The TRB National Cooperative Highway Research Program's NCHRP WebResource 1: Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions: A Guide for State DOTs is intended to support State DOTs in their efforts to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the transportation sector by identifying and describing tools, methods, and data sources to assess GHG emissions, evaluate GHG reduction opportunities, and develop action plans based on current and desired engagement levels. An associated publication, NCHRP Web-Onl...

Many technical and institutional issues related to estimating and reducing greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) lie across a wide spectrum of the activities undertaken by state departments of transportation (DOTs). The TRB National Cooperative Highway Research Program's NCHRP Web-Only Document 308: Methods for State DOTs to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions from the Transportation Sector documents the research effort for an NCHRP project that focused on developing a guide for state DOTs on reducing ...

Significant progress has been made over the last decade in integrating resilience criteria into transportation decision-making. A compelling case remains for investing in making transportation projects more resilient in the face of increasing and intensifying storms, floods, droughts, and other natural hazards that are combining with sea-level rise, new temperature and precipitation norms, and other effects from climate change. TRB’s Special Report 340: Investing in Transportation Resilience:...

Transportation is a major source of the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that are causing climate change. As communities work to cut emissions and become more resilient, they are including public transportation advances as a significant part of their climate action strategies. The TRB Transit Cooperative Research Board's  TCRP Research Report 226: An Update on Public Transportation's Impacts on Greenhouse Gas Emissions provides updated national analysis of public transportation’s role as a...

Increased use of zero emission vehicles (ZEVs) presents the greatest opportunity to improve the energy efficiency of light-duty vehicles—i.e., passenger vehicles and light trucks—over the period of 2025-2035, says a new congressionally mandated report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. The U.S Department of Transportation, U.S. Department of Energy, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency should facilitate the development and deployment of zero emission v...

In the process of reducing  sustainable alternative jet fuels ( SAJF), emissions of other pollutants may also be reduced, which could be significantly beneficial to airports. The TRB Airport Cooperative Research Program's ACRP Web-Only Document 35: State of the Industry Report on Air Quality Emissions from Sustainable Alternative Jet Fuels captures the current status of knowledge to reduce carbon dioxide emissions using SAJF.   These reductions are not yet well defined, leaving air...

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 impacts from extreme weather events. Transportation Research Circular E-C265: Transportation Resilien...

This 2014 issue of the journal Transportation Research Record (TRR) is still relevant today, as we are seeing a busy hurricane season in the U.S., among other natural disasters. It summarizes ways to plan post-disaster operations in a highway network; mobility benefits of intermediate crossovers on contraflow facilities during hurricane evacuation;  a model for investigating traffic incident impacts on evacuation times in large-scale emergencies; an approach for assessing climate change ...

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, and Randolph Kirchain,  appears in the June 2020 issue of the Transportation Research Recor...

Extreme weather events and a changing climate increasingly boost costs to transportation agencies and to the traveling public. While Departments of Transportation (DOTs) are taking into account changing climate and extreme weather when making infrastructure decisions, they typically are not using a formal set of tools or cost-benefit analyses (CBAs) to address climate resilience because they may be too time-consuming and expensive to conduct routinely. The TRB National Cooperative Highway Res...

Cost-benefit analysis (CBA) is useful for climate change response and adaptation, and if used properly, it has great potential for long-range planning. CBA should help agencies navigate the spectrum of decisions from mitigation and greenhouse gas reduction to adaptation: where does investing public funds generate the most public good? The TRB National Cooperative Highway Research Program's NCHRP Web-Only Document 271: Guidelines to Incorporate the Costs and Benefits of Adaptation Measures in ...

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 themed articles and some new features. TR News is TRB's bimonthly magazine featuring timely articles ...

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 Implications analyzes a set of scenarios of infrastructure development, policy changes, and cost par...

Airports in the United States are responding to the demand for increased air travel with sustainable development that incorporates more energy-efficient and lower-emission technologies. Funding for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions-reducing technologies, such as electrification, alternative fuels, and renewable energy, has also become more accessible as technologies are proven to be safe, reliable, and cost-effective. Newer strategies and programs to reduce GHG emissions reach beyond airport ope...

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 and Security Act of 2007 mandated the Secretary of Transportation to sponsor a series of National Acad...

TRB’s Technical Activities Division has released Transportation Research Circular E-C248: 12th International Conference on Low-Volume Roads, highlighting topics including road surfaces, geotechnology, cold regions and climate change, pavement management, planning and economics, unpaved roads management, geosynthetics in low-volume roads, drainage and stream crossings, climate change resiliency, stabilization, and safety.

TRB’s Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) Research Report 199: Climate Resilience and Benefit–Cost Analysis: A Handbook for Airports provides information on how to apply benefit–cost analysis tools and techniques to improve decision making affecting resilience of airport infrastructure projects in response to potential long-term impacts of climate change and extreme weather events. The handbook is designed to improve the process by which infrastructure investment strategies are evalua...

