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 Grego...

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...

The zero‐emission bus (ZEB) market, including Battery Electric Buses and Fuel Cell Electric Buses, has seen significant growth in recent years. ZEBs do not rely on fossil fuels for operation and have zero harmful tailpipe emissions, improving local air quality. The increase in market interest has also helped decrease product pricing. The TRB Transit Cooperative Research Program's pre-publicatio...

The findings of this survey report show that providing light beyond the limits of the roadway travel lanes benefits drivers’ visual performance and that the spectral content of light-emitting diode (LED) sources should be a design consideration. The study also found that, at present, there are no health impacts from properly designed roadway lighting. The TRB National Cooperative Highway Resear...

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...

A central role of a state Department of Transportation (DOT) fleet manager is to maintain a clear understanding of the fleet’s costs. This helps in tracking activities over time, comparing costs with other fleets, communicating with stakeholders, and effectively managing fleet assets. The TRB National Cooperative Highway Research Program's  NCHRP Research Report 944: Guide to Calculating O...

Issue Number 326 of TR News magazine is available in full to subscribers. Here is a sample from the issue: a feature article on the trap that drivers could fall into by believing that autonomous vehicles are more capable than they really are. As with traditional driving instruction, a solid understanding of the concepts of automation is important—not just knowing which buttons to press.

Issue Number 326 of TR News magazine is available in full to subscribers. Here is a sample from the issue: a 14-page photo collage of the 99th Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting from January 12–16, 2020 in Washington, D.C. Do you see yourself in any of the photos?

The March-April 2020 issue of TR News (#326) - including a cover feature on TRB's "century of progress and foundation for the future" of transportation research - 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 whether research processes can keep up, accessible ...

Topics in the November–December 2019 issue of TR News include an analysis of the #TRBAM Annual Meeting Twitter hashtag to understand communication dynamics; climate change, a critical transportation issue; assessing, marking, and coding highway structures in emergencies; and more. This issue also kicks off the magazine’s yearlong celebration of the 100th anniversary of TRB, which will include t...

The first edition of this report, in 2009, provided a comprehensive industry reference for the management of airport deicing runoff. The second edition has been wholly updated to reflect the latest industry practices. The TRB Airport Cooperative Research Program's ACRP Research Report 14: Deicing Planning Guidelines and Practices for Stormwater Management Systems, second edition , explores a wi...

The risk of disease transmission at airports and on aircraft is similar to the risks associated with other densely populated places. There are also unique factors related to the interaction of individuals from geographically diverse regions with differing immunity and endemic diseases. The TRB Airport Cooperative Research Program's ACRP Report 91: Infectious Disease Mitigation in Airports and o...

Stray current and stray current–induced corrosion remain concerns among transit agencies, electrolysis committees, utility owners, providers, and electric railway carriers across the globe. It is easier to implement stray current isolation, mitigation, and collection options on a newer transit system with proper foresight and planning by following the logical sequence of the design process than...

One of the most time-honored of the technical activities that TRB performs, state visits revealed lots of interesting issues in 2019, including a lot around the important role state Departments of Transportation increasingly have around data needs. The TRB staff summary of the visits, each of which last one or two days and typically consist of meetings with various levels of DOT management; dis...

LED signal lights may get too cold on the signal lens to deice or melt snow and could cause accidents in snowy conditions. The TRB IDEA (Innovations Deserving Exploratory Analysis) Program's Rail Safety IDEA Final Report 29: Self- Deicing LED Signal for Railroads and Highway Intersections aims to develop and demonstrate a new type of self-deicing LED signals for highway and railroad intersectio...

Issue 323 of TRB's magazine complements our recent short video Your Future in Transportation . The September-October 2019 issue  has several features on the workforce topic, including ones called " People, Organizations, Jobs, and Businesses for Tomorrow’s Transportation, "The Future Multimodal Workforce," "How to Win the War for Talent," and "Building a Business Case for Increasing Divers...

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

The January-February 2020 issue of TR News - including a cover feature on the "radical" transportation logistics of the Burning Man festival - 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 data's critical role in transportation decisions, the transportation ne...

A clear funding and business case –neither of which have yet been clearly articulated – will be important for the success of AVs and shared mobility. Transportation Research Circular E-C261: TRB Forum on Preparing for Automated Vehicles and Shared Mobility: Mini-Workshop on the Economic Implications of Automated Vehicles and Shared Mobility details the roles of government and the public sector ...

Airports are using tools that help them identify risks within their environment. Most airports are providing a means to report risk. Smaller airports use low-cost options such as email, a 24/7 phone number, or a suggestion box. Larger airports have embraced safety management or enterprise risk management programs that include more expensive reporting and tracking systems. The TRB Airport Cooper...

Vehicle electrification is one of the emerging and potentially disruptive technologies that are being considered to reduce emissions of criteria pollutants, mobile source air toxics (MSATs), and greenhouse gases (GHGs) from motor vehicles. The TRB National Cooperative Highway Research Program's NCHRP Web-Only Document 274: Zero Emission Vehicles: Forecasting Fleet Scenarios and their Emissions ...

Transit agencies in the US use four primary communications mechanisms to dispatch, monitor and manage the operations of their mobile assets: private radio systems, Wi-Fi communications, cellular communications, and track circuits and signaling. Most data communications in the transit industry today are still based on vendor proprietary communications protocols and messaging. This limits agency ...

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...

U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) ship stability regulations governing the ability of a vessel to return to an upright position after being disturbed is the focus of a new TRB publication, Review and Update of U.S. Coast Guard Vessel Stability Regulations and Guidance. The authors advise the USCG on how it can make its stability regulations more usable and complete in meeting the requirements of differen...

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...

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 Washington ...

The unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) industry is on the cutting edge of aviation innovation. Airports, including tenants and contractors, are discovering the benefits of UAS to their operations and bottom line. Yet, with the diversity of UAS applications at airports, there has been a lack of relevant industry data on this topic to inform the airport industry on current practices. The TRB Airport...

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...

Travel time reliability is frequently cited as an important metric for the trucking community and users of truck freight services. While the travel time reliability for trucking is commonly measured, truck reliability is seldom considered in the benefit–cost evaluation of mobility projects, which underrepresents the benefits accrued to freight users of the roadway system. The TRB National Coope...

Medium and heavy duty vehicles (MHDVs) are a significant contributor to energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S., accounting for approximately 22 percent of U.S. transportation energy consumption. The fuel consumption of MHDVs has only recently begun to be regulated at the federal level. To provide scientific and technical advice on MHDV efficiency, the Energy Independence an...