The video begins at 2:51.

Adam Moore: Bus Stop Air Quality: An Empirical Analysis of Exposure to Particulate Matter at Bus Stop Shelters

Congested traffic corridors in dense urban areas are key contributors to the degradation of urban air quality. While waiting at bus stops, transit patrons may be exposed to greater amounts of vehicle-based pollution, including particulate matter, due to their proximity to the roadway. Current guidelines for the location and design of bus stops do not take into account air quality or exposure considerations. This study compares the exposure of transit riders waiting at three-sided bus stop shelters that either: 1) face the roadway traffic or 2) face away from the roadway traffic. Shelters were instrumented with air quality monitoring equipment, sonic anemometers, and vehicle counters. Data were collected for two days at three shelters during both the morning and afternoon peak periods. Bus shelter orientation is found to significantly affect concentration of four sizes of particulate matter: ultrafine particles, PM1, PM2.5, and PM10. Shelters with an opening oriented towards the roadway were consistently observed to have higher concentrations inside the shelter than outside the shelter. In contrast, shelters oriented away from the roadway were observed to have lower concentrations inside the shelter than outside the shelter. The differences in particulate matter...

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View Patrick Singleton's slides

View Ryan Dann's slides

Following the 2015 annual meeting of the Transportation Research Board, this Friday seminar will showcase some of Portland State University's student TRB research.

Presenters:

Patrick Singleton, GRA in civil and environmental engineering

The theory of travel decision-making: A conceptual framework of active travel behavior

Summary: We present a unifying conceptual framework of active travel behavior called the theory of travel decision-making. It integrates seminal travel-related concepts from economics, geography, and psychology... Read more
15 years of travel surveys at portland transit oriented development
 

PRESENTATION ARCHIVE

OVERVIEW

Since 2005, Portland State University has periodically surveyed occupants of recently developed  higher-density and mixed-use projects near transit, often referred to as Transit-Oriented Developments (TODs). The general objectives of the surveys were to better understand actual transit use, among other factors, of residents in these buildings. Between 2005 and 2018, the research team surveyed residents of nearly 50 TODs. With funding from Metro and the National Institute for Transportation and Communities, the research team carried out a two-pronged study drawing on this wealth of data. First, we explore geographic differences within the Portland region in terms of travel behavior and attitudes of TOD residents, including differences between TODs within the city of Portland, in eastside suburbs, and in westside suburbs. Second, we conducted a second wave of surveys for select TODs to understand if travel behavior or attitudes changed over time, particularly as neighborhoods surrounding the buildings were built up. In this webinar, we will present select findings from both aspects of the study.

KEY LEARNING OUTCOMES...

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The video begins at 4:13.

Wei Feng: Impacts of Economic, Technological and Operational Factors on the Economic Competitiveness of Electric Commercial Vehicles in Fleet Replacement Decisions

Electric commercial vehicles (ECV) have the potential to substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions, noise, and pollution in urban areas. In addition, ECVs have lower per-mile operating costs and potentially lower maintenance costs. However, the initial purchase cost of ECVs is significantly higher than the purchase cost of a conventional diesel vehicle. From a purely economic perspective, there is a cost tradeoff between the low operating and maintenance costs of ECVs and their high initial capital costs.  In this paper, a fleet replacement optimization framework is employed to analyze the competitiveness of ECVs. Scenarios with different fleet utilization, fuel efficiency and sensitivity analysis of ten additional factors indicate that ECVs are more cost effective when conventional diesel vehicles’ fuel efficiency is low (8.2 miles/gallon) and daily utilization is more than 54 miles. Breakeven values of some key economic and technological factors that separate the competitiveness between ECVs and conventional diesel vehicles are calculated in all scenarios. For example, in low conventional diesel vehicle fuel efficiency and low daily utilization scenario, ECVs are more competitive when their purchase prices...

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Two MURP presentations

The video begins at 4:15.

Friday Transportation Seminars at Portland State University have been a tradition since 2000. You can join us online or in-person at 11:30 AM. All presentations are recorded and shared on the event page afterwards.

PRESENTATION ARCHIVE

THE TOPIC 

Container cargo shipping service returned to the Port of Portland in Oregon in January 2020 with the regular weekly SM Line service, following more than three years of no container shipping service. Following the global supply chain changes associated with COVID-19, the number of monthly vessel calls at the Port of Portland’s deep-water berth at Terminal 6 has increased regularly to 12 vessel calls in January of 2022. In March of 2022, the largest containership to transit the Columbia river – at 1,100 feet length with capacity of 8,200 containers – arrived at the Port of Portland.

The return of...

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The video begins at 0:34.

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Speaker: Joseph Broach, Ph.D. Candidate, Portland State University
Topic: Trick or Treatment? Impact of Route-Level Features on Decisions to Walk or Bike
Summary: Some travel routes attract people walking and cycling, while others may scare them away. What features of street environments are most important, and how do available routes affect decisions to bike or walk on a specific trip? 

Research to date has focused on either large-scale areal measures like "miles of bike lane nearby" or else has considered only shortest path routes. Neither method is suited to capturing the impact of targeted route-level policies like neighborhood greenways. This session will present a new technique for measuring bike and walk accessibility along the most likely route for a given trip. The method is applied to travel data, and results provide new insight into the relationship between route quality and travel mode choice.

The video begins at 2:04.

Abstract: Findings will be presented on an evaluation of two innovative bicycle facilities installed in late summer and early fall 2009 in downtown Portland aimed at providing a more separated and comfortable experience for cyclists. The SW Broadway cycle track (near PSU) and the couplet of buffered bike lanes on SW Stark and SW Oak were evaluated to understand how they are functioning on multiple levels. Each facility involved removing a motor vehicle lane by restriping to provide additional roadway space to bicyclists. The facilities were evaluated after they had been in place for approximately one year. Data collected to support this evaluation consisted of surveys of multiple user groups for each facility type, and video data collected by the City of Portland Bureau of Transportation at intersections along each of the routes to understand the facilities' impact on traffic flow, operations and user interactions.

PRESENTATION ARCHIVE

OVERVIEW

Multimodal transportation systems (e.g., walking, cycling, automobile, public transit, etc.) are effective in increasing people’s travel flexibility, reducing congestion, and improving safety.  Therefore, it is critical to understand what factors would affect people’s mode choices. With advanced technology, such as connected and automated vehicles, cities are now facing a transition from traditional urban planning to developing smart cities. To support multimodal transportation management, this study serves as a bridge to connect speed management strategies of conventional corridors to connected vehicle corridors.

The study consists of three main components. In the first component, the impact of speed management strategies along traditional corridors was evaluated. In the second component, the impacts of the specific speed management strategies, signal retiming and...

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