NCHRP Web-Only Document 261: Case Studies of Truck Activity Data for Emissions Modeling consists of seven case studies that are appendices A to G of NCHRP Report 909: Guide to Truck Activity Data for Emissions Modeling. NCHRP Research Report 909 explores methods, procedures, and data sets needed to capture commercial vehicle activity, vehicle characteristics, and operations to assist in estimating and forecasting criteria pollutants, air toxics, and greenhouse gas emissions from goods and ser...

TRB’s National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Research Report 909: Guide to Truck Activity Data for Emissions Modeling explores methods, procedures, and data sets needed to capture commercial vehicle activity, vehicle characteristics, and operations to assist in estimating and forecasting criteria pollutants, air toxics, and greenhouse gas emissions from goods and services movement. Goods movement is a vital part of the national economy, with freight movement growing faster than...

TRB's Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) Research Report 188: Using Existing Airport Management Systems to Manage Climate Risk integrates current and projected climate change related risks into airport management systems and planning. The handbook identifies ways to reduce airport vulnerabilities to current and projected impacts of climate change, including extreme weather events. It also explores ways to minimize long-term costs to airport facilities and operations. This handbook pr...

TRB’s Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board has released 17 early access papers addressing policy issues, including: Measuring the Passenger Car Equivalent of Small Cars and SUVs on Rainy and Sunny Days ( link ) Reducing Transportation Greenhouse Gas Emissions Through the Development of Policies Targeting High-Emitting Trips ( link ) Modal Share Change following Implementation of Travel Demand Management Strategies ( link ) Does Location Matter? Performa...

TRB’s Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board has released 17 early access papers addressing the environment, including: Effectiveness of Idle Reduction Technologies in Reducing Driver Exposure to Diesel Emissions ( link ) Assessment of Properties of Lateritic Gravel with a View to Enhancing Sustainable Use: A Case Study ( link ) Modeling the Impacts of Climatic Extremes on Interregional Freight-Transportation System ( link ) Reducing Transportation Greenh...

The full edition of the January-February 2018 edition of the TR News is now available. This edition explores environmental issues in marine transportation, such as air pollution, vessel discharges, increased ship traffic in the Arctic, and the slow development of alternative fuels. Other articles describe a rapid response to marine oil spills, public-private partnerships in civil space, and how to quantify the effects of preservation treatments on pavement performance. The TR News is TRB's bi...

TRB’s Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 2604 consists of 16 papers that explore transportation resilience, including: Risk and Resilience Analysis for Highway Assets Data-Driven Spatial Modeling for Quantifying Networkwide Resilience in the Aftermath of Hurricanes Irene and Sandy Development of a Risk Register Spreadsheet Tool for Enterprise- and Program-Level Risk Management Transportation System Resilience: Opportunities to Expand from Princip...

TRB's Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) Synthesis 85: Alternative Fuels in Airport Fleets is designed to assist airport operators in analyzing complex procurement, operational, and environmental decisions when considering alternative fuels in airport fleets. Airports own and contract fleets to transport passengers, staff, and goods by on- and off-road vehicles. Although most transportation fuels are consumed by aircraft, using alternative fuels in airport fleets is one opportunity a...

Transportation Resilience: Adaptation to Climate Change and Extreme Weather Events summarizes a symposium held June 16–17, 2016 in Brussels, Belgium. The fourth annual symposium promotes common understanding, efficiencies, and trans-Atlantic cooperation within the international transportation research community while accelerating transport-sector innovation in the European Union (EU) and the United States. The two-day, invitation-only symposium brought together high-level experts to share the...

TRB’s Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) Research Report 165: Tracking Alternative Jet Fuel provides guidance to airports on ways to track alternative jet fuels. As alternative jet fuels start to enter the supply chain, there may be a need to keep track of such fuel for technical, regulatory, and commercial reasons. In addition to the guidance, a greenhouse gas calculator and an alternative fuels inventory tracking spreadsheet compare different types of tracking mechanisms and evalua...

TRB’s Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 2572, includes 12 papers that explore information related to energy and the environment in the transportation sector, including: Data-Driven Reinforcement Learning–Based Real-Time Energy Management System for Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicles Informing the Strategic Rollout of Fast Electric Vehicle Charging Networks with User Charging Behavior Data Analysis Exploring the Decision to Adopt a High-End Battery...

TRB’s Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board No. 2599 consists of 10 papers that examine resilience and climate change issues, as it relates to transportation, including: Dynamic Learning Process for Selecting Storm Protection Investments Adaptive Planning for Transportation Corridors Threatened by Sea Level Rise Emergency Exit Guidance for U.S. Highway Tunnels Feature Selection for Ranking of Most Influential Variables for Evacuation Behavior Modeling Ac...

TRB E-Circular 206: Trends and Issues in Marine Transportation and the Environment explores urgent and far-reaching research topics pertinent to marine transportation and environmental issues. Subjects explored in this E-Circular include marine emissions and air quality impacts, including alternative fuels, human health impacts, improving marine vessel emission inventory methods, emission reductions, and exhaust regulations. The report also focuses on supply chains, ecological systems, and cl...

