Transportation Intelligence

Volume 7 Number 2

April 2009
Safety
Maintenance
Planning
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Traffic Control
Aide à la détermination des limites de vitesse sur le réseau routier municipal (Establishing speed limits on municipal roadways)
Establishing speed limits is essential to ensuring appropriate traffic speeds and improving roadway safety. Therefore, it is of key importance to fully understand the key technical and legal aspects involved in establishing and managing speed regulation. Focusing mainly of municipal roadway systems, this synthesis report will be of interest to elected officials, professional staff and managers at the municipal level, MTQ personnel and consultants. (Transports Quebec report, Novembre 2008, 8 p.)

Pavements
Evaluating Roadway Subsurface Drainage Practices
This project involved the evaluation of some configurations of pavement subsurface drainage systems, including the conventional edgedrain system, and two centerline configurations, at 2-foot and 4-foot depths. Testing of these configurations took place on a newly constructed eight-mile section of Nobles County CSAH 35 near Worthington. Drained roadway sections were 500 feet long for each drainage treatment. Each of the treatments was replicated six times, with the outflow for each replication outlet through a tipping-bucket flow monitoring system. The experimental design tested both the drain configuration and the effect of relative elevation of the roadway. Measurement of relative wetness of the pavement base and subgrade materials for each of the drainage treatments was conducted with a Geonics electromagnetic induction instrument (EM38). Data were collected from March 2006 until November 2008, with breaks during the winter periods. Statistical analyses were conducted to look for treatment effects, using both drained volumes as well as the EM38 measurements as measures of drain efficacy. Additional project work included a finite element analysis of the drainage configurations, EM38 evaluation of drainage effectiveness of an open-graded base construction for streets in the city of Worthington, and evaluation of the potential drain plugging effect of crushed concrete fill. (Minnesota Department of Transportation Report Mn/DOT 2009-08, January 2009, 139 p.)
Administration
Valuing the Health Benefits of Active Transport Modes
This report seeks to provide a per-kilometre value for the health benefits of active transport modes (such as walking and cycling) that is compatible with the Land Transport New Zealand Economic Evaluation Manual Volume 2 (EEM2). The first two sections of the report begin by explaining the scope of the project and the background. Section 3 investigates the evidence of the connection between physical activity and health outcomes. Section 4 clarifies the role of active transport modes as physical activity, and reports the New Zealand-specific data about active transport mode engagement. Section 5 gives a brief comparative summary of the literature review of cost-benefit analyses and valuation techniques used overseas to value the health benefits of active modes. (New Zealand Transport Agency Research Report 359, 2008, 69 p.)

Safety

Evaluation of the Focused Approach to Pedestrian Safety Program
This report presents the results of an evaluation of the pedestrian component of the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) Office of Safety (HSA) Focused Approach to Safety Program. Launched in 2004, the Program’s novel approach concentrates funding and technical assistance in specific locations with the highest fatalities and fatality rates in three emphasis areas—intersections, roadway departures, and pedestrian safety. (US Federal Highway Administration Report, February 2009, 51 p.)

Information Sharing for Traffic Incident Management
Traffic incident management focuses on developing procedures, implementing policies, and deploying technologies to more quickly identify incidents, improve response times, and more effectively and efficiently manage the incident scene. Because so many entities are involved in response efforts, rapid and effective traffic incident management relies on successful information sharing between public safety agencies, transportation agencies, and other public and private sector incident responders. This document identifies and summarizes the information needs of public and private incident responders. It describes how information is obtained and shared during an event in order to best support safe, quick response. Additionally this document addresses technical and institutional barriers to information exchange as well as methods devised to overcome these barriers. (US Federal Highway Adminitration Report FHWA-HOP-08-059, January 2009, 54 p.)

Towards safer level crossings: existing recommendations, new applicable technologies and a proposed simulation model
Every year, more than 400 people are killed in over 1,200 accidents at road-rail level crossings in the European Union. Together with tunnels and specific road black spots, level crossings have been identified as being a particular weak point in road infrastructure, seriously jeopardizing road safety. In the case of railway transport, level crossings can represent as much as 29% of all fatalities caused by railway operations. Up to now, the only effective solution appears to involve upgrading level crossing safety systems even though in more than 90% of cases the primary accident cause is inadequate or improper human behavior rather than any technical, rail-based issue. This article provides results of research done on possible technological solutions to reduce the number of accidents at level crossings and demonstrate the effectiveness of the latter. (European Transport Research Review, 13 December 2008, 11 p.)

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Environment

Climate Change: Current Issues and Policy Tools
This report does not discuss or analyze current legislative proposals. Rather, it introduces the reader to fundamentals of the climate change issue. Part One summarizes current understandings and controversies concerning the science, economics, international cooperation, and other aspects of the climate change policy problem. Part Two is a brief update on the status of domestic and international policies. Part Three outlines the policy toolbox seen as being available to policymakers to address the challenge as they define the emerging legislative agenda. (US Congressional Research Service Report, 6 March 2009, 32 p.)

