Engineering Solutions for Safer Cycling: Bike Signal Timing and Crash Prediction
Sirisha Kothuri, a Portland State University research associate, has recently completed two distinct studies taking different approaches to advancing bicycle safety. Through improving bicycle crash prediction and decreasing bicycle-vehicle conflicts using signal timing, Kothuri's research aims to make urban cycling a safer activity.
Traffic signal timing has been a primary focus of Kothuri's for many years. She has conducted extensive research into multimodal safety and efficiency, beginning with her 2014 dissertation which explored ...
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Stephanie Nappa, University of Oregon
LiveMove Student Group | LinkedIn
We're shining our student spotlight this month on Stephanie Nappa, president of the University of Oregon student group LiveMove. On May 24, LiveMove will host a speaker series event with Oboi Reed, the Executive Director of Equiticity, to discuss equity in biking.
Tell us about yourself:
I’m a former engineer and chemist who began studying planning once I learned there was a career that would allow me to talk endlessly about transportation systems without simply receiving polite nods. Currently, I’m about to finish my Master of Community and Regional Planning degree from the University of Oregon, where I’ve focused my studies on active transportation. This past summer I had the opportunity to take a study abroad course on bicycle transportation in Denmark, Sweden, and the Netherlands, which was an incredible...
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Quickly regaining use of a city's transportation system after a major disaster is critical to relief efforts. To help cities recover from emergency situations, TREC is working to develop a transportation recovery plan that includes transit, travel demand management (TDM), social media, and intelligent technologies.
The plan is supported by a research grant awarded to Portland State University by the Federal Transit Administration (FTA), an agency of the U.S. Department of Transportation (U.S. DOT), as part of its Innovative Safety, Resiliency, and All Hazards Emergency Response and Recovery Demonstration program. The project, led by TREC...
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Every day transit riders ask the same question: when’s the next one coming? To answer this question, transit agencies are transitioning to providing real-time transit information through smartphones or displayed at transit stops.
Real-time transit information improves the reliability and efficiency of passenger travel, through:
- shorter perceived and actual wait times,
- an increased feeling of safety,
- increased ridership, and
- a lower learning curve for new riders, since they don't have to know the route maps or...
livability
noun liv·abil·i·ty \ ˌli-və-ˈbi-lə-tē \
"Livability" is a broadly used term encompassing all the factors that add up to a community’s quality of life. It’s a key goal in many land use and transportation plans, but it's not always clear how to reach that goal. What makes people feel that their neighborhoods are livable?
Researchers Rebecca Lewis and Robert Parker of the University of Oregon surveyed over three thousand...
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The National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC) is proud to announce our two Spring 2018 Dissertation Fellows. Hear from the fellows about their projects below, or learn how to apply for funding through the NITC Dissertation Fellowship Grant here. Proposals for Summer 2018 Dissertation Fellowships are due June 1, 2018.
Vivian Miller, University of Texas at Arlington
Vivian Miller is a third-year doctoral candidate in the School of Social Work at the University of Texas at Arlington. Her primary research interests are in gerontology, quality-of-life, and mental well-being among older adults through inter-professional and transdisciplinary efforts.
Her dissertation, "...
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If more drivers switched seats to a bicycle, there would be immediate and tangible benefits on the road. Widespread adoption of bike commuting could improve public health through increased physical activity and reduced carbon emissions, as well as ease the burden on congested roads. However different lifestyle demands, physical ableness, and varied topography create an unequal playing field that prevents many from replacing their car trips.
Electric bicycles (e-bikes) are a relatively new mode of transportation that could bridge this gap. If substituted for car use, e-bikes could substantially improve efficiency in the transportation system while creating a more inclusive biking culture for people of all ages and abilities.
A ...
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Last month, the Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) hosted a free one-day workshop at Portland State University (PSU) teaching spatial mapping and GIS software to high school girls.
This is the third year that the workshop has been offered in partnership with ChickTech, a nonprofit founded in 2012 to engage women of all ages in the technology industry.
Lisa Patterson, TREC's Workforce Development Program Manager, coordinated the event, which was attended by 16 students. She brought with her eleven volunteer instructors, including PSU students as well as professionals from ChickTech, Angelo Planning, the PSU Bike Hub, and the City of Vancouver, Washington. Her goal was to give the students a unique educational experience with the dedicated attention from so many seasoned instructors.
See pictures from the event, or check out photos from TREC's other K-12 transportation events.
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The most expensive and critical links in our transportation network are its bridges. Historical and contemporary bridge failures have highlighted our reliance on these structures. While the nation’s bridge management system is robust and well administered, the tools needed to evaluate individual bridges to determine their condition—whether for asset management or in response to a significant loading event such as the imminent Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake in the Pacific Northwest— are currently highly specialized.
NITC researcher C.J. Riley, a civil engineering professor at the Oregon Institute of Technology, has developed a cost-effective, accurate, and easily deployed evaluation tool using widely available mobile technology (specifically iPods) to measure the dynamic structural response of a bridge subjected to harmonic forcing.
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This article was cross-posted from Alta Planning + Design. Tune in April 24 for a PBIC webinar covering this guide from FHWA.
At the National Bike... Read more
Vehicle operating dynamics data have a fundamental impact on the design of roadways, but collecting this type of data is not part of your typical college curriculum.
Instead, engineering students are handed a textbook, leaving them without a firsthand experience of how accelerations and decelerations “feel” to the driver, the ultimate consumer of their designs.
Seeking to change this norm, Roger Lindgren and C.J. Riley, civil engineering professors at the Oregon Institute of Technology, undertook a NITC education project to incorporate more real-world data collection and...
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