Interest in driverless vehicles, including low-speed automated vehicles (LSAVs), continues to expand globally and in the United States. The TRB Transit Cooperative Research Program's TCRP Research Report 220: Low-Speed Automated Vehicles (LSAVs) in Public Transportation presents current use cases for LSAVs and provides a practitioner guide for planning and implementing LSAV services as a new publi...

The November-December 2020 issue of TR News —with a cover feature on the development of a Recycled Material Web Map—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 "Living with Transformational Technologies and Other Surprises," "Asphalt Recycling: History of Recycled Mate...

If combined with public transit and increased in scale, shared modes of transportation, such as ride-hailing, scooter sharing and bike sharing, can enhance mobility, equity, and sustainability in metropolitan areas. Cities, transit agencies, and shared mobility providers should collaborate in goal-setting, experimentation, testing, and implementation. These are among the findings in TRB Special Re...

Small gasoline-powered aircraft are the single largest emitter of lead in the United States, as other major emission sources such as automobile gasoline have been previously addressed. A highly toxic substance that can result in an array of negative health effects in humans, lead is added to aviation gasoline to meet the performance and safety requirements of a sizable portion of the country’s gas...

The September–October 2020 issue of TRB's magazine is now available in full online. Themed “Embracing the Future,” the issue celebrates TRB’s centennial with articles forecasting the future of transportation. Authors present outlooks that are multimodal, creative, diverse, inclusive, and thought-provoking, offering a pause point for transportation researchers, policy makers, and practitioners as t...

The year 2020’s raging coronavirus pandemic and reckoning with long-standing racial injustice led to widespread disruption and suffering, social unrest, and renewed calls for an accounting of our fragmented public health system and troubled history of racial inequity. The crises of 2020 transcend transportation yet also raise fundamental questions for it along with other sectors of our society and...

The 2020 Annual Report summarizes TRB’s accomplishments in each of its major program areas and how TRB has served the nation and the global transportation professional community throughout 2020. TRB provides leadership in transportation improvements and innovation through trusted, timely, impartial, and evidence-based information exchange, research, and advice regarding all modes of transportation...

As unmanned systems (UxS) continue to develop and be used by other military services and federal agencies, the U.S. Coast Guard should proceed more aggressively and deliberately in taking advantage of UxS advancements, says a new congressionally mandated report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. The Coast Guard should also produce a high-level strategy with critica...

Recent advancements in automated and advanced driving technologies have demonstrated improvements in safety, ease and accessibility, and efficiency in road transportation. There has also been a reduction in costs in these technologies that can now be adapted into the airport environment. The TRB Airport Cooperative Research Program's ACRP Research Report 219: Advanced Ground Vehicle Technologies f...

Third rail systems provide traction power to electrified rail systems in many parts of the world, including the United States, and encounter problems such as failures that need to be investigated and remediated. The TRB Transit Cooperative Research Program's TCRP Synthesis 150: Third Rail Insulator Failures: Current State of the Practice  documents the present practices and lessons learned, c...

Advanced warning of brake problems can lead to benefits in increased transit safety and operating efficiencies. Transit safety will be improved through fewer accidents and injuries due to brake failures. The TRB IDEA (Innovations Deserving Exploratory Analysis) Program's Transit IDEA Final Report 94: Evaluation of Transit Vehicle Brake Inspection through Ultrasonic Emissions Analysis details a new...

Understanding pandemics, their impacts to transportation, and potential effective response has become more important, not only for the response to COVID-19, but also if, as the World Health Organization warns, we are now “living in a time of viruses.” TRB's National Cooperative Highway Research Program and Transit Cooperative Research Program have jointly issued this pre-publication draft of NCHRP...

Coronavirus (COVID-19) has proven a formidable adversary worldwide, with tremendous impact on the United States. The transportation system is an essential element of our response to this pandemic but has also been significantly impacted across all modes, both passenger and goods movement. This environment is where research is needed most. TRB's Transportation Research Circular E-C267: Summary of T...

Understanding pandemics, their impacts to transportation, and potential effective response has become more important, not only for the response to COVID-19, but also if, as the World Health Organization warns, we are now “living in a time of viruses.” TRB's National Cooperative Highway Research Program and Transit Cooperative Research Program have jointly issued this pre-publication draft of NCHRP...

