Feature Channels: Travel and Transportation

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Traffic signals serve to regulate the worst bottlenecks in highly populated areas but are not always very effective. Researchers at Penn State are hoping to use deep reinforcement learning to improve traffic signal efficiency in urban areas, thanks to a one-year, $22,443 Penn State Institute for CyberScience Seed Grant.

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Allowing airlines to form international alliances leads to lower fares for passengers who combine two aligned carriers in making an overseas trip, according to a new study led by the University of California, Irvine.

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The arrival of ridehailing is associated with an increase of approximately 3 percent in the number of motor vehicle fatalities and fatal accidents, according to research from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

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Irvine, Calif., July 1, 2019 – The nations that have signed agreements to stabilize the global mean temperature by 2050 will fail to meet their goals unless existing fossil fuel-burning infrastructure around the world is retired early, according to a study – published today in Nature – by researchers at the University of California, Irvine and other institutions.

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Injury prevention experts at Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt hope the state’s newest law banning cellphone use while driving will have an impact.

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People agree that bike commuting improves health, reduces air pollution and eases traffic. But that knowledge wasn’t enough to get most people to commute by bike. New research indicates that a person’s neighborhood may play a large role in influencing the decision to commute by bike. The study could give regional planners clues about how to design neighborhoods, streets and bike trails.

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A hitch-mounted, cinema-quality camera on a pick-up truck can make bridge inspections safer and faster, developed by the Michigan Tech Research Institute (MTRI) and Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT).

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QuickRoute uses GPS and routing data to provide turn-by-turn directions, and it features an alerting mechanism to warn responders of hazards along the route, such as a flooded road, an accident, or downed power lines.

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Researchers from UBC Okanagan have determined motorists tended to give cyclists wearing high-visibility vests more room on the road, compared to cyclists without high-visibility clothing.

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A tragic trio of inexperience, strong emotions and distractions combines to make vehicle crashes the leading cause of death and disability among American teenagers.

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A new UCI-led pilot study finds, on average, Waze "crash alerts" occur two minutes and 41 seconds prior to their corresponding California Highway Patrol (CHP)-reported crash. These minutes could mean the difference between life and death.

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A fleet of driverless cars working together to keep traffic moving smoothly can improve overall traffic flow by at least 35 percent, researchers have shown.

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Teen drivers diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are significantly more likely to crash, be issued traffic and moving violations, and engage in risky driving behaviors than their peers without ADHD.

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A distracted driving survey of millennial parents (ages 22 to 37) and older parents (37 and up) shows that most parents had read and written texts while driving in the part 30 days but millennial parents

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Work and his collaborators tested seven different cars from two manufacturers on a remote, rural roadway in Arizona. They simulated various driving conditions with a pace car changing its speed, followed by a vehicle using adaptive cruise control. The team measured how quickly and aggressively the ACC system responded to the pace car speed changes.

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A Michigan Tech engineer has created a method to fill in the gaps of available connected vehicle data, which will give transportation planners a more accurate picture of traffic in their cities. It is also a more cost-effective data gathering system than what is currently available.

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The benefits of self-driving cars will likely induce vehicle owners to drive more, and those extra miles could partially or completely offset the potential energy-saving benefits that automation may provide, according to a new University of Michigan study.

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As teens prepare to leave home for college or live on their own in a new city, many may also be using ride sharing services for the first time – and that raises safety concerns for many parents – a new national poll suggests.

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Texas State’s Zhijie Sasha Dong, assistant professor, Ingram School of Engineering and graduate student Lingyu Meng look to close the gap between public bike systems and bike sharing systems in big cities like Nanjing, the capital of China’s Jiangsu Province.

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In the 1960s animated sitcom The Jetsons, George Jetson commutes to work in his family-size flying car, which miraculously transforms into a briefcase at the end of the trip.

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Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) is a life-sustaining therapy for patients with respiratory or circulatory failure that is best performed at high-volume centers with special expertise. A survey providing an overview of leading ECMO transport programs around the world is presented in the ASAIO Journal, official journal of ASAIO. The journal is published in the Lippincott portfolio by Wolters Kluwer.

