Health in Transportation Working Group 2014 Annual Report

The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) Health in Transportation Working Group examines the agency\u2019s policies and programs and their impacts on health-related issues such as air quality, active transportation, environmental review, noise, safety, livable communities, and access to health-related facilities. Working Group members lead and participate in many initiatives that aim to encourage the consideration of health in all aspects of transportation. This report provides an overview of the Working Group\u2019s activities and accomplishments in 2014, summarizes other DOT health-related accomplishments, documents its progress toward the recommendations included in the 2013 Annual Report, and offers recommendations for 2015 based on several themes that the Working Group discussed in 2014

Finding a Win-Win: Planning and Data-Sharing Partnerships between Governments and Public Land Management Agencies

Transportation data sharing partnerships are becoming increasingly important as transportation systems continue to evolve and become more complex. As the demand for transportation services grows, the need for accurate and timely data becomes paramount for staff and the public to make informed decisions. This report is a culmination of research and analysis conducted by the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) Volpe Center on the topic of transportation data sharing partnerships between transportation and public land agencies. Funded by the Federal Lands Highway Division (FLH) of the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), the purpose of this research project is to document and evaluate the integration of project planning and data sharing into transportation planning practices and processes within public land settings. The report highlights the importance of collaboration between transportation system owners and the need to establish clear roles, responsibilities, and feedback mechanisms to ensure effective implementation of these partnerships

Guidance for conducting hazardous materials flow surveys

RS530/P5001This report provides guidance on how to conduct a commodity flow study for hazardous materials moving by highway. It discusses the need for this type of study and details how to review baseline information and design the study. It includes examples and instructions for collecting the data via field studies, analyzing the results, and applying these results back to the purpose of the study. Descriptions of selected recent state and local hazardous material flow studies are provided. A case study example is included that illustrates how to conduct and complete a hazmat flow survey from beginning to end

Comparison of International Fire Safety Standards with U.S. Requirements

The Volpe National Transportation Systems Center compared and contrasted U.S. fire safety regulations and standards on rolling stock with the European Union, Japan, and China. The major areas of study were fire safety analysis, materials performance standards, toxicity performance standards, fire detection and suppression, as well as particular elements of international fire safety standards and regulations that might be valuable and worthy of analysis by the U.S. The varying international regulatory approaches give insight as to ways in which the U.S. might augment its own regulations and standards as well as demonstrate the ways in which international rolling stock might be acquired and found suitable on U.S. railways

Experiments and Model

RR693/R6021Although the speed of some guided ground transportation systems continues to increase, the reaction time and the sensoryand information processing capacities of railroad personnel remain constant. This second report in a series examiningcritical human factors issues in future high-speed rail systems, describes the design and evaluation of computer-baseddecision aids to compensate for the increased demands on locomotive engineers. (The next report will explore increasingcontrol automation.) Three concepts of aiding, referred to as preview, predictive, and advisory aiding, were integratedinto two displays and compared with a conventional high-speed cab environment. Experimental evaluations were conductedon the high-speed-rail simulator developed at the Department of Transportation's Volpe Center for Human FactorsResearch. Results show that the decision aids improved safety by reducing both reaction times to emergency events andthe need for emergency braking. Schedule adherence, station-stopping accuracy, and, with advisory aiding, energyconsumption improved. Concerns that aiding may induce higher visual workload were allayed both empirically and viasubjective questionnaires, where the advanced displays were consistently rated lower on workload-related measures. Ahigh-speed train locomotive engineer model was developed to evaluate decision aids in a less costly model-in-the-loopsimulation. The findings of the human-in-the-loop evaluation were confirmed

Transportation Resilience in the United States and the Netherlands: Summary of Collaboration on Nature-Based Solutions and Application of Infrastructure Resilience Tools, 2016-2022

HW17A100/WH707Since 2014, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and Rijkswaterstaat, the government agency responsible for transportation and water infrastructure in the Netherlands, have been collaborating on the topic of infrastructure resilience. From 2016 through 2018, the agencies conducted an applied comparison of a suite of resilience tools developed and/or used by the respective agencies: the FHWA Vulnerability Assessment and Adaptation Framework, and Roads Today, Adapted for Tomorrow (ROADAPT). From 2019 to 2021, FHWA and Rijkswaterstaat - along with Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) and North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) - participated in a collaboration to explore nature-based solutions that reduce flood hazards to highways and provide environmental benefits. Through monthly conference calls and occasional topic-specific webinars, the partners discussed resources and strategies for nature-based resilience and specific transportation projects that incorporated nature-based strategies. The partners shared lessons learned that could be relevant for transportation projects under consideration by the other agencies. They also shared information on climate resilience strategies more broadly

Health in Transportation Working Group 2017 Annual Report

HW66A7/RD009The Health in Transportation Working Group 2017 Annual Report provides an overview of the Working Group\u2019s activities and accomplishments in 2017, summarizes other U.S. DOT health-related accomplishments, and documents its progress toward the recommendations laid out in the 2016 Annual Report. The report also offers goals for 2018

State of the Practice Scan: Freight Resilience Planning in the Face of Climate-Related Disruption

693JJ321N300037The purpose of this research is to summarize the state of the practice for freight resiliency planning. Freight planning by public sector agencies is still a relatively new discipline. Given that climate change is causing more frequent and more severe extreme weather events and that these events are increasingly disrupting the movement of goods and services across the United States, this research provides a summary of current practices, methods, and gaps in freight resiliency planning to inform the development and improvement of freight resiliency planning to address climate change and extreme weather risks

Field evaluation of a wireless handheld computer for railroad roadway workers.

EB101/RR04This report is the third in a series describing the development and evaluation of a software application to facilitate communications for railroad roadway workers using a wireless handheld computer. The current prototype operated on a cell phone integrated with a personal digital assistant (PDA). The roadway worker can perform two types of communication related tasks with the application: request information about train status and territory without assistance from the dispatcher and request track authority.This study documents a field evaluation of the application to identify the safety implications of digital wireless communications on roadway worker safety and performance. It compares performance using traditional voice radio and telephone communications to the use of an application that can display this information in a visual form.The software application was faster and more effective than the voice radio communication when used to convey long messages such as filling out Form Ds. Radio communication was faster than the visually based software application for simple communications that did not tax the operator's memory

Delivering the Benefits of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law: A Thought Leadership Series

This is the final report on Delivering the Benefits of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL), a thought leadership series sponsored by the U.S.DOT Project Delivery Center of Excellence at the Volpe Center. The series, held in 2023, featured over 20 speakers and was designed for BILproject sponsors and other members of the transportation enterprise working hard to help deliver infrastructure projects. The series provided perspectives from experts on best practices for project delivery and successful projects that make the transportation system safer, usher in a new era of clean energy and sustainable transportation, promote equity, connect communities, create good-paying jobs, and boost American manufacturing. Key series themes included best practices in project delivery and lessons learned; identifying and managing common project delivery risks; municipal innovation in project delivery; embedding equity in project delivery; using NEPA review to define and shape better projects; and accelerating project delivery through innovative procurement, partnerships, and financing methods