Transportation Research Board Research Articles

INFLUENCE OF TARIFF POLICY OF RAILWAYS ON COMPETITIVENESS OF COAL INDUSTRY

For the English abstract and full text of the article please see the attached PDF-File (English version follows Russian version).ABSTRACT The article examines the role of coal and its contribution to the profitability and volumes of transportation of JSC Russian Railways. Tariffs for transportation of coal by rail and transport (rail) component in the final price of this type of fuel were analyzed. It is shown how the railway tariffs and the transportation distance affect the competitiveness of the Russian coal industry. Keywords: railway, transportation, tariffs, coal, price, transport component, rates of rolling stock operators, competitiveness. REFERENCES 1.Transportation research board special report 318.Modernizing freight rail regulation, Washington, D.C., 2015, 279 p. 2.Khusainov, F. I. Unregulated railway tariffs: the Russian experience of 1850-1880s [Nereguliruemye zheleznodorozhnye tarify: rossijskij opyt 1850-1880-h godov].Bulletin of transport information, 2009, Iss.8, pp.15-22. 3.Khusainov, F. I. Reform of the railway industry in Russia: the problems of unfinished liberalization.Monograph [Reforma zheleznodorozhnoj otrasli v Rossii: problemy nezavershjonnoj liberalizacii. Monografija].Moscow, Nauka publ., 2015, 272 p. 4.Khusainov, F. I. Russia’s accession to the WTO and rail transport [Vstuplenie Rossii v VTO i zheleznodorozhnyj transport].Bulletin of transport information, 2012, Iss.9, pp.9-15. 5.Kudiyarov, S. Let’s give coal to the country! [Dajosh’ strane uglja!].Expert, 2013, October 14. 6.Markova, V., Churashev, V. The Way of Coal [Put’ uglja].Expert-Siberia, 2013, 03 June. 7.Empty promises G20 subsidies to oil, gas and coal production.London, 2015, 103 p. 8.Khusainov, F. I. Towards a new price list: what about coal? [Navstrechu novomu prejskurantu: kak byt’ s ugljom?].RZD-Partner, July 13, 2016.[Electronic resource]: http://www.rzd-partner.ru/zhd-transport/news/ navstrechu-novomu-preiskurantu - kak-byt-s-ugliom/?sphrase_id=632.Last accessed 14.09.2016.

Updated Guide to Buy America Requirements

When transportation programs are assisted with federal funding, there are typically domestic preference conditions, or requirements, associated with the use of federal funds. The Buy America provision associated with Federal Transit Administration (FTA) grant funds is one of the most longstanding federal transportation Buy America provisions, and is probably the subject of more documentation than all the rest. FTA’s regulations implementing the Buy America provision are lengthy and detailed, in contrast to other federal transportation grant Buy America provisions. The Transportation Research Board (TRB) first published its to Federal Buy America Requirements in 2001. A 2009 supplement to the Guide addressed significant legislative changes to the FTA Buy America provision enacted by Congress in 2005, as well as FTA's 2007 final rule implementing those changes. The purpose of this Updated Guide is to update the earlier TRB guidance and legal research, in order to provide a comprehensive and current summary of the FTA Buy America provision for transit attorneys and procurement officials. This Updated Guide accounts for changes to the FTA Buy America provision since the 2009 supplement, including a significant revision by Congress in December 2015, recent FTA guidance and decisions, and recent court decisions involving the FTA Buy America provision.

