While the annual Region X Student Transportation Conference in November always attracts students from across the northwest, this year’s conference pulled some from much farther south: Pomona, Calif.

The conference is a showcase for student transportation research in the Pacific Northwest (Federal Region X), which includes Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Alaska. Region X serves as a microcosm of transportation for the entire country, making it a prime testing ground for studies in transportation operations and planning.

The conference was sponsored by OTREC and hosted this year by Students in Transportation Engineering and Planning (STEP), the Portland State University Student Chapter of ITE.

When professor Xudong Jia of Cal Poly Pomona learned about the conference, he was determined that his students would find a way to attend. With the support of OTREC, Cal Poly Pomona sent five students to the conference, a mix of undergraduate and graduate students in civil and transportation engineering.  The students were interested in both the research and tours, as well as gleaning tips for how to organize a student-led conference: something the Cal Poly students will be doing when they host the TransModal Connection Conference in February in San Louis Obispo.

In addition to visiting the Western Federal Lands Materials lab in Vancouver, Wash., the team competed in the Oregon Section ITE William C. Kloos Traffic Bowl. Though a transportation mishap left them...

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Portland State University inducted graduate student Kristina Currans into the Denice Dee Denton Women Engineers Hall of Fame in a ceremony Nov. 15. Currans is the second transportation engineering student to win the student award.

Maria Klawe, president of Harvey Mudd College, took the Outstanding Female Engineer honors.

Currans’ boundless enthusiasm and dedication to her work quickly become apparent to anyone who works with her, said Kelly Clifton, an associate professor of civil engineering and director of the Oregon Modeling Collaborative. “I’ve never met someone able to manage so many things,” said Clifton, who nominated Currans for the honor.

Currans works with Clifton as a part of the Oregon Modeling Collaborative and on several OTREC research projects. “She brings a tremendous amount of energy,” Clifton said.

After graduating Oregon State University with a civil engineering bachelor’s degree in 2010, Currans soon made a name for herself in transportation circles. She started her graduate coursework at Portland State and worked during academic breaks with the Oregon Department of Transportation’s Transportation Planning Analysis Unit, home to state and regional transportation models.

“For someone who had just graduated with an undergraduate degree, she completed that internship and really impressed ODOT,” Clifton said. “To do that so quickly caught everyone’s attention.”

Currans tested and worked with the Statewide Integrated...

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The Oregon Transportation Research and Education Consortium is pleased to announce the members of the Board of Advisers for its newest program, the National Institute for Transportation and Communities. The Board is scheduled to meet for the first time in late November 2012.

Members of the Board
Michael Baltes, Federal Transit Administration
Jason Bittner, Center for Urban Transportation Research
Rob Burchfield, City of Portland
Tyler Deke, Bend MPO
John Frece, Environmental Protection Agency
Matthew Hardy, AASHTO
Susan  Herbel, Cambridge Systematics
Mike Hoglund, Metro
Craig Honeyman, League of Oregon Cities
Robin Hutcheson, Salt Lake City
Cameron Kergaye, Utah DOT
Wayne Kittelson, KAI
Ted Knowlton, Wasatch Front MPO
Alan Lehto, TriMet
Jana Lynott, AARP
Cathy Nelson, Oregon DOT
Leni Oman, Washington DOT
Lynn Peterson, Office of Governor Kitzhaber
Sandra Rosenbloom, Urban Institute
Brian Saelens, Seattle Children's
Tom Schwetz, Lane Transit Dist.
Ted Trepanier, Inrix
Yinhai Wang, PacTrans
Johanna Zmud, Rand Corporation
 
Technical Advisers to the Board:
James Christian, FHWA-Utah Division
Gabe Rousseau, FHWA

The USDOT’s Research and Innovative Technology Administration (RITA) 7th Annual UTC Spotlight Conference on Sustainable Energy and Transportation: Strategies, Research, and Data was held on November 8-9 in Washington, DC and featured OTREC energy related research from Portland State University and Oregon State University. This year’s conference focused on promoting dialogue and coordination among University Transportation Centers (UTCs), federal agencies, industry, and state and local agencies on research to address the complex and challenging issues concerning sustainable energy and transportation. The plenary and breakout sessions focused on research to improve energy efficiency, reduce dependence on fossil fuels, and identify of effective strategies to promote USDOT's strategic goals. As the U.S. moves toward a performance-based transportation bill, energy-focused environmental sustainability is expected to become one of the pillars against which success is measured if it is to become a national priority.

Dr. B. Starr McMullen, Oregon State University, took part on a plenary panel discussion on the interconnection of energy use, pricing and finance and highlighted two OTREC funded projects The Relationship Between VMT and Economic...

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The Oregon Transportation Research and Education Consortium (OTREC) and National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC) are offering a number of doctoral dissertation fellowships of up to $15,000 per successful candidate. Fellowships will be awarded to cover expenses for the recipient while working on the dissertation. The funded dissertation research must be on surface transportation topics that fit under the OTREC theme of advanced technology, integration of land use and transportation or healthy communities or NITC theme of safe, healthy, and sustainable transportation choices to foster livable communities. Priority will be given to topics with a sustainable transportation focus. The deadline for applications is December 31, 2012.

ELIGIBILITY

Students must be a US Citizen and have advanced to candidacy for the Ph.D. degree prior to the application deadline.

OTREC fellowships are open to students currently enrolled in a transportation-related doctoral program at Portland State University (PSU), University of Oregon (UO), Oregon State University (OSU), Oregon Institute of Technology (OIT).

NITC fellowships are open to students currently enrolled in a transportation-related doctoral program at Portland State University (PSU), University of Oregon (UO),  Oregon Institute of Technology (OIT), or the University of Utah (UU).