TRB's E-Circular 204: Surface Transportation System Resilience to Climate Change and Extreme Weather Events highlights a September 16–18, 2015 conference and live webcast that convened more than 500 experts from across the world to explore state-of-the-art research and emerging practices and policies on adapting surface transportation networks to the potential impacts of climate change and extreme weather events. This E-Circular explores the plenary sessions and technical discussions in break...

TRB’s National Cooperative Rail Research Program (NCRRP) Report 3: Comparison of Passenger Rail Energy Consumption with Competing Modes provides tools that can be used to compare energy consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of intercity and commuter passenger rail with those of competing travel modes along a designated travel corridor. The report summarizes the research used to develop the model and presents a set of case study applications. A technical document and user guide for th...

The latest edition of Research Pays Off examines how the Virginia Department of Transportation addressed highway pavement deterioration using recycled materials. The techniques involved a series of processes to reuse materials from the asphalt pavement during rehabilitation or reconstruction. The benefits included reductions in the consumption of raw materials, in the greenhouse gas emissions, and in the costs of preservation, maintenance, and rehabilitation. The TR News is TRB's bimonthly ma...

TRB's Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) Report 147: Climate Change Adaptation Planning: Risk Assessment for Airports provides guidance for practitioners to understand the specific impacts climate change may have on their airports. The guidebook may help practitioners develop adaptation actions and incorporate those actions into the airport’s planning processes. Accompanying the guidebook, an electronic assessment tool called Airport Climate Risk Operational Screening (ACROS) is encl...

TRB’s Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board No. 2532 consists of 18 papers that examine resilience and climate change issues, as it relates to transportation, including: Roadmaps for Adaptation Measures of Transportation to Climate Change Resilience Versus Risk: Assessing Cost of Climate Change Adaptation to California’s Transportation System and the City of Sacramento, California Barriers to Implementation of Climate Adaptation Frameworks by State Depar...

TRB’s National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Report 750: Strategic Issues Facing Transportation, Volume 2: Climate Change, Extreme Weather Events, and the Highway System: Practitioner’s Guide and Research Report provides guidance on adaptation strategies to the likely impacts of climate change through 2050 in the planning, design, construction, operation, and maintenance of infrastructure assets in the United States (and through 2100 for sea-level rise). In addition to the prac...

TRB’s Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP) Report 176: Quantifying Transit’s Impact on GHG Emissions and Energy Use—The Land Use Component examines interrelationships between transit and land use patterns to understand their contribution to compact development and the potential greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction benefits. The report is accompanied by an Excel-based tool that applies the research findings. The calculator tool estimates the land use benefits of existing or planned transit pr...

TRB’s Transportation Research Record (TRR): Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 2454 Energy, Climate Change, and Alternative Fuels 2014 consists of 13 papers that explore modeling regional transportation demand in China and the impacts of a national carbon policy; the effects of the built environment on gasoline consumption in a developing megacity; consumer choice of E85 denatured ethanol fuel blend; the economic and greenhouse gas impacts of a national low carbon fuel standard...

TRB’s Transportation Research Record (TRR): Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 2455 Pavement Management 2014, Vol. 1 consists of 10 papers that summarize the use of system dynamics to understand long-term impacts of climate change on pavement performance and maintenance costs; Florida’s return on investment from pavement research and development; safety impacts of skid resistance in decision-making processes for pavement management; calibration and validation of condition indic...

TRB’s Transportation Research Record (TRR): Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 2451 consists of 17 papers that summarizes transportation workers’ perspective on indigenous transportation and climate change adaptation; automobility in Brazil, Russia, India, and China; the classification of rural residents on the basis of activity travel characteristics; the influence of accessibility to emergency medical services on fatality rates in Hokkaido, Japan; social welfare maximization ...

TRB’s National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Report 750 Series: Strategic Issues Facing Transportation has released a brochure summarizing reports that examine global and domestic long-range, strategic issues and their implications for departments of transportation. Published as NCHRP Report 750: Strategic Issues Facing Transportation, Volumes 1-6 , the reports address topics such as freight movement, climate change, technology, sustainability, energy, and socio-demographics. T...

TRB’s Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 2428 consists of 9 papers that summarize diesel and hybrid bus models; evaluations of energy and emissions performance for electric rail transit options; predictions from the CAL3QHCR and AERMOD models for highway applications; life-cycle greenhouse gases and energy consumption for material and construction phases of pavement with traffic delay; and modeling the impact of traffic conditions on variability ...

TRB Meeting Summary 1: 10th National Conference on Transportation Asset Management presents key elements from a conference held in Miami, Florida on April 28–30, 2014. Issues explored at the conference included establishing, using, and monitoring asset management plans; implementing within and across organizations; tools and technology to assist decision making; performance measures for asset management; transit state of good repair; and adaptation to extreme weather events and climate change...