Can progress in reducing alcohol-impaired driving fatalities be resumed? Results of a workshop sponsored by the Transportation Research Board, Alcohol, Other Drugs, and Transportation Committee (ANB50)

ABSTRACTObjective: Despite successes in the 1980s and early 1990s, progress in reducing impaired driving fatalities in the United States has stagnated in recent years. Since 1997, the percentage of drivers involved in fatal crashes with illegal blood alcohol concentration (BAC) levels has remained at approximately 20 to 22%. Many experts believe that public complacency, competing social and public health issues, and the lack of political fortitude have all contributed to this stagnation. The number of alcohol-related crashes, injuries, and fatalities is still unacceptable, and most are preventable. The public needs to be aware that the problem presented by drinking drivers has not been solved. Political leaders need guidance on which measures will affect the problem, and stakeholders need to be motivated once again to implement effective strategies.Methods: The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Transportation Research Board (TRB), Alcohol, Other Drugs, and Transportation Committee (ANB50) sponsored a workshop held at the NAS facility in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, on August 24–25, 2015, to discuss the lack of progress in reducing impaired driving and to make recommendations for future progress. A total of 26 experts in research and policy related to alcohol-impaired driving participated in the workshop. The workshop began by examining the static situation in the rate of alcohol-impaired driving fatal crashes to determine what factors may be inhibiting further progress. The workshop then discussed 8 effective strategies that have not been fully implemented in the United States. Workshop participants (16 of the 26) rated their top 3 strategies.Results: 3 strategies received the most support:1. Impose administrative sanctions for drivers with BACs = 0.05 to 0.08 g/dL.2. Require alcohol ignition interlocks for all alcohol-impaired driving offenders.3. Increase the frequency of sobriety checkpoints, including enacting legislation to allow them in the 11 states that currently prohibit them.5 other important strategies included the following: (1) increase alcohol taxes to raise the price and reduce alcohol consumption; (2) reengage the public and raise the priority of impaired driving; (3) lower the illegal per se BAC limit to 0.05 for a criminal offense; (4) develop and implement in-vehicle alcohol detection systems; and (5) expand the use of screening and brief interventions in medical facilities.Conclusions: Each of these strategies is proven to be effective, yet all are substantially underutilized. Each is used in some jurisdictions in the United States or Canada, but none is used extensively. Any one of the 3 strategies implemented on a widespread basis would decrease impaired driving crashes, injuries, and fatalities. Based on the research, all 3 together would have a substantial impact on the problem.

The impact of missing or incorrect addresses

The impact of missing or incorrect addresses

Specification of regret-based models of choice behaviour: formal analyses and experimental design based evidence

Travel behaviour analysis has recently witnessed a rapidly growing interest in regret-based models of choice behaviour. Two different model specifications have been introduced in the transportation literature. Chorus et al. (Transportation Research B 42: 1–18, 2008a; in: Proceedings 87th Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board, Washington DC, 2008b) specified regret as a (non) linear function of the difference between the best-foregone choice alternative and the chosen alternative. Later, as an approximation to the original specification, Chorus (2010) suggested a logarithm function of utility differences between all choice alternatives, mainly for ease of estimation. This paper makes two contributions to this literature. First, formal analyses are conducted to identify the parameter space where the logarithmic specification becomes theoretically inferior to the original specification. Second, an empirical stated choice study on the choice of shopping centre is conducted to empirically test which specification best describes stated choices. Results suggest that for the collected data the original specification outperforms the new specification. Implications of this finding for the application of regret-based choice models in travel behaviour analysis are discussed.

Foundation Reuse and Enhancement: A Viable Option for Bridge Widening and Replacement Projects

The transportation system in the U.S. includes over 607,000 bridges for grade separations, interchange configurations, and stream crossings. As governmental entities embark on the rehabilitation and rebuilding of our nation's transportation infrastructure, increasingly the prospect of foundation reuse and/or enhancement arises. When reconstructing bridges and other structures along existing alignments, it's natural to wonder if the existing foundations can be reused. In fact, during various workshops and sessions held as part of the Transportation Research Board's (TRB) annual meeting from 2014-2016, attendees have indicated strong interest in the topic of foundation reuse.

