CTS Seminar Series

In this presentation, Mihai Marasteanu summarized work performed under two national pooled-fund studies that investigated the low-temperature behavior and performance of asphalt pavements. Marasteanu reviewed the development of current performance specifications and discussed the limitations of their parameters. He also highlighted how his team used laboratory and field data to begin the development of a performance-based specification for asphalt mixtures and suggested steps for the successful implementation of such a specification.

Visual accessibility—how effectively vision can be used to travel safely through or complete activities within a space—has an important impact on low-vision mobility. In this seminar, Gordon Legge will describe an empirical approach for studying the visual accessibility of indoor spaces, including experiments on the detection and recognition of steps and ramps. He will also outline the development of a new form of adaptive technology—the Digital Sign System—to assist visually impaired people with indoor navigation.

The consideration of vision loss is of growing importance in research, planning, and implementation of travel and transportation needs. There are approximately 12 million people with some form of visual impairment in the United States, and this number is estimated to double in the next 20 years as a consequence of our aging population. To meet the needs of this growing population, far more research is needed to better understand what information is used to support spatial behaviors for people with low (or no) vision.

In this seminar, Nicholas Giudice will discuss some practical solutions that can improve information access, safety, and efficient travel for people with vision loss. He will also explain why the failure to consider human perceptual and cognitive factors often leads to poor design decisions—especially when incorporating auditory, haptic, and other non-visual information into traditional navigation systems and transportation networks.

Traffic safety comes in several shapes and sizes. Ask a maintenance worker what safety is and you might hear that it's plowing roads when it snows. A transportation designer might say that safety is designing signposts that break away without intruding into a vehicle. A local official might say that installing an interchange or converting a two-lane road to four lanes is safety.

Safety has been ingrained in the transportation profession since the time of horse and buggy trails. In this presentation, Brad Estochen will discuss the Minnesota Department of Transportation's diverse approach to roadway safety. He will highlight traditional measures and prioritization processes as well as approaches for addressing safety on a systemic level and using data to help drive Minnesota toward its goal of zero deaths.

Cyclopath is a routing and mapping system for bicyclists in the Twin Cities metro area. The system, developed at the University of Minnesota, generates bicycling routes that can be personalized to meet individual cyclists' preferences. Cyclopath is also the world's first full-featured geographic wiki—all users can edit the system's maps of roads and trails. Much information about bike trails and cycling conditions is currently known only to individual cyclists, and Cyclopath allows them to share this key knowledge with each other.

Cyclopath is a popular resource for the cycling community and a powerful research platform. In this seminar, Loren Terveen will describe the innovative aspects of the Cyclopath system design, summarize several research studies of Cyclopath users and usage, and describe a few new development and research directions.

The integrity of bridges has become a major public safety concern. In this seminar, Arturo Schultz and Steve Wojkiewicz will report on a project aimed at improving the safety and operation of bridges by developing response-modification technology for bridges and their components. The new technology monitors structural health and controls stress paths in order to protect bridges from live loading. Loads of concern include heavy but legal trucks, overloaded and illegal trucks, and catastrophic loads, such as vehicle strikes, earthquakes, or blasts. The project represented a first step toward enhanced operation and safety of bridges.

To save lives and prevent injuries on U.S. highways, vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communication is essential. In this seminar, M. Imran Hayee reviewed the architecture, functionality, and field demonstration results of a newly developed V2I communication system that incorporates V2V assistance. The system, which relies on dedicated short-range communications technology, was developed to improve traffic efficiency and increase safety in congested work-zone areas.

The system can automatically acquire important traffic information—such as travel time and the starting point of congestion—and relay it back to drivers approaching the work zone. It uses a single roadside unit to collect traffic data from vehicles traveling on the road that are also exchanging information with each other. Field demonstration results indicate that the system can adapt to dynamically changing work-zone traffic environments and can cover larger work-zone areas than a system using V2I communication without V2V assistance.

This presentation will highlight a study comparing the current fuel-tax-based system for funding surface transportation with a potential future system based on mileage-based user fees. The study examined the strengths and weaknesses of both the fuel-tax funding system and a mileage-based user fee system using a set of transportation finance principles: efficiency, equity, revenue adequacy and sustainability, environmental sustainability, and feasibility.

In this seminar, John Evans will discuss a practical sensor technology to improve public safety through the remote sensing of snow and ice on bridge and road surfaces. A system based on such technology can provide real-time information about the surface condition of a roadway. This information could then trigger signage to alert motorists of unsafe conditions and/or notify maintenance personnel that deicing is needed.

Evans' approach uses time domain reflectometry (TDR) to acquire dielectric relaxation spectroscopy (DRS) data from low-cost passive sensors. TDR and DRS technology has been used in such disciplines as soil science and high-speed electronic data transfer and is a viable alternative for probing bridge or road surface conditions. Evans will outline the electronic hardware and software components necessary for this approach, as well as explain the integration of the components into an overall system that can be deployed in remote locations.

In this seminar, Carissa Schively Slotterback will highlight findings from a research project focused on an approach to planning for and implementing sustainability on a regional scale. The presentation will include an overview of the components of a model framework for regional sustainability and implementation. The framework is informed by a detailed case-study analysis of recently completed regional sustainability plans and draws on a review of planning documents and interviews with key stakeholders. The analysis considered the content of regional sustainability plans, processes used to develop them, and approaches used to implement the plans and monitor outcomes.

Schively Slotterback will also share thoughts on how the project's findings might be used by organizations and stakeholders interested in pursuing sustainability planning in their own regions, as well as in evaluating regional sustainability planning efforts. Her presentation will draw on insights from a research advisory committee that includes regional stakeholders to examine how the framework might be applied to regional sustainability planning efforts in the Twin Cities.