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The 29th annual Airline Quality Rating (AQR), the longest running and most comprehensive study of the performance quality of the largest airlines in the United States, will be announced via a nationally distributed news release on Monday, April 8, at 3:01 a.m. EDT.

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At USC, researchers have published a new study that tackles a long-standing problem for autonomous vehicle developers: testing the system’s perception algorithms, which allow the car to “understand” what it “sees.”

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Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory received nearly $3.2 million for their proposal on the use of distributed sensing and high-performance computing to reduce traffic congestion while minimizing energy consumption and emissions in and around Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport.

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Individuals have as big a role to play in tackling climate change as major corporations but only if they can be encouraged to make significant lifestyle changes by effective government policy

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Berkeley Lab researchers have developed a software tool that uses supercomputing resources at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center to accurately simulate traffic flow throughout the San Francisco Bay Area road networks and provide estimates of the associated congestion, energy usage, and productivity loss.

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In this issue, find research on texting while driving laws, new data on Yoga use increasing, dairy milk in school breakfasts, pregnancy outcomes in prison and more.

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Caterpillar Inc. and the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory are joining forces to research heavy-duty diesel engines.

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Cities could ease congestion and improve safety during snowstorms by tweaking the timing of traffic lights to take road conditions into account.

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Researchers have analyzed the real-time effect of a large-scale hack on automobiles in a major urban environment. Using percolation theory, they analyzed how a large, disseminated hack on automobiles would affect traffic flow in New York City, and they found that it could create citywide gridlock. However, based on these findings the team also developed a risk-mitigation strategy to prevent mass urban disruption -- work they will describe at the 2019 APS March Meeting.

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A team of engineers in the McKelvey School of Engineering has developed a high-powered fuel cell that operates at double the voltage of today’s commercial fuel cells. It could power underwater vehicles, drones and eventually electric aircraft at a significantly lower cost.

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Produced by the Great Cities Institute at the University of Illinois at Chicago, the report provides a framework for the region to plan and carry out future projects that deal with public health and the environment, social equity, and economic development.

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Ever wonder why so many truckers park their rigs on highway off-ramps, in retail store parking lots, and at other odd locations? It’s not their first (or safest) choice, but sometimes it’s their only choice. Research by Sal Hernandez reveals that the national truck parking shortage takes an enormous toll on people and commerce.

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Risk Analysis, An International Journal has published a special issue, “Social Science of Automated Driving,” which features several articles examining the human side of automated driving, focusing on questions about morality, the role of feeling, trust and risk perceptions.

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The research from the UF Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences focused on using Strava, a GPS-based app, to analyze bicycling patterns in Miami-Dade County, Florida.

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Legalising the sale of cannabis for recreational use can lead to a short-term increase in traffic fatalities in legalising states and their neighbouring jurisdictions, new research suggests.

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A new approach to defining opioid-related auto fatalities provides insight into the nature and distribution of opioid-involved deaths in the state of Maryland, say the authors of a new study led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

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A new version of the AFLEET Tool from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory calculates and compares the costs and environmental benefits of a broad range of alternative fuel technologies. Covering 18 fuel/vehicle technologies, AFLEET Online offers an easy-to-use web-based platform.

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Dean Headley, co-author of the national Airline Quality Rating from Wichita State University, explains how the government shutdown affects air travel.

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Missouri Gov. Mike Parson’s plan to release bond funds to support bridge repair across the state comes as welcome news to researchers at Missouri S&T, home to a federal initiative to develop new robotic tools to inspect and preserve bridges and other infrastructure.Missouri S&T researchers are in the midst of a five-year effort to develop new technologies to inspect and maintain bridges and portions of highway.

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Nearly 250 patients ended up at two Southern California emergency departments with injuries associated with standing electric scooter use and few riders were wearing helmets. This observational study used medical record review to examine injuries associated with standing electric scooter use over a one-year period; 228 patients were injured as riders and 21 as nonriders.

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Thanks to Ivy League ingenuity – and engineering – there’s a good chance “L-pocalypse” won’t befall the Big Apple. What began with a few questions resulted in an entirely new plan to avert the shutdown, and perhaps a new model for how major infrastructure projects can be evaluated.