Application of scenario-driven hazard analysis in the solid rocket booster

Bibliographical Notes: Kouroush Jenab is a senior member of IEEE, received the B.Sc. degree from the IE Department at Isfahan University of Technology (1989), the M.Sc. degree from the IE Department at Tehran Polytechnic (1992), and the Ph.D. degree from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Ottawa (2005). He served as a senior engineer/manager in auto, and high-tech industries for 18 years. He joined the National Research Council Canada as a research officer where he participated in several international research projects. In 2006, he joined the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at Ryerson University, Toronto as assistant professor. Currently, Dr. Jenab is Faculty of the College of Aeronautics at Embry-riddle Aeronautical University, FL, USA. He has published over 110 papers in international scientific journals based on his experiences in industries.Nikita Ottosen is a current Systems Engineering graduate student at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. She received her undergraduate degree from ERAU in Aeronautics and is currently working as an Assistant Campus Director at the Crestview, FL campus. She gained valuable knowledge previously working for the Boeing Company and Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, known as The Port of Seattle, in Seattle, Washington. During her time at The Port of Seattle she worked alongside the Wildlife Management department to conduct a study on effective wildlife management strategies. Her study will become a part of a future Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) publication, sponsored by the FAA’s Transportation Research Board of the National Academies.Saeid Moslehpour is a full professor and department chair in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department in the College of Engineering, Technology, and Architecture at the University of Hartford. He holds Ph.D. (1993) from Iowa State University and Bachelor of Science (1989) and Master of Science (1990) degrees from University of Central Missouri. His research interests include failure analysis, logic design, CPLDs, FPGAs, Embedded electronic system testing and distance learning.

Text Mining and Topic Modeling of Compendiums of Papers from Transportation Research Board Annual Meetings

The collective knowledge system has been advancing rapidly in the recent past. The digitalization of information in many online media—such as blogs, social media, articles, webpages, images, audios, and videos—provides an unprecedented opportunity for the extraction and identification of a knowledge trend. Prominent journal and conference proceedings usually contain extensive amounts of textual data that can be used to examine the research trends for various topics of interest and to understand how this research has helped in the advancement of a subject such as transportation engineering. The exploration of the unstructured contents in journal or conference papers requires sophisticated algorithms for knowledge extraction. This paper presents text mining techniques to analyze compendiums of papers published from TRB annual meetings, the largest and most comprehensive transportation conferences in the world. Topic models are algorithms designed to discover hidden thematic structure from massive collections of unstructured documents. This study used a popular topic model, latent Dirichlet allocation, to reveal research trends and interesting histories of the development of research by analyzing 15,357 compendiums of papers from 7 years (2008 to 2014) of TRB annual meetings.

Disentangling the influence of cell phone usage in the dilemma zone: An econometric approach

This paper focuses on developing an analysis framework to study the impact of cell phone treatment (cell phone type and call status) on driver behavior in the presence of a dilemma zone. Specifically, we examine how the treatment influences the driver maneuver decision at the intersection (stop or cross) and the eventual success of the maneuver. For a stop maneuver, success is defined as stopping before the stop line. Similarly, for a cross maneuver, success is defined as clearing the intersection safely before the light turns red. The eventual success or failure of the driver's decision process is dependent on the factors that affected the maneuver decision. Hence it is important to recognize the interconnectedness of the stop or cross decision with its eventual success (or failure). Toward this end, we formulate and estimate a joint framework to analyze the stop/cross decision with its eventual success (or failure) simultaneously. The study is conducted based on driving simulator data provided online for the 2014 Transportation Research Board Data Contest at http://depts.washington.edu/hfsm/upload.php. The model is estimated to analyze drivers’ behavior at the onset of yellow by employing exogenous variables from three broad categories: driver characteristics, cell phone attributes and driving attributes. We also generate probability surfaces to identify dilemma zone distribution associated with different cell phone treatment types. The plots clearly illustrate the impact of various cellphone treatments on driver dilemma zone behavior.