TRB’s second Strategic Highway Research Program (SHRP 2) Capacity Project Report S2-C39-A3: Pilot Testing of the TCAPP Decision Guide and Related Capacity Products: Oregon Metro Greenhouse Gas Planning documents how several metropolitan planning organizations in the state of Oregon tested the usefulness of the Transportation for Communities – Advancing Projects through Partnership (TCAPP) tool to evaluate greenhouse gas reduction through regional scenario planning.

TRB’s Conference Proceedings on the Web 14: Sustainable Energy and Transportation Strategies, Research, and Data includes summaries of plenary session presentations that were made during a November 2012 conference in Washington, D.C. The conference explored potential research needed to further advance the development of alternatives to petroleum-based transportation and to lower greenhouse gas emissions.

TRB’s Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 2385 consists of 8 that explore plug-in hybrid electric vehicles; biodiesel from lagoon microalgae; sustainable biofuel supply chain planning and management; location of electric vehicle charging stations; neighborhood effects on hybrid vehicle adoption; travel behavior and electric mobility in Germany; plug-in electric cars for work travel; and modeling large-scale transitions to alternative fuels and veh...

TRB’s Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 2375 consists of nine papers that explore transportation efficiency measures; the early vehicle retirement program in Quebec, Canada; choices between gasoline- and diesel-powered cars; heterogeneous speeding behavior and gasoline prices; potential reductions in emissions and petroleum use in transportation; urban transportation greenhouse gas emissions; the management of urban mobility as a means to contro...

TRB Transportation Research Circular E-C181: Risk-Based Adaptation Frameworks for Climate Change Planning in the Transportation Sector that explores leading climate change adaptation frameworks and examines the unique aspects of each framework’s development and approach. Recent studies of the climate change adaptation frameworks emerging from the transportation sector show a strong focus on risk. However, the unique experiences and conditions associated with the development of individual fram...

TRB’s National Cooperative Freight Research Program (NCFRP) Web-Only Document 5: Carbon Footprint of Supply Chains: A Scoping Study defines a standardized, conceptual approach to assessing global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of the transportation component of supply chains, critiques current methods and data used to quantify greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and outlines a work plan to develop a decision tool to help estimate the carbon footprint of the transportation component of supply chains.

TRB’s Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 2366 contains 14 papers that explore a tool for contractors and agencies for assessing greenhouse gas emissions of highway construction projects; the incorporation of environmental impacts of pavement treatments into a performance-based optimization; the integration of rolling wheel deflectometer deflection measurements into pavement management systems; a Bayesian approach to updating Markov-based models f...

TRB’s Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 2340 consists of 10 papers that explore in-use construction equipment emissions; portable emissions measurement systems; transit bus exhaust emissions ; sidewalk-level particulate matter concentrations; vehicle emission and near-road air quality; school bus idle monitoring, real-time intervention, and emission reductions; greenhouse gas emissions for last-mile deliveries; the reduction of greenhouse gas em...

TRB Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 2326 consists of eight papers that explore the transport of toxic inhalation hazard materials, carbon dioxide and sulfur oxides emissions from container shipping, transportation asset sensitivity to extreme weather events and climate change, damage to offshore pipeline by ship factors, safety risk analysis of maritime transportation, spatial analysis of maritime accidents, human behavior in vessel maneuver s...

TRB’s second Strategic Highway Research Program (SHRP 2) has released a project brief that summarizes the results of SHRP 2 Capacity Project C09, Incorporating Greenhouse Gas Emissions into the Collaborative Decision-Making Process. The products of this research project include  Incorporating Greenhouse Gas Emissions into the Collaborative Decision-Making Process (SHRP 2 Report S2-C09-RR-1),  Practitioner’s Guide to Incorporating Greenhouse Gas Emissions into the Collaborative ...

The 50th anniversary of TRB’s magazine provides an occasion to look back at recent highlights and emerging themes, including climate change, the environment, security, technology applications, international research collaboration, lessons from transportation history, and more. TRB history buffs might also like to look back at article that marked the 40th anniverary of the magazine that was published in the January-February 2003 issues of TR News . The TR News is TRB's bimonthly magazine featu...

TRB’s Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) Report 83: Assessing Opportunities for Alternative Fuel Distribution Programs consists of a guidebook and toolkit designed to help airports introduce and market alternative fuels to their airport community that includes tenants and consumers off airport. Alternative fuels considered include alternative jet fuel, green diesel, biodiesel, ethanol, compressed natural gas (CNG), liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), and electricity. The guidebook include...

A featured article in the January-February 2013 issue of the TR News explores how climate change in Alaska is forcing engineers and planners to adapt both to warming and to cooling trends. With warming permafrost, coastal erosion, and increasingly dramatic storms and flood events, Alaska’s highways, runways, and other infrastructure are frequently icing, cracking, and washing away. Although these adversities challenge all of the state’s major transportation systems—maritime, aviation, and sur...

The January-February 2013 TR News includes articles that explore the vulnerability and adaptability of Alaska’s transportation system to climate change—and lessons for the rest of the nation; Northern European solutions for managing road condition in cold climates; ways to identify and map naturally occurring hazardous materials in Oregon in relation to transportation activities; and insights from a project of the second Strategic Highway Research Program on systems operation and management s...

