Freeway Bottleneck Removals: Workshop Enhancement and Technology Transfer
Record Type: UTC

As transportation improvement projects become increasingly costly and complex and as funding sources are not keeping pace with needs in highly urbanized areas, it becomes critical that existing freeway systems be fine tuned to maximize capacity, particularly through use of lower-cost improvements to improve mobility where bottlenecks occur during peak periods. This subject is gaining national attention, partly because bottleneck locations are highly visible; failure to fix them has political as well as congestion costs. The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) is advancing on this front both in research and outreach efforts. This research team has developed a workshop using experience in Texas and this workshop has been delivered three times in the Dallas area to enthusiastic classes of TxDOT and other engineers. Follow-up interviews indicate a positive result in terms of accelerated removals of bottlenecks in Dallas. This project is improving the workshop and to making it available to a wider audience by: 1) gathering further data on implemented bottleneck removals both in Texas and throughout the US to add to the database (the research part of this project); and 2) improving the communications aspect of the workshop through better graphics, video, and overall professional appearance. Further, outreach to transportation faculty and students is being accomplished via a website and course module. The long term implications of this work are elevated awareness of the extremely high benefits relative to costs of this type of project and development of professional capacity to recognize opportunities and to analyze and select appropriate measures for successful bottleneck removal projects.
Start date: 2008/9/1
End date: 2009/10/31
Status: Completed
Contract/Grant Number: DTRT06-G-0044
Secondary Number: 00025
Total Dollars: 78000
Source Organization: University Transportation Center for Mobility
Date Added: 03/04/2008
Index Terms: Freeways, Bottlenecks, Traffic congestion, Mobility, Peak hour traffic, Technology transfer, Workshops, Dallas (Texas), Congestion pricing, Research projects,

University Transportation Center for Mobility
http://utcm.tamu.edu
Texas Transportation Institute
Texas A&M University System
3135 TAMU
College Station, TX 77843-3135
USA
Phone: (979) 845-2538
Fax: (979) 845-9761

Tooley, Melissa S
Phone: (979) 845-8545
Fax: (979) 845-9761
Email: m-tooley@tamu.edu

Texas Transportation Institute, Arlington
http://tti.tamu.edu/facilities/facility_detail.htm?loc_id=3250&fac_id=76
Transit Mobility Program
The Texas A&M University System
110 N Davis Drive, Suite 101
Arlington, TX 76013
USA
Fax: (817) 461-1239

Walters, Carol H.
Phone: (979) 845-0568