Roadway Safety Assessment and Test Application of iRAP along National Highway 3 in Haiti

More than 3,500 deaths and thousands of injuries occur every day on roads all over the world. The International Road Assessment Program (iRAP) states, “Currently 90% of the world’s 1.25 million road fatalities per annum are in low and middle income countries, and by 2020 the number of road fatalities in these countries is expected to grow by 50%.” The compound problem in developing nations stems from roads which are rapidly constructed without much regard to proper design or safety, a lack of attention to vulnerable road users, and the absence of road safety culture (i.e., safe behaviors, vehicle safety regulations, road safety policy, road safety assessment, and enforcement). In Haiti, the road safety problem is exacerbated by the lack of data related to roadway crashes and the resulting fatalities and injuries. In numerous international road safety reports by organizations such as the World Health Organization, World Bank, and others, Haiti is one of the few Latin American Countries (LACs) that is not represented with national road safety and fatality statistics due to the limited availability of safety data. Some of the data issues can be attributed to the 2010 earthquake that destroyed much of the capital city of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The Inter-American Development Bank released a project statement in 2010 that contained a glimpse at road safety in Haiti. According to the documentation, the Office d’Assurance Vehicules Contre Tiers (OAVCT) indicated only 108 fatalities in all of Haiti. This limited data is likely a function of limited insurance coverage among motorists in Haiti. Conversely, an NGO, INGO, operating a medical facility in Haiti noted 52 fatalities and 376 injuries in only 55 days on a 20 km section of National Highway 2 between Léogâ ne and Gran d Goâ ve. Given that there are a total of 6045 km of National Highways in Haiti; a fatality rate similar to this for the rest of the country would indicate roughly 15700 deaths due to roadway crashes. Some number between 108 and 15700 is likely the true answer. INGO also indicated that in 32 cases where occupants survived amputations were necessary, leaving crash victims with lifelong disabilities. Meta-analysis of similar reports indicate that approximately 50% of the trauma cases seen in the Haiti hospitals are related to transport crashes. These issues will only get worse with OAVCT reporting growth in motorization of roughly 10% per year. To combat these road safety issues, this research is undertaken in conjunction with the International Road Assessment Program (iRAP), whose goal is “a world free of high-risk roads.” While the long-term goal of this project is to create an iRAP presence across Haiti by assessing road and safety conditions through road analysis programs, this thesis covers the initial setup, training, implementation, and coding evaluation. Road video data and GPS data were collected along National Route 3, from Port-au-Prince to Cange in addition to gathering speed data in Domond and video data of pedestrian traffic in Cange. This data, gathered in areas that were deemed to be high-risk, were used to provide an idea concerning t traffic in the area. The data was processed and analyzed using FPZ, an iRAP road analysis program developed by University of Zagreb in Croatia, where the videos were processed along the route and road centerlines were created and segmented with respect to the video files for each segment. Data analysis was followed by iRAP road coding, for all the road sections based on 52 different road attributes. QA check of the coded data generated numerous errors prompting the need to develop a Haiti-specific iRAP coding manual to train the raters involved in this project. Inter-rater reliability tests were carried along with Cohen’s Kappa statistic to assess the agreement among the raters and accuracy with respect to iRAP coding standards. These tests and the assessment of reliability helped the raters to understand the coding process better, and get a good grasp of roadside attributes present along the project route in Haiti. This lays a good foundation for future research and further assessment of the route, which involves generating star-ratings of the road sections upon successful road coding. This report and its implementation greatly assisted the team involved with this project in learning the intricacies of the correct iRAP coding techniques, which has laid the foundation to go further with the ultimate goal of obtaining star ratings of the sections, indicating the high, medium and low risk road sections

