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Volpe Center Highlights

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Volpe Contributes to the TRB's 80th Annual Meeting

Photo of Dr. Judith Rochat at the Environmental Assessment exhibit at TRB

At the recent Transportation Research Board's annual meeting, the Volpe Center's exhibit, "Protecting and Enhancing the Human and Natural Environment," showcased the environmental capabilities of the Center. Dr. Judith Rochat (above) of the Safety and Environmental Technology Division was one of several members of the Division who staffed this year's exhibit.
(Photo courtesy of Ms. Cynthia Lee)

This year, the Volpe Center continued its high level of participation in what may be the world's largest transportation forum -- the Transportation Research Board's (TRB) annual meeting. From January 7 through 11, approximately 7000 transportation professionals from around the globe congregated in Washington, D.C. to exchange information on transportation research, policy, and practice. The Center was well represented in this diverse group of researchers, academics, administrators, and others from government and industry. Volpe staff presided over seven sessions or meetings, delivered 16 papers or presentations, and developed and staffed the Volpe Center exhibit, which showcased the Center's environmental capabilities, and the DOT's Small Business Innovation Research Program exhibit.

The meeting, like the TRB itself, once focused solely on highway research. Today, every mode of transportation is represented at this annual gathering, which makes it an ideal venue for the Volpe Center to share its knowledge and perspective. Volpe participants covered a broad range of topics, including intermodal ferry terminals, e-commerce applications to freight transportation, intelligent transportation systems for highway safety, railroad-highway grade crossings, traffic network analysis and modeling, passenger rail including maglev systems, sustainable transportation planning, human factors, transportation-related environmental issues, railroad track structure, and collision safety of light-rail vehicles.

Volpe Participants

Mr. Robert Armstrong, formerly of the Economic Analysis Division, presented a paper, "Intermodal Ferry Terminals from a National Perspective," at the session "Seamless Coordination of Ferries with Land-Side Transportation, Part 1." The session was sponsored by the Committee on Intermodal Transfer Facilities and the Committee on Ferry Transportation.
Dr. Bahar Barami of the Transportation Strategic Planning and Analysis Division presented a paper at the session "E-Commerce: Implications for Transportation: Part 2: Freight Transportation." The session was sponsored by the Committee on Urban Freight Transportation and the Committee on Freight Transportation Planning and Logistics. Dr. Barami's presentation, "E-Commerce: Implications for Supply Chain Productivity," reviewed the trends in market penetration of information technologies and electronic commerce for improving transactions involving freight.
Mr. Lawrence Barr of the Accident Prevention Division presented a paper titled "Crash Problem Characteristics for the Intelligent Vehicle Initiative" in a session on Highway Safety and Intelligent Transportation Systems sponsored by the Committee on Safety Data, Analysis, and Evaluation. The paper presented the results of a comprehensive study performed for the Federal Highway Administration under DOT's Intelligent Vehicle Initiative program. The study provides information for defining the functional requirements of potential collision avoidance systems and for estimating countermeasure effectiveness and safety benefits.
Ms. Anya Carroll of the High-Speed Ground Transportation Division served as Secretary for the meeting of the Committee on Railroad-Highway Grade Crossings.
Dr. Robert Dial of the Service Assessment Division presented a paper titled "Equilibrium Logit Traffic Assignment: Elementary Theory and Algorithm" at the session "Traffic Network Analysis Methods." The session was sponsored by the Committee on Transportation Network Modeling.
Mr. Bob Dorer, Chief of the High-Speed Ground Transportation Division, chaired a meeting of the Committee on Guided Intercity Passenger Transportation. Mr. Dorer also presided over a session titled "Intercity Passenger Rail and Maglev Systems," which was sponsored by the same committee.
Dr. Haris Koutsopoulos of the Service Assessment Division presented a paper titled "DynaMIT: Modeling Approach and Applications," at the session "Dynamic Traffic Assignment: Modeling and Applications," which was sponsored by the Committee on Traffic Flow Theory and Characteristics. The paper was co-authored by Professor Moshe E. Ben-Akiva, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Mr. William Lyons of the Service Assessment Division organized and chaired a session on future directions for the National Transit Database with sponsor Mr. Edward Fleischman, Director of the Federal Transit Administration's Office of Oversight, and a panel representing academia, state agencies, and transit general managers.

Mr. Lyons also presented an overview on innovative practices in sustainable transportation planning by states and localities in a session sponsored by the Task Force on Sustainable Transportation, and made another presentation on planning practices of metropolitan planning organizations at a session on developing transportation for healthy communities.

