TRB Meeting Generates Excitement for Students
Ten North Dakota State University students attended the Transportation Research Board (TRB) 81st annual meeting Jan. 13-17 in Washington, D.C., where two UGPTI staff members presented papers. The conference provides an opportunity to gain and share knowledge with colleagues and learn about the latest developments in transportation.
During the past three years, the Upper Great Plains Transportation Institute has sent active participants of the Transportation Student Association (TSA) to TRB. The TSA chapter was formed to include all students interested in the field of transportation and includes affiliations with the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) and American Road and Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA).
In addition to attending conference sessions and workshops, students participated in activities hosted by ITE, including a luncheon and networking reception. Students met key leadership of ITE, including ITE International President Jenny L. Grote. Students discussed current issues and needs of the transportation industry. When they returned from TRB, the students made presentations at a campus TSA meeting about the conference.
Students who attended were Maria Barnhardt, Corey Bergman, Ryan Erickson, Matthew Gangness, Matthew Linneman, Matthew Martimo, Joe Pihlaja, Khaled Shouman, Mark Vizecky and Stephanie Weigel.
UGPTI Shares Research
Brenda Lantz, director of the Transportation Safety Systems Center (TSSC), presented a paper about commercial vehicle driver traffic conviction data to identify high safety risk motor carriers.
The TSSC continuously researches ways to improve the carrier prioritization method used by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. This method includes how they prioritize to visit commercial vehicle companies for an on-site safety compliance review, as well as how they prioritize to inspect certain commercial vehicles and rivers on the roadside.
Lantz's main purpose was to determine if adding driver conviction data to this prioritization method would be useful - the overall conclusion, yes. Now the challenge will be determining how to successfully implement this new data element into the prioritization method.
Driver conviction information comes from the Commercial Driver License Information System (CDLIS). Through Lantz's study, new knowledge of high-risk companies and better focus of enforcement efforts should reduce crashes and fatalities on the highways. The study showed that carrier driver history is significantly correlated with carriers' out-ofservice rates (OOS), accident rates and SafeStat Safety Evaluation Area (SEA) scores. She concludes that carriers with higher negative driver history measures are also more likely to have higher OOS rates, accident rates and SEA scores.
Kiel Ova, UGPTI associate research fellow, presented the paper "Evaluation of Signal Priority Strategies for Small-Medium Cities," at the Issues in Transit Priority session on Jan. 15. Ova used the microscopic traffic simulation model, VISSIM, to model a transit signal priority application in the downtown region of Fargo, N.D. His results indicated potential bus travel time savings as high as 14 percent with a decrease in bus stopped delays of 38 percent. Impacts to the local transportation system were investigated as well, showing network persondelay increased as much as 5 percent.
Transit Signal Priority (TSP) is the process of providing special treatment to buses, similar to emergency vehicles, but having less impact on the system. These applications are mainly applied in larger metropolitan areas where demand for transit service is moderate to high.
Ova's study evaluated theoretical TSP applications to Fargo, where demand for transit service is low. TSP applications in small-medium cities may be used as a mechanism for attracting more transit users and providing better service to existing bus routes.
He notes small-medium-size cities often have a transit service with large headways, often greater than 30 minutes. During peak periods, traffic congestion causes missed connections at transfer points and can increase the transit rider's total trip time by as much as one hour.
