Center for Transportation Research News

Editor Note: As an update to the passage of the Master Bike Plan, Annick Beaudet, the Bicycle Program Manager with the City of Austin in Department of Public Works, has provided this update on the implementation of the plan.

Colored bike lane on Dean Keaton East of IH 35.

It is my pleasure to write about my [...]

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The City of Austin is testing four bicycle safety improvements with research involvement of the Center for Transportation Research. KVUE News in Austin covers “sharrows” in a news segment today; the video is posted online.
http://www.kvue.com/news/Austin-part-of-bike-and-car-sharing-experiment-68806662.html
Anyone driving, walking or cycling down Guadalupe between MLK and 4th street Monday may have seen them being installed and [...]

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Center for Transportation Research researchers are working with the City of Austin to test some new initiatives to make biking safer in Austin.
[As part of the study, the city has] set up colored bicycle lanes, to examine just how well they protect cyclists.
“Bike boxes allow cyclists to come up to a cue at [...]

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Safety experts have convinced some hybrid car manufacturers that silence may not be golden, when it comes to pedestrian traffic.
lug-in hybrid and electric cars, it turns out, not only reduce air pollution, they cut noise pollution as well with their whisper-quiet motors. But that has created a different problem. They aren’t noisy enough.
So safety [...]

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President Obama banned federal employees from text-messaging while on government business, driving government vehicles or using government equipment. The executive order also directs executive departments and agencies to encourage contractors and contractor employees to adopt and enforce policies to ban texting while driving on official government business.
At the opening of the summit on transportation in [...]

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Image from Intelligent Transportation Systems (US DOT)

With over 1,000 deaths and 50,000 injuries occurring each year in work zones, radar speed signs can help slow drivers down and curtail accidents.
“We first used a portable radar speed sign while doing storm drain repair at a Y intersection of a four lane thoroughfare,” said Tad Blanton, public [...]

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A new research study conducted at Queensland University of Technology’s International Laboratory for Air Quality and Health found that ultrafine particles can become concentrated inside of roadway tunnels at levels sufficiently high enough to potentially to drivers and passengers.
Study co-author and director of Queensland University of Technology’s International Laboratory for Air Quality and Health, Professor [...]

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In an interview with Dr. Joseph Coughlin and Dr. Bryan Reimer, the Wall Street Journal examines a trend of transportation research that focuses on safety in part because drivers are aging.

The duo is currently analyzing data collected by the Transportation Center’s newest innovation—a Volvo XC90 that cruises around Cambridge, Mass., with $1.5 million of [...]

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Researchers from University of Castilla-La Mancha have developed an artificial intelligence software that could detect aberrant pedestrian and automotive behavior at crosswalks.
“We have developed an intelligence surveillance software and related theoretical model in order to define ‘normality’ in any setting one wishes to monitor, such as a traffic scenario”, David Vallejo, from the ORETO Applied [...]

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United States Fire Administration (USFA), in partnership with the International Fire Service Training Association (IFSTA), has released the “Emergency Vehicle Visibility and Conspicuity Study.”
The report provides recommendations to improve emergency vehicle and roadway operations safety for firefighters, law enforcement officers, EMS providers and others who must work on roads during emergencies. The U.S. Department of [...]

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