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    <title>Research in Progress (RIP)</title>
    <link>https://rip.trb.org/</link>
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    <copyright>Copyright © 2026. National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.</copyright>
    <docs>http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss</docs>
    <managingEditor>tris-trb@nas.edu (Bill McLeod)</managingEditor>
    <webMaster>tris-trb@nas.edu (Bill McLeod)</webMaster>
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      <title>Research in Progress (RIP)</title>
      <url>https://rip.trb.org/Images/PageHeader-wTitle-RIP.jpg</url>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/</link>
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    <item>
      <title>Improve MDOT's Understanding of the Acceptance and Performance of Riprap</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/2731977</link>
      <description><![CDATA[The long term performance of riprap has been an issue because some local sources of riprap have known durability issues
and will degrade/dissolve over time. In addition, the acceptance of riprap size and gradation is currently done by performing a
Wolman count. Performing the Wolman count involves walking over large rocks, which can be a safety hazard and takes a
significant amount of time to do. There are challenges in assessing the performance and durability of riprap in riverine, lightly
acidic and other environments that need to be addressed. The potential exists that there may be technological and electronic
solutions that need to be utilized to enhance or replace existing processes.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Fri, 17 Jul 2026 15:21:06 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/2731977</guid>
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    <item>
      <title>Guidelines and Best Practices for Determining the Life Cycle Cost of Various Superstructure Types</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/2731917</link>
      <description><![CDATA[The selection of superstructure type during the study phase of a design project is currently made based on the estimated
construction cost and a subjective and inexact assessment of the life cycle cost of the structure. This method of selecting the
preferred alternative has led to the introduction of bias into the decision-making process and tends to lead to the selection of
concrete superstructures more often than steel superstructures. Rarely is this decision tied to objective data based on historic
maintenance records of similar superstructures and has never accounted for 
Michigan Department of Transportation's (MDOT’S) ability to extend the life of steel
superstructures by incorporating bolted and welded repairs, which are not possible on concrete superstructures. Disregarding
this information in the selection of a superstructure type increases the risk of not using the available bridge funding as
efficiently and effectively as possible.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Fri, 17 Jul 2026 10:05:08 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/2731917</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>SPR-5132: Implementation of Proven CV Applications on the Local System LRS</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/2727695</link>
      <description><![CDATA[Adapting Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT) connected vehicle safety and mobility metrics onto the local road network will provide a more uniform mechanism for identifying and assessing the anticipated benefits of projects on the local road system.
]]></description>
      <pubDate>Wed, 15 Jul 2026 11:40:27 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/2727695</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Verification and Implementation of Production-Level Long-Term Durability Assessment for Asphalt Mixtures</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/2726544</link>
      <description><![CDATA[The primary purpose of this study is to verify the suitability, practicality, and implementation viability of the recommended production-level long-term oven-aging (LTOA) protocols and associated cracking tolerance (CT) index threshold within Virginia Department of Transportation's (VDOT's) Balanced Mix Design framework. While the previous research established a practical design-stage LTOA protocol and recommended production-level aging procedures, additional evaluation is needed to confirm that the proposed production protocols and CT index threshold provide a reliable basis for future implementation into statewide production acceptance and quality assurance practices.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Thu, 09 Jul 2026 08:06:36 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/2726544</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Empirical Modeling for Improved Ground Failure Analysis</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/2726232</link>
      <description><![CDATA[Problem Statement: Numerous bridge approaches and substructures, highway and railway embankments, and particularly roads in low-lying areas adjacent to rivers and their corresponding traffic sign and signal poles are underlain by the silt soils of the Willamette and Columbia River Valleys and below Oregon's coastal communities. These soils are susceptible to liquefaction or cyclic softening during earthquakes and will produce varying degrees of severity in the consequences such as lateral spreading displacement, global instability, and settlement. Settlement of soils will produce drag loads to bridge and traffic sign and signal pole foundations. Such damage has the potential to severely impact our critical surface transportation lifelines and reduce the efficacy of emergency responders and reduce the rate of economic recovery. The risk of seismic ground failure is exacerbated by groundwater table rise, which occurs during short-term, acute events (flooding) and the long-term effects of potential rising sea levels. Application of ground failure models to silty soils that were developed based on the responses of sandy soils can result in over-conservative estimates of the effects seismic ground failure and lead to inefficient use of limited resources as Oregon strives to maintain and improve its current resilience.
