New Research Showcased at TRB
Bicyclist and pedestrian safety, optimization of rail networks, non-destructive testing of bridges, and the potential of telecommuting to reduce congestion were among the topics covered by University of Maryland (UMD) researchers at the 2022 TRB annual meeting, held in Washington, D.C. from January 9 through 13. The university is home to a highly-regarded transportation engineering program, based at its civil and environmental engineering department, and the Maryland Transportation Institute, a hub for interdisciplinary, data-driven transportation research. Among other highlights, the university's Center for Advanced Transportation Laboratory unveiled its new Congestion Causes for the National Highway Systems app, with director Michael Pack presenting an overview of its capabilities and tools. The new app “brings new insights and understanding to what impacts traffic flow at the state and county levels across the country," CATT Lab said in a news release. The CATT Lab also hosted a booth that provided opportunities to learn more about the Regional Integrated Transportation Information System, considered the world's largest transportation database, and to talk with experts on probe data, signal systems data, connected vehicles, and people movement data. Research Snapshot 
Dr. Dimitrios Goulias (right) and doctoral students Anjuman Ara Akhter (center) and Yunpeng Zhao were among the UMD CEE researchers who presented posters at the 2022 TRB annual meeting. UMD faculty and doctoral students presented more than 20 posters and papers at this year’s meeting, detailing a wide range of projects. Examples include: Optimizing Railroad Freight Network Restoration After Disruptions. Paul Schonfeld and Bilal Ayyub, together with doctoral student Fei Wu (UMD) and CEE alumnus Myungseob Kim (Western New England University) presented a topology-based method for optimizing the restoration sequence of damaged components in a disrupted rail freight network. The method uses a genetic algorithm (GA) that finds the corresponding optimized restoration sequence, which also determines the optimized restoration schedule. Improving bike and pedestrian safety. Amid rising concerns about pedestrian-vehicle crashes at crosswalks with pedestrian countdown signals, Gang-Len Chang and doctoral students Yi-Ting Lin and Yao Cheng presented field observations of more than 3,000 pedestrian choices at 11 urban crosswalks equipped with such signals. The team was able to identify several factors that influence compliance with signal directions. Meanwhile, pedestrian and bicyclist safety was the focus of a presentation by Chenfeng Xiong and a team of doctoral students. The researchers presented the results of a safety analysis that incorporated big location-based service data collected from mobile devices. Filling in Gaps in Household Travel Data. Cinzia Cirillo and Partha Lahiri, together with doctoral student Mohammad Bilal Mohammad Al-Khasawneh, showed how Small Area Estimation (SAE) methods can be used as part of a Regional Travel Survey in order to derive statewide household person trips at the Public Use Microdata Area level when no sample is available. New Approaches to Quality Assurance of Concrete. Dimitrios Goulias and PhD student researchers presented multiple papers on novel approaches for developing non-destructive testing (NDT) based Quality Assurance (QA) plans for highway materials (such as concrete and asphalt) as well as pavement structures. Along with the extensive experimental investigation. Goulias and his students are among the few researchers to have studied the incorporation of NDT in QA, quantification of potential benefits and risks of acceptance in relation to pay rewards. Alternative Pick-up Locations in Taxi Sharing. Ali Haghani and his students set out to examine whether incorporating alternative meeting points in taxi-sharing routes could boost the efficiency of the system by eliminating unnecessary detours and improving the chances of passengers to be matched. In this approach, passengers would be picked up and dropped off within walking distance of their origin and destination points. Estimating Operational Capacity at Smaller Airports. David Lovell and colleagues from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Ohio State University discussed the use of automated dependent surveillance – broadcast (ADS-B) data to develop aircraft performance characteristics for use as inputs to future small airport capacity models. Reducing Congestion Through Telecommuting and HOV Lanes. Clark Distinguished Chair Deb Niemeier and graduate students Nneoma Ugwu and Sudheer Ballare presented findings of a study that examined the effects of telecommuting on DC-Maryland-Virginia traffic during the COVID-19 pandemic. The researchers determined that a combination of telecommuting and High Occupancy Vehicles (HOV) has the potential to ease traffic bottlenecks. Below is a full list of posters presented by UMD faculty and students at the 2022 TRB Annual Meeting: Unweighted Optimization of Freight Rail Networks: A Case Study Using Topological Efficiency Analysis Concurrent Optimization of Cycle Length, Green Splits, and Offsets for the Diverging Diamond Interchange Empirical Observations and Analyses of Pedestrian Behaviors at Roadway Crossings with Pedestrian Countdown Signal Extending the I-95 Rule-Based Incident Duration System with an Automated Knowledge Transferability Model Estimates of Total Household Trips for Areas with Zero Sample: A Maryland Statewide Analysis of Household Trip Production Non-Destructive Testing in Quality Assurance of Concrete for Assessing Production Uniformity Incorporating Ultrasonic Pulse Velocity in the Quality Assurance of Asphalt Mixtures Risk and Pay Factor Assessment of Using Contactor Quality Control Data for Acceptance Alternative Pickup Locations in Taxi Sharing: A Feasibility Study Reducing Congestion Post-COVID-19 Through Telecommuting and High-Occupancy Vehicle Lanes Optimal Options for the Fresh Food Deliveries in Baltimore Food Deserts A Topological Approach for Optimizing Railroad Freight Network Restoration After Disruptions Modeling the Frequency of Pedestrian and Bicyclist Crashes at Intersections: Big Data–Driven Evidence from Maryland Do Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Maintaining Social Distancing Influence COVID-19 Health Outcomes?: A Mediation Analysis Approach Examining Temporal Evolution of Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Social Distancing and COVID-19 Health Outcomes: A Time-Varying Generalized Additive Model An Evaluation of Incentives to Increase High-Occupancy Vehicle Use on High-Occupancy Toll Facilities E-Bikes' Effect on Mode and Route Choice: A Case Study of the Richmond, Virginia, Bikeshare An Investigation into the Impact of Speeding on Traffic Safety Outcomes During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Unexpected Trends in Large U.S. Cities[Text Wrapping Break]Hamed Ahangari, District Department of Transportation Drive Less, Drive Better, or Both?: Behavioral Adjustments to Fuel Price Changes in Germany Lectern Session Developing Capacity Estimation Metrics for Airports Accommodating Smaller Aircraft Using Locally Collected Automated Dependent Surveillance Broadcast DataDanae Mitkas, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) UMD Leadership of Committees, Subcommittees, and Poster Sessions Committee Activities Subcommittee
January 26, 2022 Prev Next |