TRB’s Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 2303 consists of 13 papers that examine regional modeling of nonmotorized travel; surveys of departure time choice; an integrated land use-transport model system; residential relocation choice; green and active access to rail transit stations; predictions of travel behavior before and after transportation system changes; and estimating mobile-source greenhouse gas emissions. This issue of the TRR also expl...

TRB’s second Strategic Highway Research Program (SHRP 2) Report S2-C09-RR-1: Incorporating Greenhouse Gas Emissions into the Collaborative Decision-Making Process identifies where and how greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and energy consumption fit into a conceptual decision-making framework, including key decision points. The report presents background information on the role of GHG emissions in the transportation sector, factors influencing the future of emissions, GHG emissions redu...

TRB’s second Strategic Highway Research Program (SHRP 2) S2-C09-RW-2: Practitioners Guide to Incorporating Greenhouse Gas Emissions into the Collaborative Decision-Making Process presents information on how greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions can be incorporated into transportation planning when using different types of collaborative decision-making approaches. Four decision contexts—long-range planning, programming, corridor planning, and National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) permitti...

TRB’s Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) Legal Research Digest 17: State and Federal Regulations that May Affect Initiatives to Reduce Airports’ GHG Emissions addresses issues that are relevant to implementing greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation measures at airports. The report also provides a compilation of carbon reduction initiatives at airports that distinguish between green building requirements and other building code directives, and efforts directed at reducing aircraft GHG emissi...

TRB’s Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 2300 consists of 18 papers that explore airport surface safety; infection-spreading links in an air traffic network; intercity passenger rail access to airports; reducing aviation’s carbon dioxide emissions; valuing aviation noise with the contingent valuation method; characterization of surface and aloft winds for advanced parallel runway operations; minimization of potential air conflicts through speed r...

TRB’s Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 2287 consists of 21 papers that explore driving distance of electric vehicles; charging choices for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles in 2030; emission reduction technologies for large fleets; electric vehicles in rural states; energy use by plug-in hybrid electric vehicles; high-coverage point-to-point transit; second life for plug-in vehicle batteries; projection of biofuel; carbon footprints for public t...

TRB’s Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 2273 consists of 16 papers that explore mutually exclusive waterway project scheduling; off-loading capabilities at inland waterway terminals during sudden catastrophic closures; optimization models for liner ship fleet planning; implementation of port community systems; Panama Canal expansion impact on U.S. greenhouse gas emissions; energy consumption and emissions from ships; and economic impacts of sea ...

A featured article in the July-August 2012 issue of the TR News highlights how the Michigan Department of Transportation is taking into account site conditions, costs, and changes over time as it implements various actions to prepare for altered climate conditions throughout the state.

A featured article in the July-August 2012 issue of the TR News explores ecodriving, which incorporates techniques and technologies to reduce fuel consumption and costs, greenhouse gas and other air pollutant emissions, vehicle miles traveled, vehicle and road degradation, and accident-related costs—such as property damage, injuries, fatalities, and insurance.

The July-August 2012 TR News present an array of climate change adaptation initiatives--the rationales, strategies, progress, and goals--including key facts that transportation leaders and professionals should know about climate change and transportation. The July-August 2012 issue of TR News includes the following articles: Implementing Climate Change Policies: State and Local Innovations to Mitigate and Adapt to Climate Change Climate Change Adaptation in Michigan: Preparations, S...

TRB's Transportation Research Circular E-C164: Climate Change and Transportation: Summary of Key Information highlights the key findings of a variety of studies on the subject of climate change and its ramifications for the transportation sector conducted by the National Research Council, the principal operating agency of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering; TRB; and other organizations. TRB is a division of the National Academies, which include the N...

TRB’s Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) Web-Only Document 13: Alternative Fuels as a Means to Reduce PM2.5 Emissions at Airports explores the potential impact that alternative fuel use could have on emissions and ambient air pollution concentrations of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) at airports. The project that developed ACRP Web-Only Document 13 also created a  spreadsheet-based tool that combines the results from the five case study airports analyzed during the project in a...

TRB’s Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) Synthesis 33: Airport Climate Adaptation and Resilience reviews the range of risks to airports from projected climate change and the emerging approaches for handling them.

TRB’s Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 2252 contains 19 papers that explore economic and environmental optimization of vehicle fleets, driver response to energy information feedback, California's low-carbon fuel standard, feebates and fuel economy standards, energy use for transport in 27 European Union countries through 2030, and a comparison of diesel and hybrid models in the United States in 2010. This issue of the TRR also examines plug-in ...

TRB’s Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) Report 56: Handbook for Considering Practical Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction Strategies for Airports is designed to assist airport operators in identifying, evaluating, prioritizing, and implementing practical, low-cost strategies to reduce and manage greenhouse gas emissions. AirportGEAR, an interactive decision support tool developed as a companion to the handbook, considers a range of strategies that can be implemented by all types of ai...

