Prioritization methodology for roadside and guardrail improvement: Quantitative calculation of safety level and optimization of resources allocation

The attention to road safety-related issues has grown fast in recent decades. The experience gained with these themes reveals the importance of considering these aspects in the resource allocation process for roadside and guardrail improvement, which is a complex process often involves conflicting objectives. This work consists on defining an innovative methodology, with the objective of calculating and analysing a numerical risk factor of a road. The method considers geometry, accident rate, traffic of the examined road and four categories of elements/defects where the resources can be allocated to improve the road safety (safety barriers, discrete obstacles, continuous obstacles, and water drainage). The analysis allows the assessment of the hazard index, which could be used in decision-making processes. A case study is presented to analyse roadsides of a 995 km long road network, using the cost-benefit analysis, and to prioritize possible rehabilitation work. The results highlighted that it is suitable to intervene on roads belonging to higher classes of risk, where it is possible to maximize the benefit in terms of safety as consequence of rehabilitation works (i.e., new barrier installation, removal and new barrier installation, and new terminal installation). The proposed method is quantitative; therefore, it avoids providing weak and far from reliable results; moreover, it guarantees a broad vision for the problem, giving a useful tool for road management body

Regional Data Archiving and Management for Northeast Illinois

This project studies the feasibility and implementation options for establishing a regional data archiving system to help monitor and manage traffic operations and planning for the northeastern Illinois region. It aims to provide a clear guidance to the regional transportation agencies, from both technical and business perspectives, about building such a comprehensive transportation information system. Several implementation alternatives are identified and analyzed. This research is carried out in three phases. In the first phase, existing documents related to ITS deployments in the broader Chicago area are summarized, and a thorough review is conducted of similar systems across the country. Various stakeholders are interviewed to collect information on all data elements that they store, including the format, system, and granularity. Their perception of a data archive system, such as potential benefits and costs, is also surveyed. In the second phase, a conceptual design of the database is developed. This conceptual design includes system architecture, functional modules, user interfaces, and examples of usage. In the last phase, the possible business models for the archive system to sustain itself are reviewed. We estimate initial capital and recurring operational/maintenance costs for the system based on realistic information on the hardware, software, labor, and resource requirements. We also identify possible revenue opportunities. A few implementation options for the archive system are summarized in this report; namely: 1. System hosted by a partnering agency 2. System contracted to a university 3. System contracted to a national laboratory 4. System outsourced to a service provider The costs, advantages and disadvantages for each of these recommended options are also provided.ICT-R27-22published or submitted for publicationis peer reviewe

Automated Measurement of Heavy Equipment Greenhouse Gas Emission: The case of Road/Bridge Construction and Maintenance

Road/bridge construction and maintenance projects are major contributors to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions such as carbon dioxide (CO2), mainly due to extensive use of heavy-duty diesel construction equipment and large-scale earthworks and earthmoving operations. Heavy equipment is a costly resource and its underutilization could result in significant budget overruns. A practical way to cut emissions is to reduce the time equipment spends doing non-value-added activities and/or idling. Recent research into the monitoring of automated equipment using sensors and Internet-of-Things (IoT) frameworks have leveraged machine learning algorithms to predict the behavior of tracked entities. In this project, end-to-end deep learning models were developed that can learn to accurately classify the activities of construction equipment based on vibration patterns picked up by accelerometers attached to the equipment. Data was collected from two types of real-world construction equipment, both used extensively in road/bridge construction and maintenance projects: excavators and vibratory rollers. The validation accuracies of the developed models were tested of three different deep learning models: a baseline convolutional neural network (CNN); a hybrid convolutional and recurrent long shortterm memory neural network (LSTM); and a temporal convolutional network (TCN). Results indicated that the TCN model had the best performance, the LSTM model had the second-best performance, and the CNN model had the worst performance. The TCN model had over 83% validation accuracy in recognizing activities. Using deep learning methodologies can significantly increase emission estimation accuracy for heavy equipment and help decision-makers to reliably evaluate the environmental impact of heavy civil and infrastructure projects. Reducing the carbon footprint and fuel use of heavy equipment in road/bridge projects have direct and indirect impacts on health and the economy. Public infrastructure projects can leverage the proposed system to reduce the environmental cost of infrastructure project

Water resources assessment and management in drylands

Drylands regions of the world face difficult issues in maintaining water resources to meet current demands which will intensify in the future with population increases, infrastructure development, increased agricultural water demands, and climate change impacts on the hydrologic system. New water resources evaluation and management methods will be needed to assure that water resources in drylands are optimally managed in a sustainable manner. Development of water management and conservation methods is a multi-disciplinary endeavor. Scientists and engineers must collaborate and cooperate with water managers, planners, and politicians to successfully adopt new strategies to manage water not only for humans, but to maintain all aspects of the environment. This particularly applies to drylands regions where resources are already limited and conflicts over water are occurring. Every aspect of the hydrologic cycle needs to be assessed to be able to quantify the available water resources, to monitor natural and anthropogenic changes, and to develop flexible policies and management strategies that can change as conditions dictate. Optimal, sustainable water management is achieved by cooperation and not conflict, thereby necessitating the need for high quality scientific research and input into the processhttp://www.mdpi.com/2073-4441/8/6/239Published versio

