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• 1. [Article] Exploiting New Data Sources to Quantify Arterial Congestion and Performance Measures at a Regional Scale

  Transit travel time, operating speed and reliability all influence service attractiveness, operating cost and system efficiency. These metrics have a long-term impact on system effectiveness through a ...

  Citation × Citation Citation Abstract Copy Title: Exploiting New Data Sources to Quantify Arterial Congestion and Performance Measures at a Regional Scale Author: Figliozzi, Miguel, Bertini, Robert L., Glick, Travis B, Stoll, Nicholas B, Feng, Wei, Sidhu, Bobjot S., Pande, Anurag Year: 2017 Transit travel time, operating speed and reliability all influence service attractiveness, operating cost and system efficiency. These metrics have a long-term impact on system effectiveness through a change in ridership. As part of its bus dispatch system (BDS), the Tri-County Metropolitan Transportation District of Oregon (TriMet) has been archiving automatic vehicle location (AVL) and automatic passenger count (APC) data for all bus trips at the stop level since 1997. In 2014, a new and higher-resolution bus AVL data collection system was fully implemented. This new AVL system provides stop-level data as well as five-second resolution (5-SR) bus position data between stops. Rather than relying on interpolation tools to estimate bus trajectories (including stops and delays) between stops, the higher-resolution data shows more precise bus positions along each trip. Bus travel speeds and intersection signal/queuing delays may be determined using this newer information of several variables on transit travel time. This research project explored potential applications of the new data for assessing transit performance, and for estimating transportation system performance measures for urban streets and arterials. Results suggest that the 5-SR data provides high-resolution time and position information which can be used to determine bus travel speeds between stops, identify speed breakdowns, and estimate intersection signal/queuing delays. Additionally, high-resolution achieved bus data can be used to visualize sources of congestion and delay on urban arterials. A new inter-stop trip time model was developed using the five-second resolution data. This newly developed model resulted in statistically significant and improved results over previous models. The models for overall travel time indicated that dwell time and average speed between stops were the major factors influencing transit travel time. Hence, it was concluded that estimation of average speed between stops is a critical component of the transit trip time models. Using this 5-SR data in the trip time model led to more precise and statistically valid trip time models. The research provides conclusions that can be used by transit agencies to improve operations through improvements such as transit signal priority. More importantly, for transit agencies looking for ways to archive data the research provides recommendations on formatting the data that can be most useful for future analysis. Title: Exploiting New Data Sources to Quantify Arterial Congestion and Performance Measures at a Regional Scale Author: Figliozzi, Miguel, Bertini, Robert L., Glick, Travis B, Stoll, Nicholas B, Feng, Wei, Sidhu, Bobjot S., Pande, Anurag Year: 2017 Transit travel time, operating speed and reliability all influence service attractiveness, operating cost and system efficiency. These metrics have a long-term impact on system effectiveness through a change in ridership. As part of its bus dispatch system (BDS), the Tri-County Metropolitan Transportation District of Oregon (TriMet) has been archiving automatic vehicle location (AVL) and automatic passenger count (APC) data for all bus trips at the stop level since 1997. In 2014, a new and higher-resolution bus AVL data collection system was fully implemented. This new AVL system provides stop-level data as well as five-second resolution (5-SR) bus position data between stops. Rather than relying on interpolation tools to estimate bus trajectories (including stops and delays) between stops, the higher-resolution data shows more precise bus positions along each trip. Bus travel speeds and intersection signal/queuing delays may be determined using this newer information of several variables on transit travel time. This research project explored potential applications of the new data for assessing transit performance, and for estimating transportation system performance measures for urban streets and arterials. Results suggest that the 5-SR data provides high-resolution time and position information which can be used to determine bus travel speeds between stops, identify speed breakdowns, and estimate intersection signal/queuing delays. Additionally, high-resolution achieved bus data can be used to visualize sources of congestion and delay on urban arterials. A new inter-stop trip time model was developed using the five-second resolution data. This newly developed model resulted in statistically significant and improved results over previous models. The models for overall travel time indicated that dwell time and average speed between stops were the major factors influencing transit travel time. Hence, it was concluded that estimation of average speed between stops is a critical component of the transit trip time models. Using this 5-SR data in the trip time model led to more precise and statistically valid trip time models. The research provides conclusions that can be used by transit agencies to improve operations through improvements such as transit signal priority. More importantly, for transit agencies looking for ways to archive data the research provides recommendations on formatting the data that can be most useful for future analysis. Close

