News Tagged: Trimet
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OTREC research looks into effects of traffic signal optimization
An OTREC project recently took an in-depth look at the travel-time and health-related effects of a new implementation of a state of the art adaptive traffic system.
Southeast Powell Boulevard is a multimodal urban corridor connecting highway US-26 through Portland, Oregon. The corridor is highly congested during morning and evening peak traffic hours. In October 2011, an adaptive traffic system called SCATS was deployed.
The primary function of SCATS, or Sydney Coordinated Adaptive Traffic System, is to mitigate traffic congestion. Using sensors (usually inductive loops) at each traffic signal, the system tries to find the best cycle time and phasing along the corridor as traffic demand patterns change.
In this integrated multimodal study, OTREC researchers looked at the corridor’s traffic speed and transit reliability, before and after the implementation of SCATS. In addition, a novel contribution of this study was to study the link between signal timing and air quality.
Tags: congestion, emissions, figliozzi, mitigation, otrec, psu, scats, transit, trimet, tsp
Student engineers plan for a safer Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway
The Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway, pegged as one of Portland’s high-crash corridors, already attracted the attention of city officials worried about safety. They got more help from Portland State University students during the recently completed term.
Students from civil engineering professor Christopher Monsere’s transportation safety analysis course formed six groups, each studying a piece of the corridor. They presented their findings and recommendations during the course’s open house March 19. The presentation drew officials from local agencies interested in improving corridor safety, including the city of Portland, the TriMet transit agency and the Metro regional government.
The student work dovetails with the city’s own examination of the highway corridor, completed in February. In some cases, as with the Shattuck Road intersection, the students came to many of the same conclusions as city officials, said Wendy Cawley, traffic safety engineer with the Portland Bureau of Transportation. Both found that narrowing the crossing distance could make that intersection safer for pedestrians.
Tags: chris monsere, portland bureau of transportation, rectangular rapid-flash beacons, road diets, safety, trimet, walking, wendy cawley
Bike research leading to smarter regional investments, easier rides
When policymakers look to meet cycling goals by investing in new bicycle routes, they have little research to help them determine whether cyclists will actually use them. As a result, bicycle facilities aren’t considered equally with motor vehicle infrastructure.
That’s changing, thanks in part to OTREC research. An OTREC-funded study, the first to gather large-scale data that reveal cyclists’ actual route preference, is being published in a scientific journal (Transportation Research Part A). The findings have already been incorporated into the regional travel demand model used to make transportation investment decisions across the Portland region.
In the study, Portland State University researchers Joseph Broach, Jennifer Dill and John Gliebe (Gliebe is now with RSG Inc.) outfitted cyclists with GPS units to record which routes they chose and model the choices to reveal preferences. Previous studies have relied on stated preference surveys or less reliable methods of determining cyclists’ actual routes. The data gathering was supported by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation through its national program Active Living Research.
The research determined not only the attractiveness of bike lanes, paths and bike boulevards, but also the effect of intersection design, turns and slope—factors that proved to be as important as the bike facility itself. While some assume that cyclists take the most direct route to any destination, the research found that cyclists take significant detours to use separated bike paths and bike boulevards. The study is the first to examine bike boulevards, the low-traffic neighborhood streets tailored for cycling.
Some findings are below:
Tags: bicyling, gps, jennifer dill, john gliebe, joseph broach, lane council of governments, metro, modeling, open trip planner, robert wood johnson foundation, route choice, route preference, transportation research part a, travel demand models, trimet
It’s the frequency: transit expert Jarrett Walker shares insight in three talks
For transit planning expert Jarrett Walker, one of the fundamentals of transit is also one of the hardest points for people to figure out: you can’t make good transit-system decisions from behind the wheel of a car.
“If you’re a habitual motorist, it doesn’t matter how much you support transit, there are certain things about it you’re not likely to get,” Walker said. “One the most basic, if you’re a motorist or a cyclist for that matter, you’re going to appreciate the concept of speed but not the concept of frequency.
“In urban transit, frequency is vastly more important than speed in determining how soon you get where you're going.”
Walker, the author of “Human Transit: How Clearer Thinking About Public Transit Can Enrich Our Communities And Our Lives,” presents his work at three OTREC-sponsored forums in Eugene and Portland May 16-18. Click here for more information on the presentations and Walker.
While driving or cycling faster typically means arriving earlier, slow transit vehicles that run often will get you to your destination sooner than fast, infrequent ones, Walker said. “It’s very difficult to get motorists to understand that importance. I tell them to imagine a gate at the end of your driveway that only opens once every half an hour.”
Tags: bus, bus rapid transit, human transit, jarrett walker, light rail, otrec, planning, portland, transit, transit planning, trimet
Third Oregon Transportation Summit builds on successes
The third annual Oregon Transportation Summit drew 275 people to Portland State University for what has become a leading regional venue to connect transportation professionals with each other and with academic researchers. Workshops and plenary sessions spread some of the best ideas in transportation, while a poster session shared the latest research from OTREC faculty and students.
The OTREC awards honored leaders in their field. In an emotional presentation, Chris Achterman accepted the Peter DeFazio Transportation Hall of Fame award on behalf of his sister, Gail Achterman, who recently stepped down as chair of the Oregon Transportation Commission and is undergoing chemotherapy.
Achterman brought a different perspective to the commission, OTREC Director Jennifer Dill said in presenting the award. “Gail’s direction helped the Oregon Department of Transportation redefine itself, emphasizing active and multimodal transportation,” Dill said. “With her diverse background and open mind, she has welcomed the best ideas from multiple disciplines, recognizing their implication for transportation.”
In prepared remarks, Achterman returned the praise. “The Summit is only one of the Oregon Transportation Research and Education Consortium’s great contributions to Oregon’s transportation community. It brings people together from all over Oregon with leading national experts, nurturing the relationships we need to transform our transportation system.”
Tags: chris monsere, gail achterman, highway capacity manual, jeff merkley, jennifer dill, oregon transportation commission, oregon transportation summit, peter defazio, tom hughes, trimet
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