If devolution in England is to be effective the government needs to address the lack of process

The PSA recently published a new report that highlights a number of problems with associated with the current approach to devolution to England’s cities, which is based almost exclusively on informal governance. Ed Cox writes that, far from blaming local areas alone for the apparent disintegration of so many current negotiations, the government must take its responsibility for a lack of process that is threatening the future of such an urgent and important initiative

Evolution or revolution: Spending Review implications for local government and the Northern Powerhouse

Despite being trumpeted as a “devolution revolution”, the detail of the Spending Review suggests that the government’s approach is distinctly evolutionary; the Treasury is far happier passing down the axe than cutting local government loose. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a positive story to tell about local growth and the Northern Powerhouse, writes Ed Cox

Revisiting the Assumptions of Adult Learning

This roundtable suggests expanding adult education principles would benefit practitioners and lessen generational divides created by the assumptions of “adult” education as a process distinct from learning in younger individuals

An investigation into linearity with cumulative emissions of the climate and carbon cycle response in HadCM3LC

We investigate the extent to which global mean temperature, precipitation, and the carbon cycle are constrained by cumulative carbon emissions throughout four experiments with a fully coupled climate-carbon cycle model. The two paired experiments adopt contrasting, idealised approaches to climate change mitigation at different action points this century, with total emissions exceeding two trillion tonnes of carbon in the later pair. Their initially diverging cumulative emissions trajectories cross after several decades, before diverging again. We find that their global mean temperatures are, to first order, linear with cumulative emissions, though regional differences in temperature of up to 1.5K exist when cumulative emissions of each pair coincide. Interestingly, although the oceanic precipitation response scales with cumulative emissions, the global precipitation response does not, due to a decrease in precipitation over land above cumulative emissions of around one trillion tonnes of carbon (TtC). Most carbon fluxes and stores are less well constrained by cumulative emissions as they reach two trillion tonnes. The opposing mitigation approaches have different consequences for the Amazon rainforest, which affects the linearity with which the carbon cycle responds to cumulative emissions. Averaged over the two fixed-emissions experiments, the transient response to cumulative carbon emissions (TCRE) is 1.95 K TtC-1, at the upper end of the IPCC’s range of 0.8-2.5 K TtC-1

EVOLVE Mentor Program

This is a presentation of the EVOLVE mentor program at the Indiana Department of Transportation which shows a model of linking talent strategy to business strategy. This started as a pilot program for Engineers-in-Training who expressed a desire for mentorship and career guidance. The program included 1:1 mentor/mentee pairings as well as group mentoring

Estimation of Connected Vehicle Penetration Rate on Indiana Roadways

Over 400 billion passenger vehicle trajectory waypoints are collected each month in the United States. This data creates many new opportunities for agencies to assess operational characteristics of roadways for more agile management of resources. This study compared traffic counts obtained from 24 Indiana Department of Transportation traffic counts stations with counts derived by the vehicle trajectories during the same periods. These stations were geographically distributed throughout Indiana with 13 locations on interstates and 11 locations on state or US roads. A Wednesday and a Saturday in January, August, and September 2020 are analyzed. The results show that the analyzed interstates had an average penetration of 4.3% with a standard deviation of 1.0. The non-interstate roads had an average penetration of 5.0% with a standard deviation of 1.36. These penetration levels suggest that connected vehicle data can provide a valuable data source for developing scalable roadway performance measures. Since all agencies currently have a highway monitoring system using fixed infrastructure, this paper concludes by recommending agencies integrate a connected vehicle penetration monitoring program into their traditional highway count station program to monitor the growing penetration of connected cars and trucks

Variable Speed Limit Study Upstream of an Indiana Work Zone with Vehicle-Matching

Managing traffic in workzones presents significant mobility and safety challenges for agencies. The goals of a workzone traffic management plan are to safely slow vehicles ahead of the workzone, maintain speeds that provide for the safety of motorists and construction workers, and manage the growth of queues. Variable speed limits have historically been presented as a technology that can dynamically regulate speed in response to prevailing traffic conditions. However, techniques used to evaluate the impact of variable speed limits typically use aggregated statistics such as mean and standard deviation to determine the “typical” speed reduction. This paper presents a new methodology to evaluate the impact of variable speed limit signage based on individual vehicle-matching. The speeds and speed changes of these matched vehicles were used to analyze individual driver response to the variable speed limits. This allows agencies to understand the impact variable speed limit signage has on the distribution of vehicle speeds. It was concluded that vehicles need to observe multiple signs prior to any tangible reduction in speed limit. Placing signs on both shoulders and in multiple longitudinal locations have a greater impact on speeds than a single sign

Performance Ranking of Arterial Corridors Using Travel Time and Travel Time Reliability Metrics

Performance measures are important for managing transportation systems and demonstrating accountability. This session presents a scalable methodology for analyzing arterial travel times, taking into account both the central tendency of the travel time and its reliability. Findings will be presented from a pilot analysis that was carried out for 28 arterials including a total of 341 signalized intersections from across the state of Indiana

Real-Time Probe Data Dashboard for Monitoring Detour Route during I-65 N Road Closure

On August 7, 2015, a 37 mile stretch of I-65 N from MM 141 to 178 was closed due to a structural evaluation of a bridge. Traffic was detoured onto US-52, SR-26, and US-231 before returning to the highway. In order to monitor delay and congestion on the detour route, a real-time dashboard was implemented in the style of the interstate Traffic Ticker. Throughout the detour, this website was used to monitor congestion in real time and measure the impact of mitigation actions. The improvement in travel can be seen from the addition of temporary signals, retiming of the US-231 corridor, and conversion of US-231 and SR-18 to a two-way stop