative to other braking technologies in reducing the inci...

The full edition of the March–April 2017 TR News is now available. Photographic highlights from TRB’s 96th Annual Meeting are featured. This edition explores innovations in freight planning as well as insights into transportation safety culture from a recent policy study that focused on offshore oil and gas drilling, while another feature covers the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, ...

A featured article in the May-June 2017 issue of the TR News examines how to develop appropriate evaluation frameworks that account for the integration of new technologies into the infrastructure in order to accurately value the current highway system. 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 trans...

The full edition of the January-February 2017 TR News is now available. This edition explores information about laws affecting driverless vehicles, the freight project selection process, environmental performance measures, and sharing operations data. 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 transp...

TRB’s Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 2607, explores 11 papers related to railroads: Repeatable Procedure for Determining a Representative Average Rail Profile Iterative Method for Predicting Uneven Settlement Caused by High-Speed Train Loads in Transition-Zone Subgrade Comparative Evaluation of Particle Movement in a Ballast Track Structure Sta...

TRB has released its requirements for submitting papers for presentation at the 2018 TRB Annual Meeting and/or publication in the Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board . This guide covers the organization and formatting of manuscripts for peer review and for publication, as well as instructions for submission. Papers that do not follow the guidelines will ...

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 June 5, 2017 report explores efforts by the FTA's Office of Research, Demonstration, and Innovation with mapping its programs to the priorities outlined by its latest strategic plan, a...

A featured article in the March-April 2017 issue of the TR News highlights photos from the 96th TRB Annual Meeting, January 8-12, 2017. The article features photographs of sessions, workshops, committee meetings, and awards. Bruce M. Smith, Apperson Crump PLC, and General Counsel, Memphis Area Transit Authority, delivered the delivered the 2017 Thomas B. Deen Distinguished Lecture on “Ethical I...

A featured article in the March-April 2017 issue of the TR News highlights photos from the 96th TRB Annual Meeting, January 8-12, 2017. The article features photographs of sessions, workshops, committee meetings, and awards. Bruce M. Smith, Apperson Crump PLC, and General Counsel, Memphis Area Transit Authority, delivered the delivered the 2017 Thomas B. Deen Distinguished Lecture on “Ethical I...

The full edition of the November-December 2016 TR News is now available. This edition explores f reight transport in a low-carbon world. Articles cover information about shaping the federal aid road act, GIS asset management, cross-asset resource allocation, and long-term performances and life-cycle cost of stormwater management. The TRB 2016 Annual Report is included in this edition of the TR ...

TRB's National Cooperative Rail Research Program (NCRRP) Web Only Document 4: Inventory of State and Federal Passenger and Freight Rail Programs explores rail funding trends and objectives, a program taxonomy, an inventory of federal and state programs, and case studies to highlight rail funding innovation in practice. The Matrix of Rail Programs includes information about 379 state and federal...

TRB's National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Synthesis 507: Traffic Signal Preemption at Intersections Near Highway–Rail Grade Crossings documents the current practices of traffic signal preemption deployed at intersections adjacent to railway grade crossing in both the United States and Canada. The study provides information on practices dealing with traffic signal preemption, m...

TRB's Committee on the Review of Department of Transportation (DOT) Testing of Electronically Controlled Pneumatic (ECP) Brakes has prepared a letter report reviewing DOT’s plan to evaluate the emergency performance of ECP brakes with other braking systems. Congress directed DOT to reconsider the ECP braking requirement for certain trains carrying high-hazard flammable liquids. The report recom...

TRB's Rail Safety Innovations Deserving Exploratory Analysis (IDEA) Safety Project 25: Dynamic Impact Factors on Existing Long Span Truss Railroad Bridges explores the effect of train speeds, specifically speeds higher than the current allowable operating speed limit, on dynamic impact factors for a bridge. The project develops an accurate finite element (FE) model of an existing long-span trus...

A featured article in the January-February 2017 issue of the TR News explores the impacts of the Transportation Research Board's 2016 state visits to identify current issues in transportation priorities. Each year, TRB staff meet on site with representatives of state departments of transportation and with representatives of universities, transit and other transportation agencies, and industry t...

TRB’s Innovations Deserving Exploratory Analysis (IDEA) Safety Project 28: Field Validation of Inspection Gauges for Wheel Climb Safety at Switch Points provides a field assessment and validation of chipped point gauges, AAR 1B wheel contact gauges, severely worn wheel profile gauges, and gage-face wear angle gauges, which were developed under IDEA Project S-23 for prevention of wheel climb der...

The full edition of TR News 305 is now available. Knowledge management—subject of a recent domestic scan of transportation agencies—is the focus of feature articles in the September–October 2016 TR News. Authors present insights into the multidisciplinary approach that assembles, develops, shares, and applies organizational knowledge to achieve institutional objectives. Articles cover transport...

TRB's Rail Safety Innovations Deserving Exploratory Analysis (IDEA) Safety Project 26: Remote Sensing with Mobile LiDAR and Imaging Sensors for Railroad Bridge Inspections describes results from a research effort to investigate the applicability of two remote sensing approaches–one based on Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) and the other one on imaging sensors—to help detect concrete cracks a...

TRB's National Cooperative Freight Research Program (NCFRP) Research Report 37: Using Commodity Flow Survey Microdata and Other Establishment Data to Estimate the Generation of Freight, Freight Trips, and Service Trips: Guidebook provides policy makers with improved establishment-level models that estimate the Freight Trip Generation (FTG), the number of vehicle trips produced and attracted at ...

TRB's Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP) Synthesis 124: Planning and Design for Fire and Smoke Incidents in Underground Passenger Rail Systems documents the state-of-the-practice to address fire and smoke incidents. Fires in underground passenger rail tunnels require implementation of different measures in order to provide safety for the passengers and ensure structural and system inte...

A featured article in the November-December 2016 issue of the TR News highlights the challenges of freight transportation with regards to meeting new emissions standards. 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 items of interest to the transportation com...