Emergency Management Training for Transportation Agencies

State transportation agencies have a variety of responsibilities related to emergency management. Field personnel manage events--from day-to-day emergencies to disasters--using the Incident Command System (ICS) as their organizational basis. At the headquarters level, the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) coordinates the use of resources across the department and its districts, with other state departments and agencies, and through the federal Emergency Support Function 1. District-level EOCs coordinate with the department. In extreme events, the transportation department may only be able to deliver limited essential services in austere conditions, so a continuity of operations/ continuity of government plan (COOP/COG) is essential. This research applied the principles of andragogy to deliver ICS field level training, EOC training and COOP/COG training to state transportation agency’s staff in all districts and at headquarters. The data supports the need for adult-oriented methods in emergency management training

Lightning impulse tests on air-breakdown level in point-plane electrode configuration

In the past several decades, extensive amount of research work has been done to understand the fundamental characteristics of the electrical breakdown. Breakdown voltage is a phenomenon where the quantity of an electrical force is required to transform the electrical properties of an object. Many factors that lead to the breakdown voltage are still not fully discovered. These factors are including the physical parameters of the electrodes (sphere, plane, point etc.) and also the environmental conditions. In electrical power system, high voltage (HV) power equipment is mainly subjected with spark over voltage. In this study, point electrode and plane electrode have been used for the experimental study of the short air gap. The electrodes are vertically aligned. In order to simulate the performance characteristic of the air breakdown voltage and maximum electric field between the conducting point and plane electrodes, the electrodes is taken into considered in this work using FEMM simulation. The air breakdown voltages between the electrodes (point and plane) are measured by conducting the air breakdown voltage experiment in high voltage laboratory and corresponding electrical field strength. The electrodes gap distances are being varied to 5 different gaps which are 5mm, 10mm, 15mm, 20mm and 25mm. In order to achieve maximum strength in such a field, the point of the highest stress is controlled. From the experiment, it was established that the point at the electrode that produces maximum electric field is at the point with the smallest area or width. As for point electrode, the smallest area is at the angle of the electrode. Besides, it shows that the electrical breakdown characteristic is affected by the strength of the impulse voltage. Higher gap distance between the electrodes will result higher breakdown-impulse voltage while higher breakdown-impulse voltage will produce higher field intensity

Leveraging Wireless Broadband to Improve Police Land Mobile Radio Programming: Estimating the Resource Impact

Despite rapid growth in criminological studies of police technology, examinations of police land mobile radios are absent in the literature. This is troubling given the central role mobile radios serve in police operations and their significant management costs. The present study seeks to fill this gap by introducing the functionality of wireless broadband radio programming. Current practice requires a police officer to physically drive to a radio programming location to manage their mobile radio. Wireless programming remedies this burdensome reality, thereby saving officer time and cost. Geospatial analyses are used to estimate distance saved associated with wireless programming. We then conduct a number of calculations to determine time and cost savings related to the observed differences between existing and wireless radio programming within the context of the North Carolina State Highway Patrol. Results suggest wireless radio programming can save significant personnel and financial resources. Implications are discussed

Online korean skincare decision support system

Despite the explosive growth of electronic commerce and the rapidly increasing number of consumers who use interactive media for pre-purchase information search and online shopping, very little is known about how consumers make purchase decisions in such settings. One desirable form of interactivity from a consumer perspective is the implementation of sophisticated tools to assist shoppers in their purchase decisions by customizing the electronic shopping environment to their individual preferences

Specification of vertical semantic consistency rules of UML class diagram refinement using logical approach

Unified Modelling Language (UML) is the most popular modelling language use for software design in software development industries with a class diagram being the most frequently use diagram. Despite the popularity of UML, it is being affected by inconsistency problems of its diagrams at the same or different abstraction levels. Inconsistency in UML is mostly caused by existence of various views on the same system and sometimes leads to potentially conflicting system specifications. In general, syntactic consistency can be automatically checked and therefore is supported by current UML Computer-aided Software Engineering (CASE) tools. Semantic consistency problems, unlike syntactic consistency problems, there exists no specific method for specifying semantic consistency rules and constraints. Therefore, this research has specified twenty-four abstraction rules of class‟s relation semantic among any three related classes of a refined class diagram to semantically equivalent relations of two of the classes using a logical approach. This research has also formalized three vertical semantic consistency rules of a class diagram refinement identified by previous researchers using a logical approach and a set of formalized abstraction rules. The results were successfully evaluated using hotel management system and passenger list system case studies and were found to be reliable and efficient