This work aims to develop the types of empirical relationships that the geotechnical community are well-familiar with but geared towards transitional silty soils, which can exhibit differing behaviors from the soils which are presently represented in available models. The objectives of this research are to produce specific design guidance, models, and spreadsheet-based tools to: (1) account for the effects of sloping ground on the calculation of the factor of safety against liquefaction/cyclic softening during earthquakes, (2) compute lateral displacements of sloping ground, and (3) calculate vertical settlements of level and sloping ground and any foundations buried within, to (4) culminate in a decision matrix for Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) engineers and their consultants to guide the selection of a particular model when assessing the seismic vulnerabilities of existing surface transportation infrastructure. The decision matrix and specific guidelines for conducting cyclic failure analyses and simplified displacement estimates will guide cost-effective measures to assess and improve existing surface transportation infrastructure and improve community and infrastructure resilience to increasingly combined natural hazards.
]]></description>
      <pubDate>Wed, 08 Jul 2026 17:38:31 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/2726232</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Leveraging Existing Vegetated Roadside Areas for Efficient Stormwater Management</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/2726138</link>
      <description><![CDATA[Stormwater runoff from transportation infrastructure presents a persistent challenge for Oregon’s transportation system due to the requirement to treat highway stormwater runoff and protect downstream water quality. Current regulatory requirements compel project teams to demonstrate adequate stormwater treatment and infiltration performance during planning and design. However, limited understanding of how hydrologic data and roadside soil properties influence geochemical treatment capacity often prevents reliable evaluation of whether the natural roadside environment itself can meet objectives, providing an unrealized opportunity for potential savings on unnecessary facility installation and maintenance costs.
OBJECTIVES: The overall objective of this project is to develop and validate an integrated hydrologic-geochemical decision-support tool that enables early-stage screening of existing roadside stormwater infiltration potential and treatment performance. The tool will provide Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) with simulation capabilities to predict and quantify surface runoff routing, infiltration capacity, and subsurface geochemical dynamics. The coupled hydrologic-geochemical framework will support quantitative evaluation of whether already existing roadside environments can meet stormwater performance metrics and identify locations where built treatment facilities are actually necessary. 
The project will provide ODOT with quantitative decision-support framework for early-stage screening of roadside stormwater infiltration and treatment feasibility. The framework directly addresses the current uncertainty in determining when existing roadside soils and vegetative cover can meet stormwater performance requirements and when engineered treatment facilities are necessary. By enabling systematic identification of locations where existing soils provide sufficient infiltration and contaminant attenuation, this project may assist with (1) reducing unnecessary engineered stormwater treatment facilities that require construction costs, operational costs and long-term maintenance commitments, and (2) reducing the need to acquire additional ROW to install engineered facilities, minimizing both project delivery and O&M costs. Even if additional ROW may be needed to fit the natural areas for treatment, long-term operation and maintenance costs will likely be reduced.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Wed, 08 Jul 2026 17:25:51 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/2726138</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Statewide Multimodal Destination Access Methods and Demographic Analysis</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/2725639</link>
      <description><![CDATA[The Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) does not currently have a consistent, statewide method to evaluate destination access—whether people can reliably and affordably reach essential destinations such as employment, education, health care, and key services. While agency performance measures and analyses focus primarily on infrastructure conditions and system mobility, they do not answer whether investments are improving people’s ability to access what they need for daily life. Without a standardized destination access methodology, ODOT lacks a clear, data-driven basis for monitoring progress, understanding structural access gaps, or using access outcomes to inform investment decisions. 
OBJECTIVES: (1) Establish a standardized, agency-wide methodology for multimodal destination access analysis. ODOT currently performs destination access analysis on an ad hoc basis and does not have a consistent, documented method for statewide or cross-program use. This project will develop and test a unified approach that can be used across business lines for performance reporting, planning, and investment decision-making. (2) Integrate user profile analysis to identify which populations face transportation access gaps—and to what extent. This research will move beyond single-variable demographic assumptions and instead use data-informed definitions of at-risk populations to better understand who experiences structural access barriers and why. (3) Develop a tool for viewing destination accessibility metrics. The tool can be used to view accessibility by mode and destination type by region. The combination of transportation and land use data will enable planners to understand existing accessibility conditions and needs in specific areas.  This tool would be usable for the ODOT Capital Investment Plan (CIP), local transportation system plans, and other programs where access measures offer utility. 
