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UMD Transportation Engineers Tackle Key Topics during TRB 94th Annual Meeting

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Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering transportation engineering researchers made their presence known at the Transportation Research Board (TRB) 94th Annual Meeting held in Washington, D.C., Jan. 11-15.

Faculty and student researchers presented on a variety of topics ranging from vehicle emission reduction strategies to statewide assessment of the economic benefits of transportation investment.

Additionally, the A. James Clark School of Engineering hosted two post-TRB events: the First Outsourced Probe Data Symposium on Jan. 15, and the “Autos, People and Policies: Addressing the Issues of the New Millennium” workshop on Jan. 16.

The symposium, organized by the National Transportation Center at Maryland (NTC@Maryland) and the Center for Advanced Transportation Technology (CATT), addressed emerging probe data products and applications of private sector data in planning, operations and performance management. The first objective was to provide a venue for industry to discuss currently available data products in the areas of speed, travel time, O-D freight, emissions, and volume. The second objective was to have a forum of leading state executives and managers discussing the critical data needs in their organizations, such that industry can hear and respond. In addition to nearly four dozen in-person attendees, participants joined the event via live webcast.

The symposium opened with a review of the I-95 Corridor Coalition Vehicle Probe Project, a groundbreaking initiative providing comprehensive and continuous travel time information on freeways and arterials using probe technology. Representatives from leading probe data industry including HERE, INRIX and TomTom presented their current and existing data products to symposium attendees before a panel of experts discussed their current applications for the probe data and their expectations from the industry.

Panel members included Nicole Katsikides, Freight Performance Manager, Federal Highway Administration; Glenn McLaughlin, Deputy Director, CHART, Maryland State Highway Administration; Wenjing Pu, Transportation Engineer, Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments; Debbie Bowden, Motor Carrier and Logistics Policy Advisor, Maryland DOT; Subrat Mahapatra, Transportation Manager, Maryland State Highway Administration; and Stanley Young, Center for Advanced Transportation Technology, University of Maryland.

More information about the First Outsourced Probe Data Symposium is available online.

On Jan. 16, the all-day NTC@Maryland-sponsored workshop featured experts from across academe and industry, including the University of Maryland, Cornell University, VOLPE, Technical University of Denmark, SUNY New Paltz, Imperial College London and the Department of Energy. Presentation topics included transportation emissions and public health, automobile usage rates, driverless cars, and public knowledge of electric vehicles.

More information about the Autos, People and Policies workshop is available online.

The University of Maryland’s participation in the TRB resulted in dozens of UMD-led committee meetings, workshops, presentations, and tentatively accepted publications.

Paper titles included:

  • Bassani, M., Cirillo, C., Molinari, S., Tremblay, J. “Fixed and Random Effect Models to Predict Operating Speed Percentiles on Rural Two-Lane Highways.”

  • Chen, X., Zhu, Z., He, X., and Zhang, L.*, Surrogate-based optimization for solving mixed integer network design problem. Journal of the Transportation Research Board.

  • Jiang, X.*, Chen, X., Zhang, L., Zhang, R., "Dynamic demand forecasting and ticket assignment for high speed rail revenue management in China." Journal of the Transportation Research Board.

  • Kastrouni E., Shayanfar, E., Schonfeld, P., Mahapatra, S. Zhang, L.*, "Statewide Assessment of the Broader Economic Benefits from Transportation Investment." Journal of the Transportation Research Board.

  • Liu, Y., Cirillo, C. “Vehicle Emission Reduction Strategies: Electric Vehicle Adoption and Taxation.”

  • Schwartz, C.W., Forman, B.A., and Leininger, C.W. (2015). “Alternative Sources of Climate Data for Mechanistic-Empirical Pavement Performance Prediction.”

  • Vodopivec, N., Tobias, D., Miller-Hooks, E., Schonfeld, P. and Mohebbi, M. “Taxis as a Recourse Option for Ridesharing Services,” Annual TRB Meeting, Jan. 2015 (15-5478).

  • Xiong, C., Chen, X., He, X., Guo, W., and Zhang, L.*, "The analysis of dynamic travel mode choice: A heterogeneous hidden Markov approach." Transportation.

  • Zhu, Z., Xiong, C., Chen, X., He, X., and Zhang, L.*, "An agent-based microsimulation approach for the design and evaluation of flexible work schedule policy." Journal of the Transportation Research Board.

Committees/subcommittees chaired included:

  • TRB Committee AFD80 Strength and Deformation Characteristics of Pavement Sections

  • TRB Committee ABJ95, “Visualization in Transportation Committee.” Chair: Michael L. Pack, Director of UMD’s Center for Advanced Transportation Technology Laboratory, with Co-Chair Patricia Hu, Director of the Bureau of Transportation Statistics

  • TRB Young Professionals Subcommittee, AH000(1). Chair: Nikola Ivanov, Deputy Director, UMD’s Center for Advanced Transportation Technology Laboratory.

  • TRB Data for Transportation Operations Subcommittee, AHB10(3). Chair: Nikola Ivavnov.

Presentations given at the TRB 94th Annual Meeting included:

  • Advantages of Non-Symmetric Sigmoidal Function in Construction of Dynamic Modulus Master Curves of Asphalt Mixtures, Khosravifar, S., Farzenah, A., Haider, I., and Schwartz, C.W.

  • NCHRP 9-51: Material Properties of Cold In-Place Recycled and Full-Depth Reclamation Asphalt Concrete for Pavement Design, Schwartz, C.W., Forman, B.A., and Leininger, C.W.

Session 200: Collaborative Visualization in Analytics and Operations, Michael L. Pack Presiding

  • Online Collaborative Decision Support Tool for Multiagency Critical Event Response, Michael L. Pack and Nikola Ivanov

Session 666: Tools and Techniques for Motivating Department of Transportation Executives to Use Performance Management Practices

  • Work Zone Performance Monitoring Tool, Michael L. Pack

Workshop 115: Analyzing, Validating and Visualizing Results from Modeling: The Role of Big Data and New Technologies

  • Visualizing Big Data for Performance Management, Michael L. Pack

Workshop 188: The Future of Freight Analytics, Modeling, and Planning with Truck Probe Data

  • Answering Real-World Questions: What Can Be Accomplished Through the Visualization of Probe Data?, Michael L. Pack

Workshop 153: Strategies for Improved Communication Between Traffic Data Practitioners and Transportation Decision-makers

  • Visualization for Effective Analysis and Communication, Michael L. Pack

Workshop 133: Traffic Incident Management: Expanding the Conversation to Identify New Research Needs

  • Opportunities with Big Data, Nikola Ivanov

NTC@Maryland also hosted nearly 200 transportation researchers and industry representatives for a TRB reception on Monday, Jan. 12.

Published January 30, 2015