Wildlife-vehicle Collision Reduction Study: Best Practices Manual
Under the SAFETEA-LU Congressional Bill, the Secretary of Transportation was directed to conduct a national wildlife-vehicle collision (WVC) reduction study. The study was to advance the understanding of the causes and impacts of WVCs and identify solutions to this growing safety problem. A report was submitted to congress in November 2007.This document builds on that report providing a best practices manual for reducing wildlife-vehicle collisions. Design and implementation guidelines are provided for wildlife fencing, wildlife underpasses and overpasses, animal detection systems, vegetation management and wildlife culling. Additionally for a WVC reduction program, information is provided on regional planning, identification of priority areas, alignment and design considerations, guidelines for monitoring effectiveness of mitigations, and potential funding sources. (US Federal Highway Administration Report, October 2008, 174 p.)

Speed Limit Adherence and its Effect on Road Safety and Climate Change
The Commission for Integrated Transport (CfIT) and the Motorists' Forum (MF) decided jointly in 2007 to consider what impact the voluntary introduction of an Intelligent Speed Adaptation (ISA) system across the entire road network would have in reducing deaths and injuries on the UK roads and in reducing carbon emissions, other pollutants and fuel consumption. The Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds were commissioned to report on this matter. (UK Commision for Integrated Transport Report, October 2008, 127 p.)

An Ambit-Based Activity Model for Evaluating Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction Policies
This study presents an Ambit-Based Activity Model (A-BAM) for evaluating Green House Gas (GHG) emission reduction policies that are being considered for implementation in transportation sector in the wake of more stringent emission reduction targets envisaged in a post-Kyoto international climate treaty. This study demonstrates how A-BAM can be used to estimate the effectiveness of reducing GHG emissions from multiple policy interventions from year to year in a given geographical area. The A-BAM model builds upon the fact that any change in the current state of transportation systems through policy interventions will inevitably cause a change in the transportation activities of agents. So, for quantifying GHG emission reduction policy effectiveness, A-BAM requires that the transportation activities of randomly sampled agents for the evaluation area be systematically tracked and analyzed. (Mineta Transportation Institute Report WP 08-01, 1 August 2008, 20 p.)

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Maintenance

Crack and Concrete Deck Sealant Performance
The objective of this project is to define the current state-of-the-art regarding the use of bridge deck sealants and crack sealers to extend the life of reinforced concrete bridge decks. The report includes the information generated from a literature review and survey which focused on current and significant studies in the field of deck and crack sealing. The intent of the survey was to determine common practices for the use and application of these sealers in different States throughout the United States. Based on the information collected from the literature review and the survey, the best sealant materials and application practices are recommended for use in Minnesota and throughout the Midwest. (Minnesota Department of Transportation report MN/RC 2009-13, March 2009, 268 p.)

Evaluation of Alternative Anti-icing and Deicing Compounds Using Sodium Chloride and Magnesium Chloride as Baseline Deicers - Phase I
This project aims to evaluate potassium acetate, sodium acetate/formate-blend deicers, and potassium formate as alternative anti-icing and deicing compounds relative to sodium chloride (NaCl), salt-sand mixtures, and magnesium chloride (MgCl2) currently used by CDOT. (Colorado Department of Transportation Report CDOT-2009-1, February 2009, 294 p.)

Synthesis of Sign Deterioration Rates across the United States
In response to minimum retroreflectivity standards, transportation departments are implementing sign asset management strategies, which rely upon knowledge of how retroreflectivity decreases as signs weather and age. To provide this knowledge, the writers field measured over 1,000 in-service signs in scattered North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) divisions, collecting age and retroreflectivity data for white, yellow, red, and green signs and for ASTM sheeting Types I and III. Data from this study and data from five similar U.S. efforts were analyzed using regression to identify the best available deterioration rate estimates, finding that retroreflectivity minimums are usually reached eight to 15 years after installation. (Journal of Transportation Engineering, March 2009, pp. 94-103.)

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Planning

Best Practices in Transit Service Planning
This research identifies existing best practices in transit service planning and develops a generic model approach that could be adapted and used by public transit agencies for fixed route bus transit service planning, specifically to include Service Design Standards, Service Performance Measurements, and a standard Service Evaluation Methodology. This research effort provides a summary of best practices and provides a "template" process tool that can be adapted and customized for use by all sizes of public transit agencies. (University of South Florida project BD549-38, March 2009, 118 p.)

Protocols for Collecting and Using Traffic Data in Bridge Design
This report documents and presents the results of a a study to develop a set of protocols and methodologies for using available recent truck traffic data to develop and calibrate live load models for LFRD bridge design. (NCHRP Web-Only Document 135, July 2008, 514 p.)

Highway Infrastructure: Federal Efforts to Strengthen Security Should Be Better Coordinated and Targeted on the Nation's Most Critical Highway Infrastructure
The nation's highway transportation system is vast and open--vehicles and their operators can move freely and with almost no restrictions. Securing the U.S. highway infrastructure system is a responsibility shared by federal, state and local government, and the private sector. Within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has primary responsibility for ensuring the security of the sector. GAO was asked to assess the progress DHS has made in securing the nation's highway infrastructure. This report addresses the extent to which federal entities have conducted and coordinated risk assessments; DHS has developed a risk-based strategy; and stakeholders, such as state and local transportation entities, have taken voluntary actions to secure highway infrastructure -- and the degree to which DHS has monitored such actions. To conduct this work, GAO reviewed risk assessment results and TSA's documented security strategy, and conducted interviews with highway stakeholders. (US Government Accountability Office Report GAO-09-57, January 2009, 85 p.)

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