Research Projects | National Institute for Transportation and Communities

Green Waves, Machine Learning, and Predictive Analytics: Making Streets Better for People on Bikes

Principal Investigator: Stephen Fickas

Co-Investigator: Marc Schlossberg

Led by Dr. Stephen Fickas of the University of Oregon (UO), transportation researchers are working to give bicyclists smoother rides by allowing them to communicate with traffic signals via a mobile app. The latest report to come out of this mul ... Read More

Identifying and Measuring Transportation Challenges for Survivors in Intimate Partner Violence Shelters

Principal Investigator: Sarah Leat

Environmental stressors within the built environment can greatly impact health. Environmental stressors, such as noise levels, crowding, and housing quality have been shown to impact physical healing as well as mental health. Although environmental s ... Read More

Rethinking Streets for Physical Distancing

Principal Investigator: Marc Schlossberg

Co-Investigator: Rebecca Lewis

Reallocating space on streets to accommodate new uses – particularly for walking, biking, and being – is not new. However, COVID-era needs have accelerated the process that many communities use to make such street transitions. A few overlapping p ... Read More

Bi-objective Optimization for Battery Electric Bus Deployment Considering Cost and Environmental Equity

Principal Investigator: Xiaoyue Cathy Liu

Co-Investigators: Aaron Golub , Ran Wei

Led by Xiaoyue Cathy Liu of the University of Utah, researchers have created a web-based modeling tool that enables U.S. transit providers to explore the impacts of changing over their systems to battery electric buses, or BEBs. The researchers ran ... Read More

Methodologies to Quantify Transit Performance Metrics at the System-Level

Principal Investigator: Travis Glick

Performance metrics have typically focused at two main scales: a microscopic scale that focuses on specific locations, time-periods, and trips; and, a macroscopic scale that averages metrics over longer times, entire routes, and networks. When applie ... Read More

Transit Impacts on Jobs, People and Real Estate

Principal Investigator: Arthur C. Nelson

Co-Investigators: Kristina Currans , Nicole Iroz-Elardo

Transit Impacts on Jobs, People and Real Estate, from the University of Arizona, represents the culmination of nearly a decade of research into the economic effects of transit. To unpack the dense and substantial findings from 17 LRT, 14 BRT, 9 SCT, ... Read More

Land Use and Transportation Policies for a Sustainable Future with Autonomous Vehicles: Scenario Analysis with Simulations

Principal Investigator: Liming Wang

Co-Investigator: Yao-Jan Wu

Even though there are tremendous uncertainties in the timing and evolution path of the Autonomous Vehicles (AV) technology, it may become a likely reality within most MPOs' long-range regional transportation plan horizon of twenty years. Yet a recent ... Read More

The Role of Bus Stop Features in Facilitating Accessibility

Principal Investigator: Keith Bartholomew

Co-Investigator: Arlie Adkins

A bus stop can be anything from a simple signpost stuck in the grass, to a comfortable shelter with seating and paved access to the sidewalk. For many U.S. transit agencies across the country, improving facilities at bus stops is a priority. But how ... Read More

Investigating Effects of TNCs on Parking Demand and Revenues

Principal Investigator: Benjamin Clark

Co-Investigator: Anne Brown

For the past century, mobility in the United States has been dictated by cars. Furthermore, cars—and even more so, the storage of cars—have dictated urban form. With cities dedicating more space to parking than even streets and roads, parking has ... Read More

Reducing VMT, Encouraging Walk Trips, and Facilitating Efficient Trip Chains through Polycentric Development

Principal Investigator: Reid Ewing

A "polycentric" region is a network of compact developments (centers) that are connected with each other through high-quality transportation options. As the antidote to sprawling suburbs, compact centers can encourage all the things that sprawl disco ... Read More

Matching the Speed of Technology with the Speed of Local Government: Developing Codes and Policies Related to the Possible Impacts of New Mobility on Cities

Principal Investigator: Marc Schlossberg

Co-Investigator: Heather Brinton

Advances in technology such as the advent of autonomous vehicles (AV’s), the rise of E-commerce, and the proliferation of the sharing economy are having profound effects not only on how we live, move, and spend our time in cities, but also on urban ... Read More

ADA Accessible Trail Improvement with Naturally Occurring, Sustainable Materials

Principal Investigator: Matthew Sleep

Approximately 7,700 years ago—in a cataclysmic event which the Klamath people retold and passed down for over 300 generations—Mount Mazama erupted, forming Crater Lake in Oregon. With molten rock reaching temperatures of up to 2,200 degrees Fahre ... Read More