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    <title>Research in Progress (RIP)</title>
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    <copyright>Copyright © 2026. National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.</copyright>
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    <managingEditor>tris-trb@nas.edu (Bill McLeod)</managingEditor>
    <webMaster>tris-trb@nas.edu (Bill McLeod)</webMaster>
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    <item>
      <title>Crime Prevention through Environmental Design (CPTED) for Public Transit Stations: Year 2</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/2446989</link>
      <description><![CDATA[This project continues exploring Crime Prevention through Environmental Design (CPTED) principles in public transit stations to enhance community safety. Through site assessments in Wilmington, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, the study identifies and addresses gaps in CPTED implementation at vulnerable transit locations. The project aims to catalog existing CPTED practices, evaluate additional transit stations, and develop actionable recommendations to reduce crime risk and improve station accessibility, fostering safer, community-centered transit environments that encourage transit use.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Wed, 30 Oct 2024 14:33:26 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/2446989</guid>
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      <title>Digital Twin for Driving as Planning Support Tool</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/2440022</link>
      <description><![CDATA[Digital tools for mapping are now an integral tool for navigation. Waze, Google maps have leveraged Satellite and Google Street imagery which allow us to have an accurate representation of any set of Global Positioning System (GPS) coordinates. This technology evolved just a couple of months ago with the release in May 2023 of dynamic models of the Earth. Companies like Cesium, a Google backed up startup based in Philadelphia is offering Unity and Unreal models of the Earth, with an Application Programming Interface (API) that can be leveraged for any dynamic Geospatial application. While a number of drone applications have been developed, no solid test has been developed for a driving application.
This proposal continues a project with Jitsik LLC, a small startup in Mixed Reality, testing the Unity and Unreal API of the Earth to create Virtual Reality models and extends the work for application as a planning support tool. The research team proposes to continue to focus on Roosevelt Blvd in Philadelphia, which has already been the subject of academic research (Dr.Guerra) and is at the center of ongoing advocacy work by Dr. Guerra’s PhD student Jay Arzu to redesign the Boulevard to improve safety and accommodate high-capacity transit infrastructure. The main idea is to develop drivable virtual models of existing conditions, as well as proposed infrastructural changes, such as lane removals, an elevated train, and exclusive bus only lanes. This environment will support the Environmental Impact Review process as state agencies develop locally preferred investment priorities and design alternatives to share with the public.
The research team will also work with the City of Philadelphia to identify and install cameras on roadway segments that will receive speed camera enforcement based on new legislation. The team will develop digital twins for selected roadway corridors and control segments. The team will also collect camera data from before and after camera enforcement to examine how speed cameras affect driver behavior and use these data to simulate driver behavior for their digital twin simulator.
By developing and interactive model, the team hopes to help residents better understand the implications of public policies, such as speed cameras and roadway redesigns, and democratize the review process, which currently often requires a basic understanding of plan views, sections, and other technical drawings for full citizen interaction.

Please note that this project is a continuation of a year one project and includes the same partners.
