Greater Representation for California Consumers–Fluid Recovery, Consumer Trust Funds, and Representative Actions

California statutes provide elaborate protections for consumers from abuse by deceptive, unlawful, and unfair business practices. However, in practice, consumers do not receive optimal protection. Law enforcement agencies often have inadequate resources, and the private bar is hampered by the futility of small individual claims and the complexity and expense of class actions. This Article details early use of the class action procedure in consumer protection litigation and outlines problems with the procedure, such as the expense and impracticality of notice provisions and distributing judgments. The authors explore the California courts\u27 recent development of procedures for class actions and representative actions that should encourage the private bar to pursue consumer protection litigation. These procedures include fluid recovery, consumer trust funds, and representative actions. Fluid recovery and consumer trust funds are mechanisms for distributing judgments to large numbers of consumers when all injured parties are difficult to identify or contact. Representative actions permit representation of consumers injured by sharp business practices without having to obtain the consent of consumers and without having to show that each consumer was aware of the practice. The authors conclude that these emerging procedures, underutilized currently by the private bar, should encourage practitioners to bring consumer protection litigation and ultimately enhance protection for California consumers

Evaluation of Alternative Intersections and Interchanges: Volume II—Diverging Diamond Interchange Signal Timing

This report presents findings from field studies of operations at diverging diamond interchanges (DDIs) in Salt Lake City, Utah and Fort Wayne, Indiana. These discuss optimization of signal offsets both within the DDI, and with the DDI integrated as part of an arterial corridor. Optimization of Fort Wayne, Indiana corridor comprising the DDI and three neighboring intersections yielded an annualized user benefit of $564,000, when assessing origin-destination paths both along the arterial and for movements to and from the freeway. This is the first field study of DDI offset optimization with neighboring intersections. Additionally, a pilot study was carried out in Salt Lake City on a new phasing scheme that incorporated a “holdback” phase into the signal sequence that delayed vehicles exiting the ramp in order to better coordinate their arrival at the downstream intersection, increasing the percent on green from 53% to 92%. The report concludes with a discussion of practical issues pertaining to DDI signal timing and provides a series of guidelines to assist in the design of new signal timing plans for future DDI deployments

An Integrated Critical Information Delivery Platform for Smart Segment Dissemination to Road Users

An integrated critical information delivery platform for smart segment dissemination to road users was developed. A statewide baseline milepost geodatabase was created at 0.1-mile resolution with tools, protocols, and interfaces that allow other data sources to be efficiently utilized. A variety of data sources (e.g., INRIX, CARS, Doppler, camera images, connected vehicle data, automated vehicle location) were integrated into existing and new dashboards for stakeholders to monitor roadway conditions and after-action reviews. Additionally, based on these data sources, algorithms were developed and an API was created to identify hazardous road conditions when the location of the end-user mobile device was given. Message delivery schemes were successfully implemented to issue alerts to drivers, which were integrated with two in-vehicle smartphone applications. The performance of the integrated platform was evaluated using both the driving simulator and a number of simulated and on-road tests. The results demonstrated the system was able to disseminate data in real-time using the developed platform

Analysis of Peer Intersection Data for Arterial Traffic Signal Coordination Decisions

This is the author-accepted manuscript version of Day, C.M., T.M. Brennan, H. Premachandra, J.R. Sturdevant, and D.M. Bullock, “Analysis of Peer Data on Intersections for Decisions About Coordination of Arterial Traffic Signal,”Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 2259, Transportation Research Board of the National Academies, Washington, D.C., pp. 23–36, 2011, copyright National Academy of Sciences.http://dx.doi.org/10.3141/2259-03 Its corresponding poster can be found here:http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/atspmw/2016/Posters/3

Integrating Traffic Signal Performance Measures into Agency Business Processes

This report discusses uses of and requirements for performance measures in traffic signal systems facilitated by high-resolution controller event data. Uses of external travel time measurements are also discussed. The discussion is led by a high-level synthesis of the systems engineering concepts for traffic signal control, considering technical and non-technical aspects of the problem. This is followed by a presentation of the requirements for implementing data collection and processing of the data into signal performance measures. The remaining portion of the report uses an example-oriented approach to showing a variety of uses of performance measures for communication and detector system health, quality of local control (including capacity allocation, safety, pedestrian performance, preemption, and advanced control analysis), and quality of progression (including evaluation and optimization)