Note: In advance of the Transportation Research Board's annual meeting, the biggest forum on the transportation research calendar, OTREC.us is profiling some of the researchers who will present their work.
In a session titled "Living Within the Right-of-Way: New Address for the Homeless," OTREC researcher Andrée Tremoulet will give a lectern presentation about her research into homelessness.
Encampments of homeless individuals and families living in state department of transportation rights of way often pose a unique challenge for DOT staff responsible for maintaining the public land.
The solution, as described in Tremoulet's report, is as complex and multifaceted as the problem.
In cases where urban campers need to be relocated, for the process to be humane and successful Tremoulet stresses that it must be achieved through a cooperative effort between community orgnizations.
She advocates using a "push/pull" method, combining the "push" of law enforcement to clear the public land with the "pull" of assistance and housing programs to give homeless individuals direction, and a place to go.
The most important thing to remember, she says, is that no situation is alike and every set of circumstances will require a unique, tailored approach.
Following the publication of this OTREC project about a homeless relocation...
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Note: In advance of the Transportation Research Board's annual meeting, the biggest forum on the transportation research calendar, OTREC.us is profiling some of the researchers who will present their work.
How long is too long to wait for the light to change? At stoplights, pedestrians often experience longer delays while cars are given priority.
To design traffic signals that serve the needs of walkers, planners must understand the motivations behind pedestrian behaviors.
Working with professors Kelly Clifton and Christopher Monsere, Sirisha Kothuri of Portland State University created a survey designed to shed some light on what makes pedestrians decide to follow, or not follow, traffic laws.
To collect data, Kothuri and a team of graduate students armed with an 11-question survey posted themselves at four different intersections in northeast Portland, Ore.
Two of the intersections had recall signals, where pedestrians are automatically detected, and the other two had actuated signals, where pedestrians must press a button to get the light to change.
Survey respondents were asked for their attitudes about delay in signal timing, and for the reasons that determined their crossing the street.
Responses showed...
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OTREC research played a prominent role at this year’s Transportation Research Board annual meeting, the preeminent national conference for transportation researchers. An estimated 12,000 transportation professionals from around the world are attending the conference.
A total of 75 affiliated researchers from three campuses of OTREC’s NITC program present their research in 64 lectern and poster sessions Jan. 12-16. Faculty and students presided or presented at an additional 16 workshops, committee meetings and sessions.
Potential presenters at TRB submit full research papers for peer review; only around half of the submitted papers are chosen for presentation at the annual meeting. Portland State University researchers had 41 papers accepted for presentation; University of Oregon, 3; University of Utah, 20. Portland State, University of Oregon, Oregon Institute of Technology and the University of Utah are partners in the National Institute for Transportation and Communities, or NITC, program. (New NITC partner...
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Note: In advance of the Transportation Research Board's annual meeting, the biggest forum on the transportation research calendar, OTREC.us is profiling some of the researchers who will present their work.
The bicycle counts suggested that, on Bike to Work Day, more people did bike to work. But did fewer people drive?
OTREC staff researcher Krista Nordback took up the issue and will present her findings Monday, Jan. 13 at the Transportation Research Board’s annual meeting in Washington, D.C.
The bike count data from sites across Boulder, Colo., certainly impressed Nordback. “Bike to Work Day has this huge spike,” she said. “The bike counts double at a lot of the count sites.
“Wouldn’t it be cool if we could see something similar with the motor vehicle count data?”
In a twist that might only happen in Boulder, with its ample bike counters, Nordback had a harder time tracking down the motor vehicle counts. She lucked out, finding that the city’s red-light cameras had been counting cars alongside their primary job of catching red-light runners.
Those motor vehicle counts showed a consistent drop on Bike-to-Work days compared with average workdays in June and July. It was a small drop, but even finding that was unprecedented: no studies had documented a statistically significant drop in motor vehicle counts during any bike-to-work event.
...
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As we prepare for the next step in our development as a center, we're taking a look back at the seven years since OTREC's founding:
The Oregon Transportation Research and Education Consortium, or OTREC, was founded in 2006 with a theme that emphasized advanced technology, the integration of transportation and land use, and healthy communities. OTREC’s mission is to inform transportation decision making through timely, useful primary research and to build the capacity of the transportation workforce.
Reflecting the DOT mission, OTREC promotes choices that make our transportation system safe, resilient and adaptable. Providing access to travel options that promote the health of our communities and our environment makes our country stronger.
From the research that makes our communities living laboratories to the innovative education and technology transfer efforts that wed research and practice, our programs lay the groundwork for livable communities. Our advanced technology projects have shown the effect of traffic-signal timing on pedestrians’ exposure to pollution and helped a state Department of Transportation place sensors to best estimate travel times for the least cost. Our healthy communities projects...
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The NITC program's executive committee has selected a new roster of projects for funding under the National Institute for Transportation and Communities, or NITC, program. The committee chose 10 projects, totaling $900,000, under the NITC theme of safe, healthy and sustainable transportation to foster livable communities.
The projects are national in scope and reflect priority areas including transit supply and outcomes, and pedestrian and bicyclist behavior.
Projects selected include:
- A bicycle and pedestrian miles traveled project for Washington state.
- A study that measures the effectiveness on social media on advancing public transit.
- A look into crowdsourcing the collection of data on transportation behavior.
- A national study of Bus Rapid Transit outcomes.
A complete list of projects and principal investigators is below:
- National Study of BRT Development Outcomes: Arthur Nelson and Joanna Ganning, University of Utah
- Crowdsourcing the Collection of Transportation...
The National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC) program invites proposals for the 2014 Doctoral Dissertation Research Fellowships. Fellowships up to $15,000 will be awarded to cover expenses for the recipient while working on their dissertation. NITC is focused on contributing to transportation projects that support innovations in: livability, incorporating safety and environmental sustainability
ELIGIBILITY
Students must be U.S. citizens and have advanced to candidacy for the Ph.D. degree prior to the application deadline. NITC fellowships are open to students currently enrolled in a transportation-related doctoral program at Portland State University (PSU), University of Oregon (UO), Oregon Institute of Technology (Oregon Tech) or the University of Utah (UU).
PROCESS
Applicants must submit one electronic copy (in PDF) of their proposal to Susan Peithman (peithman@pdx.edu) by January 31st, 2014. More information can be found by downloading the application here: NITC Dissertation Application.
ABOUT
This grant is part of the University Transportation Center (UTC) program funded by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Research and Innovative Technology Administration. The mission of the UTC program is to advance U.S. technology and expertise in the many disciplines comprising transportation through...
Read moreThe National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC) is pleased to issue its first pooled-fund request for proposal to develop an online non-motorized traffic data archive. Making non-motorized count data accessible online with visualization tools that are useful to both researchers and practitioners can address two needs: first, to improve the practice of planning and designing for non-motorized transportation activity; and, second, to expand the ability of transportation professionals to share rigorous and quantitative metrics associated with bicycling and walking.
The project budget is $175,000 with research completed within a time period of 19 months. Interested teams do not need to provide match. Proposers interested in submitting proposals must email Hau Hagedorn (hagedorn@pdx.edu) with their intent to submit a proposal by December 16, 2013. The email should include name(s) and contact information of investigators including university affiliation. Full proposals are due January 31, 2014. For more information, go to: https://trec.pdx.edu/OTRECUS/for_researchers/rfp
ELIGIBILITY
Faculty members and research faculty eligible to serve as Principal Investigators (PIs) at Portland State University, the University of Oregon, the Oregon Institute of Technology, or the University of...
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