Road side safety hardware: Current status and future outlook

As an integral part of engineering safer roads, road side safety devices passively interact with errant vehicles to redirect them safely back to the road or bring them to a safe and controlled stop. These devices take the form of crash cushions, cable barriers, concrete barriers, steel barriers, guard rails, guardrail terminals and others. Placement criteria and warrants are established in the AASHTO Road Side Design Guide (1). However, before those devices are placed on the roadways, they have to be evaluated under objective test conditions.. Given that possible combinations of impact speeds, impact angles, vehicle characteristics and roadway characteristics are infinite, it is impossible to design roadside safety hardware for all those combination. Thus a “Practical Worse Case” philosophy derived from crash data analyses is followed to determine such impact conditions. In the USA, the evaluation methodologies are established in the National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Report 350 (2) which is now superseded by Manual for Assessing Safety Hardware (MASH) guidelines (3). In Europe a comparable set of guideline (EN 1317) is used to evaluate road safety devices under vehicular impact. Many roadway authorities around the world adopt either EN 1317 or NCHRP Report 350 with some modifications to incorporate local requirements. In the early parts of this presentation demonstrate testing conditions and criteria for quantifying the device as crashworthy under NCHRP Report 350 and MASH for some of the common road safety devices. The most common test conditions are explained in details. The key criteria of acceptance shall be presented for the most common test conditions. State of the art nonlinear finite element methodology has been gaining tractions in designing and enhancing the safety of vehicles and roadside devices. This presentation will highlight roadside safety hardware (4, 5, and 6) that was designed through extensive simulation process and had subsequent successful crash test per the latest MASH guidelines. REFERENCES 1. America Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials , Roadside Design Guide, 4th Edition, AASHTO, 2011. 2. Ross, H.E., D.L. Sicking, R.A. Zimmer, and J.D. Michie, Recommended Procedures for the Evaluation of Highway Features, NCHRP Report No. 350, 1993, Transportation Research Board: Washington, D.C. 3. AASHTO, Manual for Assessing Safety Hardware, 2009, American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials: Washington, D.C. 4. Abu-Odeh, K.M. McCaskey, R.P. Bligh, W.L. Menges, D.L. Kuhn. Crash Test and MASH TL-3 Evaluation of the TxDOT Short Radius Guardrail. Test Report. 0-6711-1. Project No. 0-6711. Texas A&M Transportation Institute, College Station, TX. March 2015 5. A. Abu-Odeh, R.P. Bligh, M.L. Mason, W.L. Menges. Development and Evaluation of a MASH TL-3 31-Inch W-Beam Median Barrier. 9-1002-12-8. Texas A&M Transportation Institute, College Station, TX. January 2014. 6. A. Abu-Odeh, W.F. Williams, M. Ferdous, M.T. Spencer, R.P. Bligh, W.L. Menges. Safety and Integrity of Median Barrier-Mounted Hardware. 0-6646-S. Texas A&M Transportation Institute, College Station, TX. 2013.

A direct-demand model for bicycle counts: the impacts of level of service and other factors

Transportation planning in the US has traditionally focused on automotive traffic but is increasingly turning towards a multimodal approach in order to accommodate all users. This shift in focus is particularly crucial for cyclists, as 630 were killed and 51 000 injured on America’s roadways in 2009 alone. Unfortunately, most municipalities do not conduct comprehensive bicycle counts to determine where cyclists are riding, though some do seek a scatter of spot counts. This investigation uses Seattle metropolitan area cyclist-count data from 251 locations to develop a direct-demand model for estimating peak-period cyclist counts based on trip-generation and attraction factors (such as site-based population and employment densities), as well as cycling-relevant roadway conditions. Roadway-condition variables were chosen from the 2010 Highway Capacity Manual (Chapter 17, Transport Research Board, Washington, DC) on urban street segments (including factors like traffic volumes and bike-lane width), as well as other physical features, like bridge presence and access to bicycle trails. Model results show greatest practical significance for intersections within the City of Seattle and curb-lane width (both of which are associated with higher counts) and roadway speed (which is associated with lower counts). The model was implemented in the community of Shoreline, Washington, just north of Seattle, to demonstrate its applicability. We examined both segment-based levels of service for cyclists and expected intersection-based counts. Model application findings indicate that segment-based levels of service show little correlation with expected counts, though such information still serves a valuable purpose in terms of evaluating cyclists’ comfort levels (which may also have potential correlation with cyclist safety), a worthwhile goal in itself. As such, these two models may be used in combination when targeting new cycling infrastructure and improvements.