Dr. Wassim Najm of the Accident Prevention Division, Dr. Paul Schimek of the Service Assessment Division, and Dr. David Smith of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's Office of Vehicle Safety Research submitted a paper titled "Definition of the Light Vehicle Off-Roadway Crash Problem for the Intelligent Vehicle Initiative." This paper, presented in the session titled Highway Safety and ITS (Intelligent Transportation Systems), analyzes off-roadway crashes involving light vehicles (passenger cars, sport utility vehicles, vans, and pickup trucks) in support of the roadway departure research area as part of the DOT's Intelligent Vehicle Initiative.
Dr. Stephen Popkin of the Operator Performance and Safety Analysis Division presented "The Impact of Commute Time on Sleep and Work-Related Fatigue" at the session titled "Human Factors in Railroad Operations," which was sponsored by the Committee on Vehicle User Characteristics. Dr. Popkin also made a workshop presentation titled "A Systematic Approach to Evaluating the Safety of Engineer-Only Operations."
Dr. Joyce Ranney of the Change Management Division and Dr. Mary Stearns of the Operator Performance and Safety Analysis Division presented "Assessing At-Risk Behavior in Railroad Operations" at the session titled "Human Factors in Railroad Operations" sponsored by the Committee on Vehicle User Characteristics. Dr. Ranney and Dr. Stearns are helping the Federal Railroad Administration's (FRA) Office of Research and Development study the effects of consolidating eight safety rulebooks on behavior-based safety at Amtrak. Mr. Michael Coplen of the FRA co-authored the presentation.
Dr. Judith Rochat of the Safety and Environmental Technology Division presided over the panel session titled "Transportation-Related Noise Issues, Part 2," which was sponsored by the Committee on Transportation-Related Noise and Vibration.
Mr. Andrew Sluz of the Structures and Dynamics Division presented a paper titled "Remote Monitoring of Longitudinal Rail Forces on Heavily-Used Revenue Service Track" at a session sponsored by the Committee on Railroad Track Structure System Design titled "Controlling Neutral Rail Temperature in Continuous Welded Rail." Mr. Dwight W. Clark of Union Pacific Railroad Company co-authored the paper.
Dr. Donald Sussman, Chief of the Operator Performance and Safety Analysis Division, chaired the meeting of the Subcommittee on Railroad Operational Safety, presided over the panel session titled "Human Factors in Railroad Operations" sponsored by the Committee on Vehicle User Characteristics, and made a workshop presentation, co-authored with Dr. Mary Stearns, titled "Human-Centered Design Issues in Transportation Management Systems."
Dr. Ted Sussmann of the Structures and Dynamics Division submitted a paper titled "Fundamental Non-Linear Track Load-Deflection Behavior for Condition Evaluation." The paper was submitted for a session titled "Advances in Technology for Track Condition Assessment" sponsored by the Committee on Railway Maintenance. Dr. Willem Ebersohn of Amtrak and Dr. E. T. Selig of Ernest T. Selig, Inc. co-authored the paper.
Mr. David Tyrell presented a paper titled "Collision Safety of Light Rail Vehicles: A Preliminary Design Study" at a session titled "Diesel Multiple-Unit Implementation," which was sponsored by the Committee on Commuter Rail Transportation. Dr. Tom Tsai of the FRA co-authored the paper.
Dr. Paul Valihura of the Environmental Engineering Division presented a paper titled "Maglev Deployment Program: Environmental Considerations" at the session "Intercity Passenger Rail and Maglev Systems," which was sponsored by the Committee on Guided Intercity Passenger Transportation. Mr. David Valenstein of the FRA co-authored the paper.
In a TRB-related activity, Drs. David Damm-Luhr, Jeff Bryan, Joyce Ranney, and Rachel Winkeller of the Change Management Division and Ms. Cassandra Callaway of the Economic Analysis Division designed and facilitated a post-TRB session on the programmatic priorities of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's Office of Research and Technology (MC-RT). As part of a larger effort to develop a business plan for MC-RT, the Volpe team translated MC-RT's core messages for this first public session intended to solicit useful feedback from key partners.

Exhibits

"Protecting and Enhancing the Human and Natural Environment," the Volpe Center exhibit, was designed to show TRB attendees the wide range of environmental capability resident at the Center. The exhibit focused on environmental assessment, noise measurement, environmental compliance, and remediation and restoration, and featured interactive monitoring equipment and computer simulation. Noise analysis equipment included that used by Volpe staff to assess the underwater impact of hovercraft noise on black fish in Alaska: a real-time spectral display of various transportation noise sources using a hydrophone and an underwater video camera/display. This portion of the exhibit also employed a fish tank with live fish to demonstrate the equipment. A 3-D model typically used on remediation projects provided a computer simulation of an underground pollutant plume that showed how concentrations within the plume change with depth and time.
The DOT's Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program helps the small business community to develop and commercialize innovative ideas. The SBIR exhibit enabled TRB attendees to learn how all members of the transportation research-and-development community can benefit from the SBIR Program. Hundreds of attendees, many representing small businesses, state DOTs, academia, and the international community, visited the SBIR booth.