TRB’s Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 2217 consists of 20 papers that explore travel behavior and demand potential of tram- and bus-based neighborhoods, impact of gasoline prices on transit ridership, cost-effective approaches to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through public transportation, predicting the mean and variance of transit segment and route travel times, complexity of transit tours, real-time transit information, and cost-effective...

TRB’s Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 2244 consists of 14 papers that examine state climate action plan strategies, fair share regional targets for reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from transportation and land use, commuting times based on the jobs–housing balances, context-sensitive multimodal road planning, and integrating travel demand model and benefit–cost analysis. This issue of the TRR also explore surface transportation vulnerabil...

TRB’s Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 2233 consists of 21 papers that explore integrated bus information systems, the effects of operational efficiency on pollutant emissions, corridor-level air quality analysis of freight movement, comparison of greenhouse gas and criterion pollutant emissions, and operating variables on particle number emission rates. This issue of the TRR also examines coordinated signal control, the Port Authority of New Y...

A featured article in the September-October 2011 issue of the TR News examines key challenges to the aviation system including new air traffic control technologies, sustainability, alternative fuels, security, and economics.

The September-October 2011 TR News assembles feature articles exploring the Next-Generation Air Transport System, which will transform U.S. air traffic control from a ground-based, human-centric system to a satellite-based, airplane-centric system; the future of aviation sustainability; commercial aviation’s pursuit of sustainable alternative fuels; aviation security; economics of the aviation industry; and more. The September-October 2011 issue of TR News includes the followin...

TRB Special Report 307: Policy Options for Reducing Energy Use and Greenhouse Gas Emissions from U.S. Transportation examines the potential for policies to yield major changes in transportation energy use and emissions trends by policy measures targeting cars and light trucks, medium and heavy trucks, and commercial airliners. These three modes are by far the largest users of energy by U.S. transportation because they account for the vast majority of passenger trips and freight. Accordin...

The latest issue of TRB’s Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) Impacts on Practice describes how officials at the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) used ACRP Report 11 : Guidebook on Preparing Airport Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventories to develop a GHG emissions inventory for DFW.

TRB’s Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP) Report 146: Guidebook for Evaluating Fuel Choices for Post-2010 Transit Bus Procurements is designed to help those considering the deployment of, or conversion to, alternative fuel buses. The guidebook and life-cycle emissions model spreadsheet (FuelCost2) are intended to aide individuals who, while being quite knowledgeable about the transit industry, may not be familiar with alternative fuels and implementation issues. The guidebook and Fuel...

TRB Transportation Research E-Circular E-C152: Adapting Transportation to the Impacts of Climate Change: State of the Practice 2011 focuses on transportation adaptation practices that can be implemented to yield potential benefits now and in the longer term. The document highlights what climate change adaptation means for the transportation industry. E-C152 was produced under the auspices of the TRB Special Task Force on Climate Change and Energy and is a companion to TR News May–Ju...

TRB’s Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 2191 contains 22 papers that explore the effect of wide-based single tires on truck fuel efficiency; miles per gallon illusions and corporate average fuel economy distortions; freight transport, energy use, and emissions trends in Spain; diesel truck activity and fuel economy based on electronic control module data; cost of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles; electric vehicle charging impact on electricity costs;...

TRB’s Transportation Research Record , No. 2166 contains 14 papers that explore ship-based greenhouse gas reduction negotiations; supply chain coordination for port sustainability; the berth-scheduling problem; a web-based foreign waterborne cargo data system; global port operations and their influence on port labor; measuring the concentration degree of container port systems; and the resilience framework for ports. This issue of TRR also examines the systems approach to maritime transportat...

TRB’s Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) Synthesis 21: Airport Energy Efficiency and Cost Reduction explores energy efficiency improvements being implemented at airports across the country that are low cost and short payback.

TRB’s National Freight Cooperative Research Program (NFCRP) Report 4: Representing Freight in Air Quality and Greenhouse Gas Models explores the current methods used to generate air emissions information from all freight transportation activities and their suitability for purposes such as health and climate risk assessments, prioritization of emission reduction activities, and public education. The report highlights the state of the practice, and potential gaps, strengths, and limitations of ...

A featured article in the May-June 2010 TR News provides an overview of the articles in this issue, which collectively explore the body of evidence, the mix of transportation strategies, potential regulatory approaches, modal initiatives, and opportunities for innovation that encompass transportation's role in addressing climate change.

Energy and climate change are the focus of articles assembled for the May–June 2010 issue of TR News under the auspices of the TRB Special Task Force on Climate Change and Energy. Articles assess transportation’s current and anticipated contributions to emissions of greenhouse gases and fossil energy use, the challenges and opportunities to reduce emissions by freight carriers, the transition to low-carbon nonpetroleum fuels, operational issues for reducing carbon emissions, plus findings and...

TRB’s Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP) Synthesis 84: Current Practices in Greenhouse Gas Emissions Savings from Transit explores the role of transit agencies in reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and examines the current practice of a sample of transit agencies.

