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Summary: The transportation system is the backbone of the United States' economy, and transportation is an essential part of everyday life for American citizens. It is essential that the transportation system continue to provide accessibility and connectivity to an ever-evolving global economy. A key way to do so is to embrace, develop and implement new technologies. One of the newest and most promising facets of transportation-related technology is in the field of connected mobility. The vision behind connected mobility is of a transportation system where vehicles, travelers, and infrastructure are all wirelessly connected with one another and able to transmit real-time data about things like weather, location, and vehicle and infrastructure status. Such a degree of connectivity could have substantial benefits for the safety, mobility, and sustainability of the domestic transportation system, including accident prevention and congestion reduction. In recent years, major strides have been made into the research and development of connected mobility technology and some field-testing has commenced, but there is a need for more attention and investment from stakeholders throughout the transportation community and beyond. 

Bio: Robert Bertini is a...

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Abstract: Today, most streets are designed and managed to meet mobility standards that focus on the movement of motor vehicles, failing to adequately accommodate and prioritize transit, walking, and biking. A new culture of innovation is needed in transportation as traditional solutions alone will not suffice. By 2035, the Portland Plan envisions transportation facilities that are designed and managed to prioritize travel investments that improve walking, biking, and universal accessibility as the first priority.

In support of this vision, Peter Koonce, Manager of the City's Signals, Street Lighting, & ITS Division will discuss how he's looking to make the City's traffic signals consistent with these goals resulting in more effective integration of land use, transit, cycling, and walking. The discussion will be centered around research that is needed to improve our understanding of best practices from the U.S. and Europe for application in Portland.

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Many transit agencies plan to automate their fare collection and limit the use of cash, with the goals of improving boarding and data collection while lowering operating costs. Yet about 10% of adults in the United States lack a bank account or credit card, and many either rely on restrictive cell-phone data plans or don’t have access to internet or a smartphone. 

This webinar will present part of a larger research project exploring these issues in the cities of Denver, Colorado, and Eugene and Portland–Gresham, Oregon. In this part, we explore the tradeoffs between reducing cash acceptance, ridership and the costs of fare collection systems. How much does it save to reduce cash acceptance, verses ridership and equity impacts?

We will also present a cost-effectiveness framework that combines a qualitative and quantitative analysis and use this model to explore case scenarios in our three cities. The model shows that adding a retail network to...

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Evaluating Driver and Pedestrian Behaviors at Enhanced Multilane Midblock Pedestrian Crossings: Case Study in Portland, Oregon This study examines driver and pedestrian behaviors at two enhanced midblock pedestrian crossings in Portland, Oregon. One crossing is on a five-lane arterial with a posted speed of 35/45 miles-per-hour (MPH) and features six rectangular rapid flash beacon (RRFB) assemblies and a narrow median refuge. The other crossing is on a suburban arterial with four travel lanes and a two-way left-turn lane. The crossing is enhanced with four RRFB assemblies and a median island with a “Z” crossing, or Danish offset, designed to encourage pedestrians to face oncoming traffic before completing the second stage of their crossing. Approximately 62 hours of video have been collected at the two locations. A total of 351 pedestrian crossings are analyzed for driver compliance (yielding) rates, pedestrian...

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Abstract: While TriMet and other transit agencies serve many commuters by having racks for bikes on trains and buses, large bike parking facilities in global capitals of urban bicycling provide the key link between bikes and transit. Following the lead of European and Asian cities, the Portland region is starting to develop a network of bike-transit facilities; TriMet is piloting smart bike parking technology in the form of electronic bike lockers and "Bike & Rides". This presentation discusses the background and planning for bike-transit integration in the region and shares insights into bike-transit travel patterns, habits, and market segmentation gained from recent rider surveys.

The video begins at 9:25.

This paper, co-authored with Ian W.H. Parry, derives formulas for the welfare effects of reforming subsidies for peak and off-peak urban rail and bus fares, and applies them to the metropolitan areas of Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, and London. The model accounts for congestion, pollution, oil dependence, and accident externalities associated with automobiles and each transit mode. It also accounts for scale economies in transit supply, costs of accessing and waiting for transit service, crowding costs, pre-existing fuel taxes, and the transit agency’s adjustment of frequency, vehicle size, and route network in response to changes in demand. We find that in almost all cases existing subsidies – which typically exceed 50% of operating costs – are either about right, or possibly too low, across bus and rail, peak and off-peak period, in the three cities.

Speaker Biography: Kenneth A. Small, Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of California at Irvine, specializes in urban, transportation, and environmental economics. Recent research has concentrated on urban highway congestion, measurement of value of time and reliability, effects of fuel efficiency standards, public transit pricing, and the role of fuel taxes in managing external costs of automobiles. Prof. Small served five years as coeditor of the international journal, Urban Studies, and is now Associate...

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Integrative Public Transport in a Segmented City: Reflections from Jerusalem

Jerusalem is perhaps an extreme case of residential and travel market segmentation. It is comprised of four different 'cities', which partially overlap in space: The Jewish-Zionist city; the Palestinian city; the Jewish ultra-orthodox city and the global-tourist city. While the specific delineation of these cities is unique, Jerusalem can be seen as representative...

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Friday Transportation Seminar at Portland State University - June 1, 2018

Friday Transportation Seminars at Portland State University have been a tradition since 2000. With over 450 seminars presented and recorded (access the archive of seminars here), we host both visiting and local scholars to share the latest in research, technology, and implementation in transportation.

EDUCATION LIBRARY ARCHIVE

Missed the seminar or want a look back? 

 

David Soto Padín
Graduate Research Assistant at Portland State University, and President of the Students in Transportation Engineering & Planning (ITE-STEP

David...

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Summary: Where and when does overcrowding happen on TriMet's bus network? Which routes have the best on-time performance? Portland State University and TriMet have collaborated to make this kind of data available to anybody through Portal, PSU's transportation data archive for the Portland/Vancouver region. This presentation will cover the use of General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) data for mapping TriMet’s performance data and the development of Portal’s innovative transit application. In the MAP-21 era of performance management, see how tools like Portal can support enhanced agency decision-making as well as community engagement.

Bio: Jon Makler researches and teaches about transportation planning and engineering at Portland State University. His research portfolio centers on intelligent transportation systems, including how they can be harnessed to benefit the environment and how the data they generate can support operational strategies and planning decisions. Since moving to Oregon 9 years ago, he has worked at Metro, the City of Portland and OTREC, the federally-funded research center housed at PSU. His previous employers were the North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority, the Harvard Kennedy School, IBI Group and Sarah...

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