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...

The Wisconsin DOT issues both single- and multi-trip permits for Oversize–Overweight (OSOW) vehicles. As the number of OSOW vehicle permits issued in Wisconsin have increased in recent years, the management and analysis of OSOW permit data has become more labor-intensive and time-consuming. This "Research Pays Off" feature in  TR News edition 324 (November-December 2019), by Hani Titi, Nic...

States and localities are beginning to recognize and act on the connection between health and transportation. A growing number of entities have produced a number of resources, guidance documents, and strategic plans on the topic. The TRB National Cooperative Highway Research Program's  NCHRP Research Report 932: A Research Roadmap for Transportation and Public Health builds upon this body ...

Providing light beyond the limits of the roadway travel lanes benefits drivers’ visual performance, spectral content of light-emitting diode (LED) sources should be a design consideration, and there are not currently any health impacts from properly designed roadway lighting are among the findings of this survey report. The TRB National Cooperative Highway Research Program's pre-publication dra...

The lighting industry has changed dramatically over the past decade. The optical system design of legacy high-intensity discharge (HID) luminaires was restricted to the lamp, refractor, and reflector design, which had limits in the distribution of the light, controls, and adaptability. Roadway luminaires have moved beyond this design methodology to include the vast possibilities presented by so...

Prior to 2013, the use of bicycle-specific signals in the U.S. was limited to a few jurisdictions. However, in recent years, the number of installations has grown rapidly. This research identified more than 500 intersections using bicycle signals in a variety of contexts. Despite the recent approval and practice, the TRB National Cooperative Highway Research Program's NCHRP Web-Only Document 27...

The majority of instances of explicit consideration of service life design has been limited to signature bridges and other projects where extended service lives (in other words, greater than 100 years) are specified by the owner. Many state departments of transportation and other transportation agencies have recognized the importance of implementing service life design for typical highway bridg...

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.

As of June 2019, transportation network companies (TNCs) such as Uber and Lyft operate in the ground transportation markets at all major domestic commercial airports. The rapid emergence has presented multiple challenges to airport operators, states, regional transit authorities, and city governments. The pre-publication draft of the TRB Airport Cooperative Research Program's ACRP Research Repo...

The needs of airports may vary depending on the types of operations typically conducted at the airport, as well as the type of weather common to the airport. The TRB Airport Cooperative Research Program's ACRP Syntheis 105: Airport Surface Weather Observation Options for General Aviation Airports aims to provide the operators of general aviation (GA) airports a comprehensive source of informati...

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 ...

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 TRB Transit Cooperative...

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...

Commuter rail services bring travelers from the rural and suburban fringes to the inner neighborhoods and central business districts of many large metropolitan areas in the U.S. The isolated nature of these rural and suburban commuter rail parking lots makes it difficult and expensive to secure and safely operate these transit assets. Further, as the more than two dozen commuter rail systems in...

The deployments of automated vehicles, shared mobility services, and other transformational transportation technologies have the potential to dramatically increase safety, reduce congestion, improve access, enhance sustainability, and spur economic development. However, success in meeting these goals is not assured, and there are significant risks that these deployments could cause unintended c...

Access to relevant, precise, and timely information is crucial for a pleasant experience in air travel. Travelers with cognitive and sensory disabilities, aging travelers, and travelers with limited English proficiency need alternative approaches to those provided for general travelers for accessing and communicating air travel information. The TRB Airport Cooperative Research Program's ACRP Sy...

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...

The condition of sidewalks and pathways affect all pedestrians, but people with disabilities, older adults, and injured veterans are especially affected by them. For instance, among wheelchair users surveyed in the U.S., the wheelchair and the physical environment were the most significant factors limiting community participation. The TRB IDEA (Innovations Deserving Exploratory Analysis) Progra...

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...

Between 2005 and 2011, the number of traffic fatalities in the U.S. declined by 11,031, from 43,510 in 2005 to 32,479 in 2011. This decline amounted to a reduction in traffic-related deaths of 25.4 percent, by far the greatest decline over a comparable period in the last 30 years. Historically, significant drops in traffic fatalities over a short period of time have coincided with economic rece...

How do we bring governance into the era of digitization so it can manage demand and supply digitally? At the same time, it is necessary to correct for the existing inequities in our system, working closer with public- and private-sector partners and developing the infrastructure needed to ensure that the transition to shared and autonomous vehicles (SAVs) minimizes the potential challenges and ...

Public transit agencies are increasingly partnering with mobility service providers. Among these providers are transportation network companies (TNCs), which include companies like Uber and Lyft and are the specific focus of this research effort. The transit industry has produced research to describe primary considerations transit agencies should have in mind for partnerships with TNCs, but exi...

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...

Airports — especially in the past two decades—have generally sought to promote and increase collaboration among the members of the airport community, particularly between an airport and its airlines. One metric of this trend has been the increase in the number of U.S. airports with full-time emergency managers, from fewer than 10 in 2007 to more than 120 today. Collaboration and increased profe...

Most rail trespassing casualties can be avoided. The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) and its safety partners conducted studies to better target and implement outreach, public education, and law enforcement efforts. The results, along with national workshops, led to the Community Trespass Prevention Guide, which documents a collaborative, step-by-step problem-solving approach for local com...

State transportation agencies will always fulfill a role in the emergency-management effort - for all incidents, from the routine traffic incident through major emergencies to catastrophic events. State agency plans and procedures are expected (indeed required if the agency seeks federal compensation) to be related to state and regional emergency structures and plans. This involves multi-agency...

Since 2009, when NCHRP's last Security 101 report was released, there have been significant advances in transportation security approaches, including new strategies, programs, and ways of doing business that have increased the security of transportation systems as well as ensured their resiliency. Hazards and threats to the system have also continued to evolve since 2009. While the inciden...

The July-August 2019 TR News includes a featured story that examines the data behind railroad trespassing fatalities, as well as countermeasures and research to reduce the rates of these deaths. The limitations of current interventions, from design solutions to procedures and rules, demonstrate the trespassing challenge: system-wide, the most beneficial interventions are seen as hard to impleme...

Geometric design practitioners in state transportation agencies have a new set of guidelines on probability of vehicle rollover based on various roadside design features. NCHRP Research Report 911: Guidelines for Traversability of Roadside Slopes will assist practitioners in the reduction of serious injury crashes associated with rollovers on roadside slopes. Data from the National Automotive S...