As the price of natural resources and the threat of climate change continue to rise, advancements for cheaper, cleaner, and more efficient power are being made for vehicle use, leading to a wealth of different fuel and powertrain choices for advanced-technology vehicles. Potential alternative fuel pathways include biofuels, electric and hydrogen. Likewise, there are numerous platforms for alternative powertrains, e.g., all-electric, hybrid, plug-in hybrid. There have been numerous efforts by researchers to evaluate different pathways and platforms [1-4].

The objectives of this research are to understand the economic importance of border bridges on the U.S.-Canada economies, especially involving the various US states proximate to the Province of Ontario, and to simulate various the U.S.-Canada border bridge policy and security scenarios. To this end, we will develop a novel bi-national transportation-combined economic simulation model which contributes to providing hierarchical economic impacts at the state/province or lower levels of the two countries.

At the current time, most agencies do not have a set of straightforward guidelines by which they decide whether to adopt a public-private partnership (PPP) for a given project, and if to adopt one, which type of PPP should be adopted. The proposed study intends to develop a PPP evaluation and decision support framework that NYSDOT can use to make these decisions, such that there is maximum benefit to the agency.

The proposed project will use the CAVE Automated Virtual Reality Environment to develop a system capable of evaluating driver reactions and assess driver fatigue in a safe no-risk environment. Driver alertness and reactions will be tested under a variety of conditions (e.g. day, night, snow, rain, fog, etc.) and a variety of events will test the driver’s awareness (e.g. lane closures, sudden traffic stops, construction, erratically behaving cars).

The major objective of this project is to obtain traffic information accurately from existing wireless infrastructure. In this project freeway traffic will be identified and modeled using data obtained from existing wireless cellular networks. Most of the previous research on freeway traffic control assumes the availability of traffic parameters like vehicle velocity and density. Such data is available only at a few locations on major highways where sensor nodes have been pre-deployed.

In New York City (NYC), drivers face extreme parking challenges while performing urban deliveries at the curbside. In some areas of the city, freight demand for curb space exceeds the available supply. In recent years, already lacking curb space has become even more scarce with increasing allocation of space to non-motorized modes. Often curb regulation and space allocation decisions are made with limited regard for the freight-related activities needed to support local businesses and residences.

The forthcoming New York State legislation about implementation of public private partnership (P3) projects requires a more in-depth analysis of the appropriate framework to evaluate P3 projects and the P3 practices most suitable for the state. Private participation can help improve the resiliency and sustainability of infrastructure. However, P3s raise a set of new and important challenges for public sector sponsors, who must ensure that private participation will protect the public interest.

The advances of wireless communication and information technology have enabled the technological foundation and provided an unprecedented data-rich environment known as “big data”. One emerging transformative technological initiative is Connected Vehicle, which aims to enable networked wireless communications among vehicles, infrastructure and passengers’ personal devices.

Hurricane Sandy revealed the higher-risk vulnerability to natural hazards of civil infrastructure systems in coastal megacities such as New York. In particular, critical deficiencies in the NYC metropolitan area’s transportation system emerged after Sandy. Unfortunately, experts predict that future sea level rise and storms will exacerbate the problems caused by these deficiencies. There are thus several challenges to improving strength and resilience of transportation systems.

Although the nuclear method has been widely used in the compaction measurement of both soils and asphalt pavements, its accuracy for asphalt pavements is not as good as that for soils. Due to this issue, many disputes have incurred in construction projects, which resulted in replacement of the nuclear test method with the core sample method in many state DOTs for quality assurance or acceptance including the Region II states, although most contractors still use it on quality control as a fast and economic test method.