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CEE Transportation Researchers Tackle Critical Topics at 95th TRB Annual Meeting

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CEE Transportation Researchers Tackle Critical Topics at 95th TRB Annual Meeting


Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) faculty and student researchers weighed in on topics of critical importance at the Transportation Research Board (TRB) 95th Annual meeting, held in Washington, D.C., Jan. 10-14, 2016.

The University of Maryland’s participation in the TRB resulted in dozens of UMD-led committee/sub-committee meetings, workshops, presentations, and tentatively accepted publications. Additionally, the National Transportation Center at the University of Maryland (NTC@Maryland) and CEE organized a special networking reception on Jan. 11, drawing nearly 200 transportation researchers and industry representatives. Photos from the reception are available online.

Among the myriad topics addressed at this year’s TRB were high-speed rail, resilience of networked infrastructure, and new tools for visualizing and communicating performance at national, state, and local levels.

Airplane and car are the dominant modes serving demand for long-distance traveling in the United States; however, high-speed rail is estimated to become available across the country in 2030. Recognizing this, CEE Professor Ali Haghani, and CEE Associate Professor and NTC@Maryland Director Lei Zhang, and CEE graduate student Moschoula Pternea set out to investigate the impact of the high-speed rail entry in the transportation market for long distance trips. In their TRB presentation, “Optimal pricing for high-speed rail under competition with airplane and car: The Case of the Northeast Corridor,” the group discussed how they examined the topic from the railway operator’s perspective by applying revenue management techniques in order to determine optimal fares for each origin-destination pair and trip purpose. Their findings suggest that higher prices should be charged for pairs with high demand, while an increase in railway speeds leads to an increase in the average fare.

In collaboration with Eyal Levenberg of Technion – Israel Institute of Technology and Reza Faturechi of JetBlue Airways, CEE Professor Elise Miller-Hooks and CEE graduate student Ali Asadabadi tackled the importance of quantifying the resilience of a network of pavements in their paper, “Resilience of Networked Infrastructure with Evolving Component Conditions.” The team carried out calculations by modeling network performance under a set of possible damage-meteorological scenarios with known probability of occurrence. Their findings show that resilience is impacted by the condition of the infrastructure elements, their natural deterioration processes, and prevailing maintenance plans.

Along with G. Zhang of the Federal Highway Administration and Shawn Turner of the Texas A&M Transportation Institute, the Center for Advanced Transportation Technology Laboratory’s (CATT Lab) Michael Pack, Michael VanDaniker, and Nikola Ivanov discussed tools and ideas for visualizing, exploring, and communicating performance. VanDaniker, Pack, and G. Zhang showcased interactive web-based visualizations for exploring and downloading modeled hourly passenger and truck vehicle miles traveled (VMT) data by road classification, along with fatality data. Ivanov and Pack then demonstrated tools and methodologies developed to help federal, state, and local agencies understand their performance, establish targets, and compare performance from year-to-year across multiple agencies. Afterwards, Turner and Pack showcased real-world pitfalls of not using highly standardized definitions for performance measures across the industry.

A comprehensive list of CEE-led committees/sub-committees, workshops, presentations, and paper and poster titles is available below:

Committees/subcommittees chaired included:

  • Strength and Deformation Characteristics of Pavement Sections Committee, Charles Schwartz, presiding
  • Transportation Networking Modeling Committee, Elise Miller-Hooks, presiding
  • Visualization in Transportation Committee, Michael L. Pack, presiding
  • Young Professionals Subcommittee, Nikola Ivanov, presiding
  • RTSMO Data for Transportation Operations Subcommittee, Nikola Ivanov, presiding

Workshops/presentations given at the TRB 94th Annual Meeting included:

  • Structural and Environmental Benefits of Cold In-place Recycled Pavement Materials, Charles Schwartz
  • Visualization Technologies and Big Data; Michael L. Pack
  • New Tools and Ideas for Visualizing, Exploring, and Communicating Performance at National, State, and Local Levels: Visualization and Comparison of National Performance Measures from MAP-21; Nikola Ivanov and Michael L. Pack
  • Visualizing Hourly Passenger and Truck VMT Data by Road Classification Along with Fatality Data; Michael VanDaniker, Michael Pack, G. Zhang (Federal Highway Administration)
  • New Tools and Ideas for Visualizing, Exploring, and Communicating Performance at National, State, and Local Levels: Apples to Apples – Performance Measure Metadata Documentation; Shawn Turner (Texas A&M Transportation Institute) and Michael L. Pack
  • Optimal pricing for high-speed rail under competition with airplane and car: The case of the United States Northeast Corridor; Moschoula Pternea, Ali Haghani, Lei Zhang
  • Travel Mode Choice Decision Making via Bayesian Decision Network; Zheng Zhu, Liang Tang, Xiqun (Michael) Chen, Lei Zhang
  • Study of Fatigue-Induced Crack in Connection Plate of Skewed Highway Bridges; Gengwen Zhao, Chung Fu, Tim Saad
  • Revisiting the Continuous Logit: Numerical Analysis and Application to Time-of-Day Choice Modeling; Carlos Carrion, Liang Tang, Sepehr Ghader, Lei Zhang
  • Model Transferability of Hidden Markov Models and a Bayesian Approach to Recalibrating Travel Demand Models; Chenfeng Xiong, Di Yang, Lei Zhang
  • Spatial Transferability of Neural Network Models in Travel Demand Modeling; Liang Tang, Chenfeng Xiong, Lei Zhang
  • Redesigning Rail Transit Short-Turn Operations for Congestion Mitigation: Case Study of Line 2 of Shanghai Metro; Yanshuo Sun, Yi Lu (Shanghai Shentong Metro Group Co., Ltd.), Ming Zhou (Shanghai Shentong Metro Group Co., Ltd.), Paul Schonfeld
  • A Simulation Study of Coordinated Logistic Network Design with Dispatching Control; Linxi Chen and Paul Schonfeld
  • Online Emergency Vehicle Dispatching with Look-Ahead on a Transportation Network; Hyoshin Park, Ali Haghani, Ali Shafahi

Paper and poster titles included:

  • A Travel Time Reliability Estimation and Value Approach for Transportation Planning Applications; Sabyasachee Mishra (University of Memphis), Liang Tang, Sepehr Ghader, Subrat Mahapatra (Maryland State Highway Administration), Lei Zhang
  • DUALBAND: Signal Processing Model to Synchronize Both Through and Turning Traffic on Local Arterials; Yao Cheng, Xianfeng Yang (San Diego State University), Gang-Len Chang
  • Spatial Decomposition Method to Determine Intersection Groups for Signal Coordination; Minha Lee, Lei Zhang, Hyoseuk Chang
  • Integrated Modeling System of Travel Behavior and Transportation Network Dynamics; Chenfeng Xiong, Xin Wang (Arizona State University), Xuesong Zhou (Arizona State University), Lei Zhang
  • Modeling Green Vehicle Adoption: An Integrated Approach for Policy Evaluation; Yan Liu, Cinzia Cirillo
  • Resilience of Networked Infrastructure with Evolving Component Conditions; Eyal Levenberg (Technion – Israel Institute of Technology), Elise Miller-Hooks, Ali Asadabadi, Reza Faturechi (JetBlue Airways)
  • Static Parking Choice Model Considering Parking Duration; Yanshuo Sun, Wenbo Fan (Southwest Jiaotong University), Paul Schonfeld
  • Development of Interval-based Planning Models for Evaluating the Geometric Features of Signalized Superstreet
  • Relating Pavement Friction and Mixture Properties Through Partial Least Squares Analysis; Girum Awoke (Montgomery County Department of Transportation), Dimitrios Goulias

February 10, 2016


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