Achieving environmental sustainability of the US transportation infrastructure via more environmentally sound construction is not a trivial task. Our proposal, which addresses this critical area (Focus Area 3), is aiming at transforming concrete, the material of choice for many transportation projects, into less environmentally harmful and better performing component of the US infrastructure. This will be extremely relevant to construction of pavements, bridges, tunnels, airports, marine installations and other transportation projects.

Highway Safety has been identified as a very important problem worldwide. It has been found as the second cause of deaths in the world according to the United Nations (2010). In fact, only in the US, the effects of road crashes cost billions of dollars per year. The US Department of Transportation has established highway safety as one of their main priorities in their Action Plan. Several efforts are underway; however, in many states including Puerto Rico, most of the strategies implemented have a reactive or short-term planning approach.

The objective of this project is to evaluate omitted variable bias in crash data analysis. Specifically, whether the omission of spatial determinants associated with road crashes leads to incorrect conclusions in models that use road links as the basis of the analysis. Previous research conducted in New Jersey has identified various area-based measures associated with both pedestrian and motor-vehicle crashes. These include area-based income measures, vehicle ownership levels, and population and employment patterns.

The State Department of Transportation (DOT) must develop an adequate traffic operations management and congestion mitigation plan for every roadway maintenance and construction project based on the work zone length and schedule. Therefore, it is critical to obtain accurate and reliable estimates of traffic impacts associated with pertinent maintenance and construction projects, and the corresponding roadway capacity reductions. The current analytical models used by DOT were developed based on traditional volume/capacity formulae and deterministic traffic queuing modeling method.

The objective of this project is to develop a comprehensive framework with a set of models to improve multi-modal traffic signal control, by incorporating advanced floating sensor data (e.g. GPS data, etc.) and traditional fixed sensor data (e.g. loop detectors, etc.). Especially, we are interested in addressing the challenges of multi-modal signal control under non-recurrent conditions, such as traffic incidents and planned special events, since non-recurrent congestions usually account for more than 50% of the total congestions.

Fuel taxes have been the main source of transportation funding in the US for the last nearly six decades. Recently, there have been increasing concerns regarding this funding mechanism because the revenue from fuel taxes cannot keep up with the increasing needs for transportation infrastructure repair and rebuild. To address the critical needs in transportation finance, the concept of mileage fee (MF) has received much attention lately as an alternative way to generate transportation revenue.

As one of the major causes of fatalities and injuries in the U.S., motor vehicle crashes and their influential factors have been analyzed extensively in the last few decades. However, most existing studies on crashes primarily focus on passenger vehicles and highway segments. The studies on truck related safety issues in metropolitan areas are largely underexplored. Meanwhile, as part of the effort to relieve congestion in New York City, an Off-Hour Delivery program (OHD) is being implemented.

This project models emission dispersions from the most heavily impacted transportation network segments (primarily roads) identified by our current UTRC project. Our current research models environmental and transport impacts of material and waste movements related to hydraulic fracturing activities in the Marcellus Shale Formation.

Even if they are hosted in sophisticated GIS systems, the asset management systems maintained by various utilities are often plagued by information incompleteness and inaccuracy.  The locational information is often based on approximate design data that differ from actual "as-built" drawings that may not be even be held by such utilities owning and maintaining underground lifeline infrastructure systems (water, wastewater, electric/power, gas, stormwater, and communications networks).

A cost-effective bridge is a bridge whose maintenance is based on its chemical condition over it's entire service life.  If deterioration mechanisms are prevented, a bridge would cost considerably less to maintain and safely serves its full design service life, if not longer.  The current practice for physical evaluation and delayed maintenance of deteriorated concrete bridges is fundamentally wrong.  The current inspection manuals are primarily focused on detecting physical damage in concrete bridge elements.