TRB’s Transportation Research Circular E-C144: Research Needs Statements for Climate Change and Transportation includes a series of specific research needs statements on climate change and transportation designed as a resource to be used by universities, students, research organizations, government agencies, and other interested parties as they contemplate and fund research in this area.

TRB Transportation Research Circular E-C143: Modal Primer on Greenhouse Gas and Energy Issues for the Transportation Industry is primer designed to provide transportation decision makers with an inclusive, educated, and objective overview of the current state of the transportation industry from a greenhouse gas and energy standpoint.

TRB’s National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Web-Only Document 152: Assessing Mechanisms for Integrating Transportation-Related Greenhouse Gas Reduction Objectives into Transportation Decision Making examines alternative methods that state departments of transportation and metropolitan planning organizations may use to manage greenhouse gas emissions from transportation.

TRB’s Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 2139 includes 21 papers that explore the impact of shifting to diesel-powered vehicles, estimating the fuel efficiency of road traffic, impacts of road grade on fuel consumption and carbon dioxide emissions, fuel prices and consumer preferences for vehicles, plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, hydrogen fueling, vehicle capacity and fuel consumption in household fleets, addressing climate change in transporta...

TRB’s Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 2132 includes 16 papers that explore transit, land use, and auto pricing strategies to reduce vehicle miles and greenhouse gas emissions; continuous departure time models; an artificial neural network delay model for traffic assignment; how travel attributes affect planning time horizon of activities; work departure time analysis; and adding mode choice to multiagent transport simulation. This issue of the...

TRB’s Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 2133 includes 14 papers that explore toll plaza delay estimation; anticipating welfare impacts via travel demand forecasting models, adapting travel models and urban models to forecast greenhouse gases, intrametropolitan location of business establishments, spatial equity analysis on expressway network development in Japan, and modeling location decisions of office firms. This issue of the TRR also examine...

TRB’s Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 2119 includes 16 papers that explore integrating climate change into transportation plans, visualizing long-range health of rural corridors, cap-and-trade, system-level performance measures and targets, evacuating the carless, application of TELUM (transportation, economic, and land use model software), and e-government service offerings and website content of metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs). Th...

A special feature article in the September-October 2009 issue of the TR News highlights the TRB Planning and Environment Group’s recent annual competition to recognize fresh and creative methods of communicating technical transportation issues and concepts to the public. The focus of the competition was energy and climate change in transportation. The top entries ranged from a book to multimedia presentations and interactive online games.

TRB’s Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation, No. 2114 includes 10 papers that explore increasing the efficiency of road development aid; bus rapid transit systems in India; citywide transit integration in Sao Paulo, Brazil; carbon dioxide emissions from land transport in India; and transportation greenhouse gas mitigation in Nanchang, China. This issue of the TRR also examines safety assessment of taxi drivers in Singapore, an evaluation of road safety actions promoted...

TRB Special Report 299: A Transportation Research Program for Mitigating and Adapting to Climate Change and Conserving Energy suggests that federal, state, and local policy makers need informed guidance about the effectiveness, costs, feasibility, and acceptability of transportation strategies to mitigate transportation greenhouse gas emissions and conserve energy and to adapt to climate change. The report covers strategies affecting travel and mode choice, models and decision tools, infrastr...

TRB’s Transportation Research Circular E-C138: Critical Issues in Aviation and the Environment 2009 explores the major environmental media affected by aviation activities and the key processes that link aviation and the environment, including climate change, alternative fuels, and sustainability. The circular focuses on the state of science, rather than on policy, and the authors of various portions of the circular identify research that has the potential to yield benefits for both aviation a...

TRB’s Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 2100 includes the 2009 Thomas B. Deen Distinguished Lecture by Geraldine Knatz, which explores the evolution of U.S. seaports and the environmental initiatives enabling them to modernize and expand. This TRR also includes 10 additional papers that examine the impacts of climate change at U.S. ports, container terminal berth planning, the Lean Enterprise for improving seaport operations, performance indicat...

TRB Special Report 298: Driving and the Built Environment:  Effects of Compact Development on Motorized Travel, Energy Use, and CO2 Emissions examines the relationship between land development patterns and vehicle miles traveled (VMT) in the United States to assess whether petroleum use, and by extension greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, could be reduced by changes in the design of development patterns.  The report estimates the contributions that changes in residential and mixed-use ...

A featured article in the TR News: May-June 2009 issue explores the improved understanding and control of transportation-related air pollution as well as new challenges such as tightened standards for ozone and emissions of particulate matter and efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change.

   The March-April 2009 issue of TR News includes the following articles: The Equity Implications of Financing the Nation’s Surface Transportation System Libraries in a Digital Age: An Essential Resource for Research and Information The Momentum of Transportation Information: A History of TRB’s Transportation Research Information Services Making Transportation Libraries and Information Services a Priority Transportation, Energy, and Climate Change: Highlights from TRB’s 2009 Annual ...