Topological risk mapping of runway overruns: A probabilistic approach

The paper presents a topological risk mapping for aircraft overruns. The proposed procedure is based on the study published in 2008 by Hall et al. (Analysis of aircraft overruns and undershoots for runway safety areas. Airport Cooperative Research Program. Washington, DC: Transportation Research Board; 2008). In that study the authors performed an analysis of aircraft overruns and undershoots for runway safety areas proposing the ACRP hazard probability model. In the present study the model was integrated into a two-step Monte Carlo simulation procedure to assess the risk of overrun accidents and to provide a topological risk map for a specific airport area. The model was modified to utilize traffic-related and weather-related factors described by statistical distributions of historical data of the airport under analysis. The probability distribution of overrun events was then combined with the Longitudinal and Lateral Location models Hall et al. (Analysis of aircraft overruns and undershoots for runway safety areas. Airport Cooperative Research Program. Washington, DC: Transportation Research Board; 2008) to obtain a two-dimensional grid assessing the probability of each area to be the end point of a runway overrun. The expected kinetic energy of the aircraft in a given point of the grid is used as severity index. The procedure is suitable for generalisation and it allows a more detailed planning of Airport Safety Areas (ASA), improving the correct implementation of ICAO recommendations. Results are also useful for land planning and structural analyses in airport areas.

Operative vs non-operative management of displaced proximal humeral fractures in the elderly: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.

To perform a systematic review and meta-analysis comparing operative vs non-operative treatment of displaced proximal humerus fractures in elderly patients. A systematic literature search was performed using EMBASE and MEDLINE through the OVID interface, CINAHL, the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), Proquest, Web of Science, SAE digital library, and Transportation Research Board's TRID database. Searches of conference proceedings were also conducted. All available randomized controlled trials comparing operative vs non-operative management of displaced three- and four-part proximal humerus fractures in elderly patients were included. The primary outcomes measures included physical function, pain, health related quality of life, mortality, and the re-operation rate. Six randomized controlled trials (n = 287) were included. There was no statistically significant difference in function (MD = 1.72, 95%CI: -2.90-6.34, P = 0.47), as measured by the Constant score, between the operative and the non-operative treatment groups. There was no statistically significance difference in secondary outcomes of health related quality of life (standardized MD = 0.27, 95%CI: -0.05-0.59, P = 0.09), and mortality (relative risk 1.29, 95%CI: 0.50- 3.35, P = 0.60). Operative treatment had a statistically significant higher re-operation rate (relative risk 4.09, 95%CI: 1.50-11.15, P = 0.006), and statistically significant decreased pain (MD = 1.26, 95%CI: 0.02- 2.49, P = 0.05). There is moderate quality evidence to suggest that there is no difference in functional outcomes between the two treatments. Further high quality randomized controlled trials are required to determine if certain subgroup populations benefit from surgical management.