PROCESS

Applicants must submit...

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Postdoctoral candidates Joseph Broach and Arlie Adkins (both at Portland State University) were recently awarded $15,000 fellowships to assist them in completing their dissertation research. They were awarded the fellowships through an open and competitive process available to PhD candidates at Oregon State University, University of Oregon, Oregon Tech, Portland State University and the University of Utah.

Joseph's research will explore a travel mode choice framework incorporating realistic bike and walk routes. His research will consider a more complete mode choice behavioral framework that acknowledges the importance of attributes along the specific walk and bike routes that travelers are likely to consider. The proposed framework will then be applied to revealed preference travel datasets collected in Portland, Oregon. Measurement of nonmotorized trip distance/time, built environment, trip/tour, and attitude attributes as well as mode availability and model structure will be addressed explicitly. Route and mode choice models will be specified using discrete choice techniques.

He moved to Portland in 2006 after completing a B.A. in Liberal Studies and M.A. in Economics at the University of Montana.  Lifelong interests in transportation and how people make decisions led him to the Urban Studies PhD program at PSU. During his time here, Joe has worked on a number of research projects related to transportation data and modeling: ...

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This fall, the Friday transportation seminar series at Portland State University has focused on data collection and how information is used to make transportation investments. The Oct. 26 seminar, with the University of Minnesota’s Greg Lindsey, covered tracking and modeling travel behavior.

Engineers and planners alike have relied on traffic counts for their traffic models, but data behind bike and pedestrian travel has been fuzzy. Now, researchers such as Lindsey are offering new methods for conducting bike and pedestrian counts on trails and multiuse paths.

With little guidance from the Federal Highway Administration, Lindsey said, most of the efforts in creating best practices have bubbled up from communities like the Twin Cities, chosen as Nonmotorized Transportation Pilot Cities. Lindsey and his researchers monitored six trails in Minneapolis, using inductive loops and infrared beams.

To address calibration problems and offer validity to their field numbers, Lindsey also sent students into the field to verify counts. The technology allowed for finer-grained detail, especially over a 24-hour period. OTREC Director Jennifer Dill noted, “Too much in the past we’ve lumped “bike and peds” together and your work and analysis is demonstrating that they truly are different modes, with different behaviors.”

Lindsey stressed the importance of conducting this type of research, and measuring our “bicycle miles traveled” and “pedestrian miles traveled” in...

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When policymakers look to meet cycling goals by investing in new bicycle routes, they have little research to help them determine whether cyclists will actually use them. As a result, bicycle facilities aren’t considered equally with motor vehicle infrastructure.

That’s changing, thanks in part to OTREC research. An OTREC-funded study, the first to gather large-scale data that reveal cyclists’ actual route preference, is being published in a scientific journal (Transportation Research Part A). The findings have already been incorporated into the regional travel demand model used to make transportation investment decisions across the Portland region.

In the study, Portland State University researchers Joseph Broach, Jennifer Dill and John Gliebe (Gliebe is now with RSG Inc.) outfitted cyclists with GPS units to record which routes they chose and model the choices to reveal preferences. Previous studies have relied on stated preference surveys or less reliable methods of determining cyclists’ actual routes. The data gathering was supported by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation through its national...

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Internships are vital to connecting students with real-world practitioners and applying what they learn in the classroom. For student Stefan Bussey, this real-world experience was gained through working with the Signals, Street Lighting, and ITS Division at the Portland Bureau of Transportation. His assignment during his internship was to evaluate the pedestrian delay at 47 pedestrian crosswalk signals (also known as half-signals) across the city of Portland. 

He assisted in reviewing and modifying the signal timing at half-signals to make them more responsive to pedestrians. The changes he helped implement resulted in an overall 25.3% reduction in maximum pedestrian delay for the signals adjusted. The reduction in pedestrian delay at these crossings may help to increase foot trips and higher rates of pedestrian compliance. When asked about his experience working at the city of Portland, Stefan said, “What I got most out of the internship was a better understanding of how to time signalized intersections to better serve non-motorized modes of transportation while maintaining an acceptable level of service for motorized vehicles.” From the employer perspective, Peter Koonce expressed, “The internship was a great example of a student having a positive impact on the surrounding community by solving a real world problem. The City of Portland is fortunate to have the partnerships in place to have PSU work collaboratively to improve the sustainability of the...

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Oregon Institute of Technology students got an up-close look at bridge engineering on a large scale during a trip to the Mount Shasta area Sept. 28. A group of 16 students and faculty members Roger Lindgren and Matthew Sleep from the civil engineering department visited the Antlers Bridge Replacement construction site. The trip was organized by Oregon Tech’s Institute of Transportation Engineers student chapter with funding provided by OTREC.

Eric Akana, P.E., of the California Department of Transportation hosted the tour with CalTrans engineers Shari Re, Bill Barnes, and Mark Darnall.

The new Antlers Bridge, which spans the Sacramento River arm of Lake Shasta near the town of Lakehead, California, will be a balanced cantilever cast-in-place concrete bridge. The new bridge will consist of five spans coming together to make a 1,942-foot structure, approximately 600 feet longer than the original Antlers Bridge. The new bridge will replace an aging steel structure that is reaching the end of its service life. In addition, a section of highway south of the bridge will be realigned because of a high accident rate.

The Oregon Tech group met with CalTrans engineers for an extensive project review presentation at the field office and then proceeded to the construction site where they spent over two hours viewing foundation preparation, pier construction, pier-table form travelers, and abutment work.

In addition to viewing construction details and...

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