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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. 

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.

The video begins at 2:34.

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Other presentation materials: Handout (PDF)

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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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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The video begins at 3:23.

Douglas Bish, Traffic Engineering Services Unit Manager with ODOT, will discuss the Jurisdictionally Blind Safety Program. This program is a safety program designed to address safety needs on all public roads in Oregon. The aim of the program is to foster collaboration between local road jurisdictions, to increase increase awareness of safety on all roads, promote best practices for infrastructure safety, compliment behavioral safety efforts and focus limited resources to reduce fatal and serious injury crashes in the state of Oregon. This seminar will introduce some of the details of the program.

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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By Jennifer Dill, Ph.D.
Professor, Urban Studies & Planning 
Director, TREC

This week I’m at the International Travel Survey Conference in Australia. The conference happens every three years, attracting over 100 geeky people who spend time thinking about things like stated preference experiments, smartphone data collection, combining sampling frames, and respondent burden. I presented some work from our five city Green Lanes project, comparing our survey data with “objective” measures, such as videos and traffic counts. The focus was on intersections, where the protected lane is no longer separated from motor vehicles. An example of one design used in Portland, OR is shown in the adjacent figure.

 

Some of the comparisons are...

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