Structural supports of signs, luminaires, and traffic signals are an integral part of the transportation system. The promising results in this analysis present an opportunity to address the longstanding issue of fatigue-related failures in traffic signal structures. The TRB Highway Innovations Deserving Exploratory Analysis (IDEA) Program's Development of a Novel Aerodynamic Solution to Mitigate L...

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted transportation agencies across the U.S. in a variety of ways. On July 15, 2020, TRB's Transportation Asset Management Committee hosted a webinar that featured executives and CEOs from state, regional, and transit agencies. Transportation Research Circular E-C266: Transportation Asset Management in a COVID-19 World captures the details of the discussion on how the...

TRB hosted the Transportation Resilience 2019: 2nd International Conference on Transportation Resilience to Natural Hazards and Extreme Weather Events (TR2019) at the National Academy of Sciences Building in Washington, D.C., November 13–15, 2019. The primary purpose of TR2019 program was to present advancements made in transportation systems resilience to natural hazards, climate change, and impa...

State Departments of Transportation (DOTs) and other government agencies recognize the value of connected vehicle (CV) technologies in helping achieve the strategic objectives of saving lives and relieving congestion. Several agencies are currently planning and preparing for a future where CV technologies could become a part of their routine business operations. A core consideration in any such pl...

The Alabama Department of Transportation (DOT) incorporated post-construction stormwater management design into the overall roadway design process. The Texas DOT developed the approval process for products used in the construction of a roadway to promote vegetation. And the Virginia DOT improved the management of data associated with stormwater infrastructure best management practices to effective...

The July-August 2020 issue of TR News —with a focus on stormwater—is available in hard copy and digital copy for subscribers. For those who are not subscribers, the table of contents is available. Feature articles in the issue include "Integrating Stormwater Infrastructure into State Department of Transportation Processes," "Transportation Perspective on Virginia’s Nonpoint Source Nutrient Credit ...

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and equity issues will be included soon in   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 ...

Issue 326 of TRB's magazine dives into details from the TRB 99th Annual Meeting, which had a record crowd of nearly 14,000 attendees gathered January 12–16, 2020, in Washington, D.C. The March–April 2020 TR News features photo highlights from the Annual Meeting along with more coverage of the conference. TR News is TRB's bimonthly magazine featuring timely articles on innovative and state-of-the-a...

The May–June 2020 issue of TR News is a special edition illuminating the many hidden aspects of tunnels as well as the benefits of tunnel technology to modern transportation systems. Articles highlight the contribution of tunnels to the economy and how transportation operators use the best technology to keep tunnels efficient and safe.

Trajectory data are reported to have served many different mobility purposes. Vehicle travel trajectories are acquired via real-time communication between a data center and in-vehicle gadgets such as smartphones and GPS navigators. "Real-Time Piecewise Regression: Application to Effective and Economical Collection of GPS Trajectory Data," by Yang Zhang, Yuandong Liu, and Lee D. Han, looks at the e...

Traffic flow characteristics deteriorate significantly in fog conditions compared to normal weather conditions, which might result in high crash risk. "Understanding the Highway Safety Benefits of Different Approaches of Connected Vehicles in Reduced Visibility Conditions," by Md Sharikur Rahman, Mohamed Abdel-Aty, Ling Wang, and Jaeyoung Lee, from 2018, was 2019's fourth-most cited article from T...

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, m...

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 incidence ...

Lifestyle factors play an important role in shaping use of autonomous vehicles. Younger, urban residents who are more educated and technologically savvy are more likely to be early adopters of AV technologies than are older, suburban, and rural individuals, a fact that favors a sharing-based service model over private ownership. "Modeling Individual Preferences for Ownership and Sharing of Autonom...

Improving the reliability of railway electric systems and preventing electrical outages due to insulator flashover and insulation failure are difficult because of aging infrastructure and the lack of continuous monitoring of the state of the systems. The TRB Transit Cooperative Research Program's TCRP Research Report 211: Guidebook for Detecting and Mitigating Low-Level DC Leakage and Fault Curren...

Different choices in the budget assigned to road preservation and repair should be considered to find the optimal contribution of the road network to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions mitigation and to meet targets set in the Paris Agreement on climate change. "Potential Contribution of Deflection-Induced Fuel Consumption to U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions,"  by Hassam Azarijafari, Jeremy Gregory,...