A photo feature in the March-April 2009 issue of TR News highlights the five days in January when Washington, D.C., becomes the capital of transportation research—or at least the connecting hub—with more than 10,000 researchers, practitioners, and administrators representing government, industry, and academia gathering from the United States and abroad to network with peers, share information, and interact at sessions and workshops, committee meetings, commercial exhibits, and many additiona...

TRB’s Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) Report 11: Guidebook on Preparing Airport Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventories explores a framework for identifying and quantifying specific components of airport contributions to greenhouse gas emissions (GHG). The report is designed to help airport operators and others to prepare an airport-specific inventory of greenhouse gas emissions. Appendices A through F to ACRP Report 11 were published online as ACRP Web-Only Document 2 . The appendi...

TRB’s Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP) Research Results Digest 89: Public Transportation’s Role in Addressing Global Climate Change provides an overview of an International Transit Studies Program mission that investigated public transportation’s role in addressing global climate change in several cities in Ireland, Germany, Italy, and Spain.

Each year, TRB’s Technical Activities Division staff visit state departments of transportation, as well as selected universities, transit and other modal agencies, and industry organizations, to determine the issues they are facing and how TRB can help in addressing those issues.  The 2008 field visits by TRB Technical Activities staff found that transportation agencies are addressing uncertainties about the economy, energy, climate change, funding, and national policies with new ...

A featured article in the November-December 2008 issue of the TR News explores the worldwide growth in car ownership and use, and its contribution to problems with energy resources, climate change, and congestion.  The article's authors, Daniel Sperling and Deborah Gordon, call on the transportation community to summon its ingenuity to improve vehicles and fuels, introduce new mobility, and develop ways to alter travel behaviors.  Daniel Sperling was recently interviewed by Jon Ste...

TRB has released the latest issue of the Intercity Rail Passenger Systems Update.  The online newsletter is published intermittently and is designed to disseminate information about current research and developments in intercity rail passenger systems.  Articles in this issue explore the growth of the European passenger rail systems, recent developments in the high-speed rail movement in the United States, and the potential role of energy-efficient trains in reducing greenhouse gas...

TRB’s Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 2053 includes 9 papers that explore frost and thaw depth predictors for variable load restrictions, climate change impact on low-volume roads, sensor technology for spring load restrictions, fly ash with calcium chloride for stabilization of base and subgrade courses, and time domain reflectometry and micromechanics for determining moisture content of soil layers.  This issue of the TRR also examines...

TRB Special Report 290: The Potential Impacts of Climate Change on U.S. Transportation explores the consequences of climate change for U.S. transportation infrastructure and operations. The report provides an overview of the scientific consensus on the current and future climate changes of particular relevance to U.S. transportation, including the limits of present scientific understanding as to their precise timing, magnitude, and geographic location; identifies potential impacts on U.S. tr...

TRB’s Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 2017 includes 8 papers that explore policy making for sustainability in transport, indicators for comprehensive and sustainable transport planning, measuring sustainable accessibility, energy use of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, attitudes of diesel and hybrid new car buyers, greenhouse gas emissions of the U.S. transportation sector, oil independence, and macroeconomic effects of climate policie...

TRB’s Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 1916 addresses customers’ reactions to the introduction of high-speed rail service in Korea, alternatives for railroad traffic simulation analysis, options for improving the energy efficiency of intermodal freight trains, the development of a new metric for release risk from a tank car, and methods for allocating costs of empty railcar movements. Individual TRR Journals, which are published on...

TRB’s Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP) Web Document 26: TravelMatters: Mitigating Climate Change with Sustainable Surface Transportation reviews TCRP Project H-21: Combating Global Warming with Sustainable Surface Transportation Policy, which created a research report (TCRP Report 93) and TravelMatters Website with information for individuals and transit agencies on the greenhouse gas reduction potential of the public transportation sector.  The report also summarizes TCRP Pr...

TRB’s Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board 1842 describes how future technologies may improve fuel consumption of heavy-duty trucks; analyzes alternative forms of automotive fuel economy standards; summarizes the New York Greenhouse Gas Task Force recommendations for reducing the impacts of transportation on global warming; and considers transitions to alternative fuels and hybrid engines for light-duty vehicles. The TRR series is the Journal of ...

TRB’s Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP) Report 93: Travel Matters - Mitigating Climate Change with Sustainable Surface Transportation presents information on climate change and examines how greenhouse gas emissions from transportation may be reduced. The report also looks at the capacity of public transportation to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. The "TravelMatters" website was developed as part of the same project that produced this report.

Transportation Research Record 1815 addresses greenhouse gas emissions, pollution reduction programs, platinum availability for fuel-cell vehicles, and more. Abstracts of papers that make up this TRR are available through TRB's Publication Index. In the Series field type "Record & 1815" (without the quotes). After reviewing the abstracts you will need to use your browser's "back" button to return to this screen in order to purchase the publication.

TRB’s Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP) Synthesis 1: Safe Operating Procedures for Alternative Fuel Buses includes information on the use of methanol, ethanol, compressed natural gas (CNG), liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), liquefied natural gas (LNG), and other alternative fuels for buses.