Calibration and Validation of a Swedish Space-time Analytical Model

The present capacity models for freeways descended from the early 70th, and were partly using the HCM 1965 Highway Research Board (1965) as background. Not especially valid for the todays freeway network. During the last decade one large project, Traffic Performance on Major Arterials (TPMA) Carlsson et al. (2000a), Carlsson et al. (2000b) and Carlsson et al. (2002) has been implemented. New models for basic freeway segment, merging and weaving segment was developed. A new model for weaving were developed 2010 with new empirical data Strömgren (2011). In addition to the manual calculation method for not oversaturated condition a time-space model that also handled oversaturated conditions has been included.The development of the model started with analysis of video and aerial photo to be able to calculate the jam density, the last point in the oversaturated regime curve. The oversaturated flow-density curve has been developed using the density at capacity for a certain cross section and speed limit based on empirical data of flow and density in oversaturated conditions including jam density.The development of the Swedish space-time model used FREEVAL Transport research Board (2010). The resulting computer model, called CALMAR, CALculation of performance for Motorway ARterial facilities, was built in VB.NET and VBA. Calibration of the model was done by using the Swedish capacity models for link, merging, diverging and weaving but also flow-density estimations. All other country specific parameters as speed limits etc. was set to Swedish conditions. A traffic environmental factor was implemented describing the environment where the freeway is situated, and divided into rural or urban. Urban conditions has an interchange density higher or equal to 0.5 (interchanges/km), rural conditions has a density lower than 0.5 (interchanges/km).The model was calibrated for four and six lane freeways with merging or weaving lanes. The speed limit range from 70 kph to 120 kph in step of 10 kph. The model has its limitations. Lane width, shoulder width, distance to obstacles, gradients for ramps and length of merging was not taken into account, since no relationship could be found in the empirical data.The validation of the model was carried out for three different cases on the A4 freeway south of Stockholm, one accident, one vehicle break down and one at oversaturated condition due to high demand flow. Recorded flows from the motorway control system (MCS) as well as the automatic incident detection (AID) data from this system were used to identify queue increases and decreases. Reports from the roadside assistance team were also used to identify the degree and duration of bottleneck blockade.A careful collection of flows including bottleneck throughput and upstream demand were collected in the cases of accidents. The throughput and the upstream flow (demand) on the upstream not affected link before the end of the queue were registered for each time step (60minutes). The throughput flow was used as the capacity value in CALMAR, and the demand flow upstream as the segment demand. This was repeated for each time step of 60minutes. In the case with oversaturated condition no explicit change of the capacity in the bottleneck was done. The capacity was indirectly changed by the related interchange, where the number of lanes was changed from 3 to 2 lanes and the speed limit decreased from 100 kph to 80 kph. The demand flow was captured as in the two first cases.To estimate the queue length AID data was collected from the MCS database and converted from binary to decimal format. Data from 12 MCS gantries for each accident in the southbound direction, and 18 gantries in the northbound direction were collected. The average gantry spacing was 200-300 m.For each time step the end of the queue was registered as a length from the bottleneck where the AID alarm was registered. The AID gives a sign of 30 kph without flashing lamps and has a threshold of 22 kph. This means that the speed is in the range of 0 to 22 kph. A check is also done in the speed flow data from the MCS, if speed less than approximately 10 kph the density is too high for the radar detectors and no data will be recorded.The result from the validation showed a good fit. The CALMAR model gives in case 1, southbound accident, a maximum queue length of 2472 m and the maximum empirical queue length was 2635 m. Case 2, northbound vehicle breakdown gave a CALMAR queue length result of 3608 m compared to a maximum empirical queue length of 3530 m. Case 3, northbound oversaturated condition, gave a CALMAR result of 4149 m queue length and an maximum empirical queue length of 4310 m.

Level of Service of Safety Revisited

The concept of the level of service of safety (LOSS) was developed at the Colorado Department of Transportation in 2000. LOSS reflects how a roadway segment or an intersection is performing in reference to the expected frequency and severity of crashes predicted by its safety performance function. The LOSS concept provides quantitative assessment and qualitative description of the degree of safety of a segment or an intersection. In addition, the loss concept facilitates effective communication about safety problems to other professionals, the traveling public, and elected officials. The LOSS concept was first introduced in a paper titled “Level of Service of Safety: Conceptual Blueprint and Analytical Framework,” published in 2003 in the Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 1840. LOSS was incorporated into the first edition of the AASHTO Highway Safety Manual and is used by the Departments of Transportation of Colorado, Louisiana, Montana, Oklahoma, and Wyoming and the Ontario Ministry of Transport, in Canada. LOSS lends itself well to the safety decision-making process in departments of transportation. However, the concept did not initially address correction for the regression to the mean bias. A new method is introduced for using LOSS in concert with correction for regression to the mean bias with an empirical Bayes procedure. In addition, distributional assumptions associated with LOSS are revisited, how the LOSS boundaries are calibrated in the population corrected for the regression to the mean bias is explained, and an intuitive percentile-based reporting method is provided. Finally a diagnostic example and a before-and-after study demonstrating the value of LOSS in identifying the safety problem at a real location are worked through.