This research fulfills a need for a destination access methodology that supports ODOT policy, planning, and prioritization. With the results of this research, ODOT will be able to answer critical questions about how the transportation system is serving residents. Access metrics can play a critical role in vehicle miles of travel (VMT) per capita and emissions reduction strategies by informing staff on which areas have feasible multimodal access. ]]></description>
      <pubDate>Wed, 08 Jul 2026 16:48:29 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/2725639</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Utilizing Public Perceptions to Inform Successful Roadside Vegetation Planning and Management</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/2725587</link>
      <description><![CDATA[Current roadside vegetation planning and management is informed by a robust set of technical guidelines and principles rooted in engineering and natural sciences. However, public-facing roadside landscapes are part of critical infrastructure networks experienced by millions of people daily, and those experiences may vary based on traffic intensity and roadway speeds. Existing research on public perception offers limited practical guidance, as studies are often fragmented, focusing on isolated variables (like a single plant type or driver behavior). These isolated studies do not directly address the needs of engineers, vegetation managers, and transportation planners as they lack the operations and logistics needs of managing roadside vegetation in the context of local site conditions
This project aims to address these deficits through three objectives. Objective 1 will assess the current state of public perceptions as it relates to roadside vegetation management practices and regulations with the academic and grey literature. The results from this objective will then be used to inform a statewide online survey of Minnesota residents (Objective 2) focused on key attributes of the vegetation itself (e.g. height, color), vegetation composition, broader ecological factors, and perceptions of aesthetics, psychological restoration, and safety. Finally, driven by the results of the two previous objectives, in Objective 3, Roadside Vegetation Profiles (RVPs) will be created as a decision support tool for engineers, vegetation managers, and transportation planners to select for and optimize various attributes that they wish to prioritize for a specific roadside context.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Wed, 08 Jul 2026 16:47:32 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/2725587</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Development of Methods to Produce High-Quality Household-Based VMT Dataset</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/2724823</link>
      <description><![CDATA[Household-based Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) is essential for Oregon Department of Transportation's (ODOT’s) strategic initiatives. Traditionally, ODOT has reported on-road VMT to the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) by monitoring traffic on public roads, but new planning and modeling requirements now emphasize household-based, light vehicle VMT—tracking passenger vehicle travel by Oregon residents, regardless of location. A variety of policy actions may have an impact on resident-generated VMT.  Accurate household-based VMT data is critical as ODOT implements new local and metropolitan reporting requirements, tracks VMT per capita as a Key Performance Target in the 2022 Oregon Transportation Plan, and reports vehicle type VMT to the legislature. Without this research, the agency lacks an empirical method for measuring household-based VMT.

The research will establish a framework for developing a high-quality household-based VMT measurements by integrating available empirical data and evaluating each dataset’s strengths and weaknesses for monitoring household-based.  This research will leverage Oregon’s 2023-2024 household travel survey, which collected 1- to 7-day travel diaries from 22,000 households—a rare opportunity, as such surveys occur only about every 13 years. Additional VMT data sources include DMV and DEQ odometer readings, which require evaluation for completeness, privacy, and accuracy; ODOT’s OreGO program, which provides high-quality VMT data but has limited participation and self-selection bias; and third-party data vendors, which have been used by other state DOTs but remain untested for accuracy in Oregon.  This research will assess the strengths and limitations of these data sources and develop a methodology for integrating reliable household-based VMT data. If critical flaws are identified, it will provide recommendations to improve VMT measurement through future data collection and administrative processes.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Wed, 08 Jul 2026 14:46:38 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/2724823</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Evaluation of Thick Lift Surface Asphalt Pavement Mixtures</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/2721743</link>
      <description><![CDATA[When paving asphalt mixtures in a deep patching and rehabilitation application the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) currently limits lift thickness to approximately three to four times the nominal maximum aggregate size (NMAS) of the mixture (VDOT, 2018). For a typical asphalt surface mixture having an NMAS of 9.5 mm, the practice generally limits lift thickness to approximately 1.5 inches. Where deeper distresses must be repaired multiple lifts will be required which increases construction time, prolongs traffic disruption, and introduces additional interfaces between lifts that may affect construction efficiency and field performance.