Birds crossing over roads: species, flight heights and infrastructure use

How high do birds fly above roads, and how do they use the road infrastructure (bridges, lampposts etc.)? These questions are rarely explored in ecological studies but were addressed by us during research in 2016–2018 in southern Poland. In total, 1665 individual birds belonging to 24 species were recorded. Species differed significantly in the height at which they crossed over roads, but about 30% of all crossings were at heights below 12 m, hence at potential collision heights. The proportion of birds perching on lampposts in the central reservation between carriageways also differed significantly between species. The surrounding landscape and road infrastructure, especially lampposts, modified the species composition associated with roads. This knowledge has practical importance, not only in regard to collisions, but also to much less studied aspects such as plant seed dispersal and/or corrosion of the infrastructure. Lampposts, as a taller component of the infrastructure, may not directly affect vehicle-bird collisions, but a flight to them may be a risky business, and we recommended higher lampposts to discourage low-level flights. This information may need to be incorporated into future studies on road ecology, as well as in mitigation programs

Rolling dynamic compaction for haul road construction and maintenance - an update

The construction and management of haul roads remains a critical element in the efficient operation of all mines. Significant effort has been applied to design practices, extending the use of design charts and computer programs. Attention has been paid to the pavement materials and material properties, based on decades of geotechnical data and experience. Opportunities still exist for improvements to be realised in compaction protocols, particularly in the use of rolling dynamic compaction (RDC). RDC involves the delivery of a dynamic compactive effort using non-circular towed compactors, which are designed to deliver a combination of potential energy of a falling weight and kinetic energy mobilised due to the relatively high towing speed. The objectives include the proof-rolling and preparation of subgrade areas, exposing soft spots and weak zones and often establishing a sufficiently competent raft layer, as well as deep lift compaction offering cost-efficient construction of ramps and haul road pavements with programming benefits. The ability to compact deeper lifts allows fill particles to be larger without inhibiting the compaction process, which increases the sustainability of the process through reducing the constraints on the fill materials by allowing a larger maximum particle size. Case studies are cited where RDC has been trialled on several mine sites and many mines have benefited from the use of the technology. The continued attention to improving haul road construction will result in less road maintenance, less vehicle damage and improved truck tyre life, and RDC offers a method of contributing to these improvements. The compaction energy of RDC offers more leniency in moisture conditioning where adequate compaction densities can be achieved with much lower water addition than conventional laboratory optimum moisture content. When applied to coarse surface layer materials RDC will generate sufficient fines to provide a high-friction tyre-friendly low-maintenance finish on haul road surfaces

The Road Map Project: 2014 Results Report

The Road Map Project's annual report card shows data on 29 indicators of student success, which are important measures related to student achievement from cradle through college. Data in the report are often disaggregated by district, student race/ethnicity or income level to illustrate the region's challenges and progress.The Road Map Project is a region-wide collective impact effort aiming to dramatically improve education results in South King County and South Seattle, the county's areas of greatest need. The project's goal is to double the number of students who are on track to graduate from college or earn a career credential by 2020, and to close opportunity gaps. Seven school districts -- Auburn, Kent, Federal Way, Highline, Renton, Seattle (south-end only) and Tukwila -- are among the hundreds of partners working together toward the Road Map Project's 2020 goal. The 2014 results report includes a special focus on whether the region is on track to reach the goal

Perils of the High and Low Roads: Employment Relations in the United States and Germany

[Excerpt] The U.S. crisis is characterized by growing income inequality, a shrinking safety net, and the decline of worker representation. Like the German crisis, it is caused in part by intensified global competition. Unlike in Germany, problems in the United States have also been exacerbated by deregulation, short-term horizons (e.g., quarterly reports to shareholders), and the decline of the labor movement. Both Germany and the United States, however, have substantial political, economic, and social resources to use in solving their problems. The contemporary crises do not appear for either of these countries to foreshadow a major collapse like that of the Great Depression. We are confident that actors in Germany and the United States can and will pursue reforms, including policy innovations and negotiation. In so doing, we suggest that these societies—the two strongest western economies—have a great deal to learn from each other and from their common experience in the global economy. They do not need, and are unlikely to get, convergence. Yet, each could benefit significantly by adopting elements and aspects of the other\u27s institutions, practices, and policies. In this chapter, the focus is on employment relations, which we believe are central to the broader economic and social problems in each society. We consider the following two interrelated questions. First, exactly how do the internal and external pressures on employment relations emerge in each country? Second, in what tangible forms do these pressures appear on the ground, where labor and business (and, more indirectly, other political, social, and economic actors) interact to perpetuate, alter, or scrap certain modes of production, including service delivery, work organization, and negotiation