Building a Metaframework for Sustainable Transport Indicators

Several recent papers presented at the annual meeting of the Transportation Research Board, Washington, D.C., and elsewhere have reported on efforts to make sustainability manageable. To this end, the papers suggested the use of indicators and performance measures to help conceptualize and operationalize sustainability for transportation-related planning and decision making. Often these studies presented frameworks that would allow sustainability indicators and measures to be included in, for example, agency strategies and practices. Moreover, some papers suggested criteria for the selection of individual indicators and performance measures. The studies, however, did not always agree on the definition of a framework or how to use one to make sustainability-based decisions, and they tended to differ on underscored aspects and concerns. The current study addressed the issue of frameworks more generically and explored what was termed a “metaframework” with a set of associated criteria to guide the framing of indicators for sustainable transportation. On the basis of an explicit framework theory, the three functions of conceptualization, operationalization, and utilization were found to provide a logical structure of complementary features with which to build indicator frameworks. Characteristics of robust indicator frameworks were evaluated in terms of their significance for the three key functions, and they were collected in a list of criteria. A review of the Brundtland Report provided an example of how a more finely grained understanding of sustainability can inform the conceptualization criterion ranking of sustainability impacts. The metaframework was intended primarily as a basis for empirical analysis and for meta-evaluation of existing practice frameworks with respect to the strength of the level of sustainability that they are likely to provide.

Energy technologies’ compatibility with airports and airspace: Guidance for aviation and energy planners

In response to economic, environmental and national security factors, nations are diversifying their energy extraction and generation opportunities through the development of cleaner, more efficient and renewabletechnologies. These developments are expanding the geographic footprint of energy infrastructure and encroaching on the aviation transportation system. The aviation industry is concerned that current practices are not reducing the adverse impacts of energy projects on the safety of airport operations and navigable airspace. In response, the Transportation Research Board’s Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP), an industry-driven, applied research programme of the National Academy of Sciences based in the USA, directed research to better understand the risk of airspace impacts from energy technologies and to develop best practices for aviation safety associated with planning, developing and constructing energy projects. The research focused on energy technologies that are currently being developed, including solar photovoltaic, concentrating solar power, wind power, oil and natural gas extraction, steam-generated power production and electricity transmission. Each technology produces different types of impacts on airports and navigable airspace including physical penetration of airspace, radar interference, glare and thermal turbulence. The research findings, drawing on information from Australia, the UK and the USA, are presented as best practices, organised by technology, and include general siting and design criteria for each. The Guidebook represents a comprehensive resource for aviation and energy industry professionals with information to improve energy technology siting to enable nations to meet domestic energy production needs while ensuring a safe and efficient aviation transportation system.

Multi-stakeholder Marine Risk Assessments in Alaska: Updates from Cook Inlet and the Aleutian Islands

