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Summary: The Federal Transit Administration invests in building the capacity and improving the quality of public transportation throughout the United States of America. Under FTA's leadership, public rail, bus, trolley, ferry, and other transit services have reached greater levels of safety, reliability, availability, and accessibility. Come hear the highlights of FTA's impacts and participate in an interactive question/answer session and discussion on career options in public transportation!
Bio: Amy Changchien is the Director of Planning & Program Development of the Federal Transit Administration Region 10 Office in Seattle. Ms. Changchien has been a transportation professional for over 20 years, with experience spanning from highway to transit. In her career, she has worked on projects involving highway operations, Intelligent Transportation System, commuter rail, light rail, streetcar, ferries, and buses. Ms. Changchien holds a bachelor's degree in Civil Engineering and a master's degree in Public Administration from University of Washington.
Room 315 in the Engineering Building (the ITS Lab)
Abstract: This seminar will describe the results of a recent study for the Australian National Road Authority (Austroads) which reviewed emerging types of private vehicles, including everything from Segways and mobility scooters to three wheel cars and micro/mini cars, and their implications for road system management.The emergence of some of those vehicle types presents real challenges from the perspective of safely managing their integration into the road system even though they present some real opportunities from the perspective of improving the sustainability of the transport system. Although the analysis is largely from an Australian perspective, some of the general insights which came from the study are transferable and one of the key recommendations (regarding moving towards more performance based than prescriptive based standards for vehicles) has potential international application.
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Summary: Dr. Lovell will talk about three projects funded by NASA and the FAA, addressing congestion in the National Airspace System. Dr. Lovell's team developed diffusion-based queuing models of individual airports that could support better building blocks for network-wide congestion models. The advantage of the new models is their flexibility with respect to input distributions. In a study for the FAA, Dr. Lovell's team developed day-of-operations collaboration "languages" suitable for the FAA and individual carriers in order to collectively manage expected airspace disruptions. Finally, he will discuss a study on predictability in the airspace, with a focus on scheduled block times.
Dr. Lovell is an Associate Professor with joint appointments in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Institute for Systems Research. He is a member of the faculty of the Applied Mathematics, Statistics, and Scientific Computation Program. He is director of the University of Maryland chapter of Engineers Without Borders - USA, and serves that organization on its board and as a leader of one of its Technical Advisory Councils. Dr. Lovell received his B.A. in Mathematics from Portland State University in 1990, and M.S. and Ph.D....
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The LCN+ Project Management team are responsible for improving conditions for cycling on a 900-kilometre network of London’s key commuter roads, in line with the Mayor of London’s Cycling Action Plan.
With the initial target of achieving a 200% increase in the number of cyclists in London already surpassed, the project aims to build on this by continuing to advise the 33 London boroughs on how to improve cycling infrastructure on their roads. By effectively liasing with major stakeholders such as local cycling groups, Borough Cycling Officers and Transport for London, the project can ensure that all will have agreed on the solutions reached.
Steve Cardno: Steve is the Project Manager for the London Cycle Network Plus (LCN+) project, with responsibility for the overall project management of this London wide cycling project. The LCN+ project aims to deliver 900km of high quality strategic cycle routes across London by the end of 2009/10. The project is funded by Transport for London (TfL), project managed by Camden Consultancy Services and delivered in partnership with TfL, CCS, the 33 London Boroughs and cycle user...
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Summary: Signalized intersections often rely on vehicle detection to determine when to give a green light. The 2009 Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) includes an on-pavement marking and curbside sign that public agencies can use to indicate where cyclists should position themselves while waiting at an intersection. This presentation reviews the effectiveness of current markings, signs, and other methods used to help cyclists properly position themselves over detection.
Stefan Bussey is an undergraduate civil engineering student at Portland State University. He is interested in exploring how road users’ interactions with each other and the built environment affect the efficiency and safety of road networks. He currently works as a civil design intern at Harper Houf Peterson Righellis Inc.
The video begins at 0:13.
Classic highway traffic flow theory can explain the evolution of signals and waves once they form. Given sufficient boundary conditions the theory captures the evolution of the traffic state over space and time. But one rarely finds such ideal boundaries on real highways. Often disturbances arise within a region that classic theory would tell us should be homogeneous. These disturbances often grow and give rise to unstable traffic upstream, e.g., resulting in stop-and-go conditions during congestion with an increased frequency of accidents. This talk will examine one potential source of these disturbances, namely the fact that after a lane change maneuver drivers accommodate an entering vehicle quicker than a departing vehicle (mandatory accommodation versus discretionary accommodation). After illustrating this imbalance on two facilities, the talk will explain how it can give rise to lasting disturbances.
Dr. Coifman is an associate professor at the Ohio State University with a joint appointment in the department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Geodetic Science and the Department of Electrical Engineering. His research emphasizes extracting more information about traffic flow both from conventional vehicle detectors and emerging sensor technologies. His work has been recognized by the ITS America Award for The Best ITS Research and an NSF CAREER award. Dr. Coifman...
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In this seminar, Dr. Porter will explore the interactions of geometric design decisions, speed, and safety. A performance-based approach to this topic will be considered given the availability of several key documents, including the Highway Safety Manual and TRB's Modeling Operating Speed: Synthesis Report as well as a significant body of published research. A historical look at the design speed concept will show that while the design speed definition has changed on more than one occasion, the same basic but flawed philosophy that relates design speed to a “safe speed” is still reflected in supplemental guidance related to design speed selection in current design policy. A conservative approach to establishing design criteria, currently used to address the range of driver, vehicle, and roadway conditions and capabilities that a designer must consider, will be demonstrated. Resulting operating speeds will be shown to be higher than design speeds for design speeds of approximately 55 mph or less. This outcome may be considered undesirable...
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Summary: The recent City Club report on bicycling provided an opportunity to collect and analyze a number of data sets including the new Hawthorne Bridge data. One question is where Portland bicycling on the logistic curve -- a common tool for judging the maturity of a developing product or activity. Logistic curves are used for marketing, for epidemiology, and even for visits to Indian owned casinos. The preliminary evidence is that we are reaching the horizontal area of the curve. Additional evidence Our further research into future policies indicates a shift to bicycle boulevards in order to attract more risk averse riders.
Bio: Robert McCullough is an energy economist (and an adjunct at PSU) who has written, talked, and testified on energy issues across the U.S. and Canada. He was instrumental in the identification and prosecution of Enron's energy traders. He also works with aboriginal groups in Quebec and Oregon, activists in California and Ohio, as well as many others. His most recent project is the economic review of the WNP-2 nuclear station for Physicians for Social...
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