Therefore, there is a need to evaluate whether asphalt surface mixtures can be placed in a single thick lift without compromising construction quality or long term performance. The study addresses this need by investigating 1) the performance of a 9.5 mm NMAS asphalt mixture in a single 4 inch lift and (2) evaluating the performance of that layer using a combination of laboratory testing, controlled construction, and accelerated pavement testing to assess compaction behavior, material properties, and structural performance.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Thu, 02 Jul 2026 10:54:08 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/2721743</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>2026 Employee Survey 
</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/2719330</link>
      <description><![CDATA[The primary objectives are assist with the review and update of 2026 employee survey, review and select methods of survey implementation, conduct survey, analyze the survey results, assist in presentation of survey results to Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) Division and District Offices, and develop executive summaries and survey findings reports.
]]></description>
      <pubDate>Thu, 25 Jun 2026 13:01:39 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/2719330</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Building a Sustainable Workforce: Enhancing Employee Retention at GDOT
</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/2719324</link>
      <description><![CDATA[
This research project aims to improve employee retention, particularly Transportation Engineers and Transportation Specialists. By identifying and analyzing current practices alongside employee experiences and expectations, it will offer evidence-based insights to inform decision-makers, including the Office of HR.
]]></description>
      <pubDate>Thu, 25 Jun 2026 11:39:07 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/2719324</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Roadmap for Transportation Systems Digital Infrastructure
</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/2719308</link>
      <description><![CDATA[This research is a roadmap for innovative application of Georgia Department of Transportation's (GDOT's) digital information assets in support of developing the digital transportation infrastructure.
]]></description>
      <pubDate>Thu, 25 Jun 2026 09:34:49 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/2719308</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>SPR 783 Contractor Performance Evaluation 2.0</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/2719304</link>
      <description><![CDATA[This project aims to develop a data-driven Contractor Performance Evaluation System 2.0 (CPES 2.0) for the South Carolina Department of Transportation (SCDOT) to support performance-based contractor prequalification. Building on existing methodologies and incorporating lessons from peer agencies, the research will focus on improving fairness, accuracy, and adaptability to evolving project delivery methods.
The primary objectives are: (1) Review and analyze current SCDOT contractor evaluation processes and data sources to identify strengths, gaps, and improvement opportunities.
(2) Benchmark contractor performance evaluation systems used by other state DOTs to identify effective practices, especially those accommodating alternative delivery methods and project complexities. (3) Develop a comprehensive evaluation framework with data-driven scoring algorithms that ensure fairness, consistency, regulatory compliance, and adaptability across project types and delivery methods. (4) Develop revised Resident Construction Engineer and contractor questionnaires to support enhanced data collection and evaluation accuracy.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Thu, 25 Jun 2026 08:59:52 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/2719304</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>SPR 782 Improving Worker Safety in Work Zones with Effective Proximity Sensing Technology</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/2719302</link>
      <description><![CDATA[The project will synthesize SWZ technologies and analyze their benefits and challenges —specifically focusing on intrusion alert and motorist alert systems—based on their use by other highway agencies and the construction industry. These findings will then be tailored to fit the needs of the South Carolina Department of Transportation's (SCDOT’s) internal and contract workforce. To meet the research goals, the team will focus on three key objectives: (1) Investigate various intrusion alert technologies to identify those best suited for highway worker safety, motorist alert systems effective in work zones, and solutions that can reduce unsafe driving behaviors in South Carolina. (2) Assess at least three intrusion alert and three motorist alert technologies for suitability to the SCDOT, evaluating their capabilities, feasibility, and providing cost estimates for initial implementation and life cycle comparisons against current practices.
(3) Evaluate compliance by workers in using these technologies and assess motorist response and behavioral changes prompted by driver-facing alert devices.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Thu, 25 Jun 2026 08:57:43 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/2719302</guid>
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