ABSTRACT Marine risk assessments are underway for two operating areas of Alaska: one focuses on the most populated region of Alaska and the other on a much more remote area. Both assessments involve a combination of technical analysis and input based on the values and experiences of diverse stakeholders. Collectively, they represent the first implementation of a multi-stakeholder risk assessment process recommended in 2008 by the Transportation Research Board (TRB) of the U.S. National Academies. The Aleutian Islands Risk Assessment (AIRA) has been underway since 2009, with a total budget of $3 million from the 2004 M/V Selendang Ayu grounding and oil spill settlement funds. A similar, though smaller, risk assessment was initiated for Cook Inlet in 2011. The Cook Inlet Risk Assessment (CIRA) has a total budget of $900,000. Both assessments seek to identify and evaluate risk reduction options to minimize the risk of oil spills from vessels of 300 GT or larger, or those with at least 10,000 gallons of fuel capacity. Both projects are being conducted under the guidance of a small Management Team. The Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation and U.S. Coast Guard sit on both Management Teams. The other Management Team members represent the additional relevant funding agencies: for Cook Inlet, this is the Cook Inlet Regional Citizens' Advisory Council (managing part of the funding for this project) and for the Aleutian Islands this is the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (managing the funds for this project). For each project, there is also a larger Advisory Panel, comprised of representatives of diverse and critical interests in each region, including the shipping and fisheries industries, local government, state and federal agencies, and environmental organizations. Advisory Panel members are selected by the Management team based on their local knowledge, expertise and understanding of the risk posed by the maritime transportation industry. Opportunities for public comment and engagement are provided, along with websites housing all project documents. There is also a Peer Review Panel for the AIRA project. Though the AIRA and CIRA are still underway, this paper provides an update on the wide ranging risk reduction options being considered, the types of technical analyses done and, how these analyses have informed project direction and decision-making, and preliminary observations related to the approaches used.

Attitudes and habits in highly effective travel models

Walter White was never going to stop cooking methamphetamine. Although this choice regularly and repeatedly turned out badly, the anti-hero protagonist of AMC’s Breaking Bad continued his work. Sometimes he perceived the alternatives to be unsafe; other times he just continued out of habit, or because he developed a skewed attitude towards risk and reward. Of course, as a fictional character, he needed to make that choice to advance the plot of the show. Yet this kind of decision making can be observed writ large across many human endeavors, in fiction and otherwise, and not least in our decisions about travel. Fortunately, these quirks of human decision making processes need not be detrimental. Knowing them, it is possible to turn them to good purpose, as Hamlet proclaims: ‘‘That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat, / Of habits devil, is angel yet in this: / That to the use of actions fair and good / He likewise gives a frock or livery / That aptly is put on’’ (Act 3, Scene 4). By encouraging desirable habits and shifting attitudes, it might be possible to see changes in travel behaviors with or without changes in the actual quality of transportation services. In this special issue of Transportation, we present for your consideration a collection of work on perceptions, attitudes, and habits, how these factors impact travel behaviors, and how they can be incorporated effectively into travel demand forecasting models. These papers were originally presented in sessions sponsored by the Committee on Travel Behavior and Values (ADB10) and the Committee on Travel Demand Forecasting (ADB40) at the 2014 Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board. In our first article, Cherchi and Cirillo offer a study of the intrinsic variability in the preferences of individuals for particular modes of travel, using a six week travel diary survey to examine travel behaviors over time. This long period survey format allows for the study of persistent and habitual choices in modes. Using a mixed logit formulation, they find a great deal of heterogeneity in relative preferences for time and cost between

Volume-Change Behavior of a Compacted Low-Plasticity Clay From Double-Odometer Tests

Abstract The compressibility of compacted soils is not only a function of soil type and density but also stress state, which is influenced by the existing matric suction and can be described using the fundamentals of unsaturated soil mechanics. This paper presents data from double-odometer tests on low-plasticity clay that demonstrates the effects of dry density and water content on volume-change behavior. Using the data set developed, the drained constrained modulus is determined using the stress–strain relations obtained from conventional odometer tests on soaked specimens, as well as specimens at their molding moisture content. The change of modulus with respect to degree of saturation is discussed and placed in context with the model used in the Guide for Mechanistic-Empirical Design of New and Rehabilitated Pavement Structures [ARA, ERES Consultants Division, 2004, “Guide for Mechanistic-Empirical Design of New and Rehabilitated Pavement Structures,” Final Report NCHRP Project 1-37A, Transportation Research Board of the National Academies, Washington, D.C.]. A procedure for predicting the undrained modulus from the constitutive relation for drained loading and the predicted excess pore pressure caused by loading based on a modification of Hilf’s equation [Hilf, J. W., 1948, “Estimating Construction Pore Pressures in Rolled Earth Dams,” Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering, Vol. 3, International Society for Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering (ISSMGE), London, pp. 234–240] is also presented and discussed.