Travel Behavior

The goal of this project was to design, implement, and validate a computerized Glare Meter Tool that could be used in the field to assess the level of glare from headlights of opposing vehicles in a variety of situations, without relying on subjective reports of observers. Both disability glare and discomfort glare were addressed. The net result is an instrument that is capable of acquiring an image of a scene with glare, then analyzing the image to output a number on the standard, widely-used De Boer Rating Scale for Evaluation of Discomfort Glare, and also an equivalent veiling luminance...

We studied the effect of key development and expansion of an off-road multipurpose trail system in Minneapolis, Minnesota between 2000 and 2007 to understand whether infrastructure investments are associated with increases in commuting by bicycle. We used repeated measures regression on tract-level (N = 116 tracts) data to examine changes in bicycle commuting between 2000 and 2008–2012. We investigated: 1) trail proximity measured as distance from the trail system and 2) trail potential use measured as the proportion of commuting trips to destinations that might traverse the trail system....

Preliminary studies suggest that neighborhood social and built environment (BE) characteristics may affect cognition in older adults. Older adults are particularly vulnerable to the neighborhood environment due to a decreasing range of routine travel with increasing age. We examined if multiple neighborhood BE characteristics are cross-sectionally associated with cognition in a diverse sample of older...

Increasing the number of people bicycling is often proposed as a solution for addressing environmental and climate-related challenges. Strategies to support more bicycling have traditionally included building bicycle infrastructure, enforcing traffic laws, and educating people about bicycling. Additionally, many cities across California are pursuing Vision Zero, the goal to eliminate traffic death and serious injury in the next decade. In San Francisco, for example, Vision Zero strategies include creating safe streets, safe people and safe vehicles. It also seeks to include training on “...