• 2. [Article] Bike-Ped Portal: Development of an Online Nonmotorized Traffic Count Archive

  Robust bicycle and pedestrian data on a national scale would serve numerous purposes. Access to a centralized nonmotorized traffic count archive can open the door for innovation through research, design ...

  Citation × Citation Citation Abstract Copy Title: Bike-Ped Portal: Development of an Online Nonmotorized Traffic Count Archive Author: Nordback, Krista, Tufte, Kristin A., McNeil, Nathan, Harvey, Morgan, Watkins, Michelle Year: 2017 Robust bicycle and pedestrian data on a national scale would serve numerous purposes. Access to a centralized nonmotorized traffic count archive can open the door for innovation through research, design and planning; provide safety researchers with a measure of exposure; provide fundamental performance metrics for planning and funding decisions; and allow policymakers and transportation professionals to better support the public’s desire for livable communities. Numerous jurisdictions have initiated nonmotorized traffic count programs. However, many agencies and policymakers, who need data to support investment decisions, are in locations without a centralized count program. This lack of access to count data may lead some decision-makers, planners and engineers to assume that cycling and walking levels are close enough to zero to be ignored. Providing reliable numbers may reveal a surprising amount of walking and bicycling is taking place. In order to organize and promote the collection of nonmotorized traffic data, a team of transportation professionals and computer scientists has created a national nonmotorized traffic count archive called Bike-Ped Portal. This archive enables data sharing by centralizing both continuous and short-duration traffic counts in an online archive. While other archives exist, this is the first that is both national in scope and enables data to be directly uploaded to the site. This archive includes online input, basic data quality and visualization functions, and the ability to download user-specified data. In addition, the archive has an API and a demonstration site for training new data wranglers, and is able to transfer count data directly from one vendor database (Eco-Counter’s Eco-Visio). Title: Bike-Ped Portal: Development of an Online Nonmotorized Traffic Count Archive Author: Nordback, Krista, Tufte, Kristin A., McNeil, Nathan, Harvey, Morgan, Watkins, Michelle Year: 2017 Robust bicycle and pedestrian data on a national scale would serve numerous purposes. Access to a centralized nonmotorized traffic count archive can open the door for innovation through research, design and planning; provide safety researchers with a measure of exposure; provide fundamental performance metrics for planning and funding decisions; and allow policymakers and transportation professionals to better support the public’s desire for livable communities. Numerous jurisdictions have initiated nonmotorized traffic count programs. However, many agencies and policymakers, who need data to support investment decisions, are in locations without a centralized count program. This lack of access to count data may lead some decision-makers, planners and engineers to assume that cycling and walking levels are close enough to zero to be ignored. Providing reliable numbers may reveal a surprising amount of walking and bicycling is taking place. In order to organize and promote the collection of nonmotorized traffic data, a team of transportation professionals and computer scientists has created a national nonmotorized traffic count archive called Bike-Ped Portal. This archive enables data sharing by centralizing both continuous and short-duration traffic counts in an online archive. While other archives exist, this is the first that is both national in scope and enables data to be directly uploaded to the site. This archive includes online input, basic data quality and visualization functions, and the ability to download user-specified data. In addition, the archive has an API and a demonstration site for training new data wranglers, and is able to transfer count data directly from one vendor database (Eco-Counter’s Eco-Visio). Close