PATH

Evaluating the Costs and Benefits of Transit Smart Cards

Iseki, Hiroyuki, PhD
Demisch, Alexander
Taylor, Brian D., PhD
Yoh, Allison C., MA
2008

Smart cards are gaining momentum as transit agencies across the country have been implementing them as a fare medium. Smart cards hold the promise of revolutionizing the way riders use transit, and how transit systems operate. But in order to adopt smart cards, transit agencies must purchase new equipment and upgrade their entire fare collection system – a very expensive process. In addition, many of the oft-touted benefits of smart cards are vague, and it is not at all certain if they are worth the high cost of implementation.This study examines how transportation agencies in three...

Adaptive Baud Protocol For Wireless Communication

Eskafi, F. H.
Nassiri-toussi, K.
Liu, G.
1998

In this paper, the authors propose an algorithm that increases and decreases the transmission speed according to a user-specified function. The design objective is to regulate baud as efficiently as possible and ensure that in each transmission interval, transmitter and receiver bauds are equal for some period of time during data transmission. An equivalent discrete-time version of the protocol is verified by using the COSPAN software. Application for this adaptive baud protocol for wireless communication is seen in a platoon setting within an Automated Highway System (AHS).

GPS/GIS Technologies for Traffic Surveillance and Management: A Testbed Implementation Study

McNally, M.G.
Marca, J.E.
Rindt, C.R.
Koos, A.M.
2002

The fundamental principle of intelligent transportation systems is to match the complexity of travel demands with advanced supply-side analysis, evaluation, management, and control strategies. A fundamental limitation is the lack of basic knowledge of travel demands at the network level. Modeling and sensor technology is primarily limited to aggregate parameters or micro-simulations based on aggregate distributions of behavior. Global Positioning Systems (GPS) are one of several available technologies which allow individual vehicle trajectories to be recorded and analyzed. Potential...

Rest Areas – Reducing Accidents Involving Driver Fatigue

Banerjee, Ipsita
Lee, Joon ho
Jang, Kitae
Pande, Swati
Ragland, David
2010

Rest areas are a countermeasure for fatigue; what role do they play in fatigue-related freeway collisions? The present study spatially evaluates fatigue collisions. In California, of 2,203,789 highway collisions recorded between 1995 and 2005, fatigue collisions accounted for 1.3% (‘strict’ definition of fatigue) and 9.7% (‘expanded’ definition). Collisions in the vicinity of rest areas were investigated using two different approaches: 1. 10-miles up/downstream of rest areas 2. Distance traveled from rest areasSample t-tests indicated that both fatigue and non-fatigue collisions decreased...

Evaluation of the ACC Vehicles in Mixed Traffic: Lane Change Effects and Sensitivity Analysis

Ioannou, Petros
Stefanovic, Margareta
2003

Almost every automobile company is producing vehicles with Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) systems that allow a vehicle to do automatic vehicle following in the same lane. The ACC system is designed for driver comfort and safety and to operate with manually driven vehicles. These characteristics of ACC were found to have beneficial effects on the environment and traffic flow characteristics [1, 2, 3] by acting as filters of a wide class of traffic disturbances. It has been argue that the smooth response of ACC vehicles to high acceleration disturbances or large position errors creates large...

Advanced Public Transportation Systems: A Taxonomy And Commercial Availability

Khattak, Asad
Noeimi, Hisham
Al-deek, Haitham
Hall, Randolph
1993

The main objectives of this study are to: 1) systematically classify new transit technologies and their impacts, 2) use the classification structure for exploring availability of new transit technologies, and 3) introduce technology developers to the California Advanced Public Transportation System (CAPTS) program. A structure is developed and applied for investigating the availability of new technologies in the market. The classification structure is based on a conceptualization of how technology attributes and technology performance will impact travelers and operators. After developing a...

Design And Evaluation Of An Automated Highway System With Optimized Lane Assignment

Hall, Randolph W.
Caliskan, Cenk
1997

This paper extends earlier research on optimal lane assignment on an automated highway to dynamic networks. A path-based linear program is formulated and solved through a column generation method.

Highway Traffic Data Sensitivity Analysis

Lu, Xiao-Yun
Coifman, Benjamin
2007

This report is divided into two parts:•Part I - Highway Traffic Data Sensitivity Analysis in Systems Approach. This work has been conducted by Dr. Xiao-Yun Lu at California PATH, U. C. Berkeley.•Part II - Empirical and Analytical Results for Sensitivity to Loop Station Spacing. This work has been conducted by Benjamin Coifman in Civil Engineering, Ohio State University.Since the aspects of the problem considered and approaches adopted by the two are different, it is thus necessary to separate the report into two parts. Each part is self-content.

Pedestrian and Bicycle Safety Evaluation in a SMART Corridor

Ragland, David R., PhD
O’Connor, Terri
2008

The San Pablo/I-80 corridor is a “SMART” transportation corridor that extends about 20 miles along the eastern shore of the San Francisco Bay. The corridor uses Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) technologies to increase and enhance transportation mobility.The goal of the SMART Corridor Plan was to improve vehicle mobility throughout the corridor. Since the plan focused almost exclusively on vehicular traffic, achieving these goals has the potential to raise the risk of injury to pedestrians and bicyclists without thorough analysis of the overall effects of the SMART corridor...

An Assessment of Opportunities for Bus Rapid Transit in the San Francisco Bay Area

Miller, Mark A.
2005

This report presents the findings from an investigation of opportunities to implement bus rapid transit systems in the San Francisco Bay Area with a focus on bus transit routes that travel on the state’s highway system. A primary component of this project has been the consideration of inter-connectivity and regional aspects of bus rapid transit systems deployment in the Bay Area. We examined approximately 200 bus transit routes in the Bay Area that lie on the state highway system from which five routes were identified as likely candidates for bus rapid transit implementation. Two of the...