]]></description>
      <pubDate>Sun, 13 Oct 2024 09:30:31 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/2440022</guid>
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      <title>Digital Twin for Driving</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/2292658</link>
      <description><![CDATA[Digital tools for mapping are now an integral tool for navigation. Waze, Google maps have leveraged Satellite and Google Street imagery which allow us to have an accurate representation of any set of Global Positioning System (GPS) coordinates. This technology evolved just a couple of months ago with the release in May 2023 of dynamic models of the Earth. Companies like Cesium, a Google backed up startup based in Philadelphia is offering Unity and Unreal models of the Earth, with an Application Programming Interface (API) that can be leveraged for any dynamic Geospatial application. While a number of drone applications have been developed, no solid test has been developed for a driving application. The research team proposes with this project to test the Unity and Unreal API of the Earth to assess the drivability of these Virtual Reality models. The team will partner with Jitsik LLC, a small startup in Mixed Reality who has been paving the way in this direction. Jitsik recently established a proof of concept for driving, by integrating two scenarios taken from Google Earth. The first scenario is a mountainous road just outside Denver, Colorado. The second scenario is a downtown neighborhood of Denver, Colorado. These proofs of concept were quite successful in the sense that they were easy to deploy, with very little coding. On the downside, the simulated Denver downtown neighborhood offered a rough terrain. It is indeed the result of imperfections from the satellite imagery.  The team proposes with this project to explore the drivability of this Unity/Unreal Earth API. The team proposes to target the Roosevelt Blvd in Philadelphia, which has already been the subject of academic research (Erick Guerra). The Roosevelt Blvd lies in an urban area, but often feels like a highway. The team proposes to leverage the Digital Twin of the Roosevelt Blvd and develop filtering techniques to remove existing traffic, smooth the road. Once the environment has been cleaned up, the team will add Virtual Traffic lights and stops to make the scenario ready for a Human Subject Research Project. The team anticipates some techniques developed through this research project will become part of a toolkit that can be applied to any neighborhood in the world to create a Digital Twin of that neighborhood. This project is a collaboration between the University of Pennsylvania Engineering Department and Jitsik LLC, a startup in Mixed Reality, led by Dr. Helen Loeb. Helen has been working in driving simulation for over a decade.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Tue, 21 Nov 2023 20:10:23 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/2292658</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Evaluating the effectiveness of urban speed cameras on traffic safety in a period of dramatic change</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/2292641</link>
      <description><![CDATA[Speed cameras were installed along segments of Roosevelt Boulevard in June 2020. Two years earlier, the Pennsylvania legislature had approved the camera installation in light of high fatality rates and requests from City officials. In the previous 5 years, the Boulevard had accounted for 14% of the City of Philadelphia’s total traffic fatalities. The twelve-lane at grade highway frequently makes lists of the most dangerous intersections and roadways in the country, a particularly egregious statistics since Philadelphia has only about half the national traffic fatality rate. Just three months earlier, Covid-19-related shutdowns dramatically influenced the geography of travel and traffic safety. Collision rates and traffic fatalities skyrocketed throughout the city, likely a result of a combination of decreased congestion, increased drunk driving, and decreased traffic enforcement in the wake of protests against the murder of George Floyd and for police reform. This project examines the effectiveness of the Roosevelt Boulevard using a differences-in-differences approach with a Bayesian Poisson and Negative Binomial models. Selection of control segments will be of utmost importance given the dramatic changes in crashes and fatalities over the period of study. Findings will help inform whether to continue the Boulevard speed camera program, increase the use of speed cameras throughout the state, and potentially liberalize state laws that prevent municipalities from deploying automated speed enforcement without state legislation. Partners include the City of Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Parking Authority, and the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT).]]></description>
      <pubDate>Mon, 20 Nov 2023 19:38:23 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/2292641</guid>
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    <item>
      <title>Crime Prevention through Environmental Design (CPTED) for Public Transit Stations</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/2250687</link>
      <description><![CDATA[Crime Prevention through Environmental Design (CPTED) uses design principles to engineer safer spaces through management of both built and natural environmental features. CPTED principles aim to reduce chances and fear of criminal activity through design of spaces that both deter criminal activity and build community. Vacant lots, poor lighting, uncontrolled access, and lack of monitoring can be ameliorated to design spaces in which people feel – and are – safer. CPTED is multi-disciplinary in nature and has evolved from analysis of spaces, to include social relations and overall livability of areas. Public transportation can be an attractor of crime, and safety is cited as one barrier to public transportation. This project will examine CPTED practices in place in state DOTs and local transit agencies serving Wilmington, Delaware, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Baltimore, Maryland. As part of the project, the research team will catalog CPTED practices already in use, even if outside of a comprehensive CPTED framework. The team will develop a CPTED checklist for rail and bus stations based on existing literature and analyze CPTED features in place at transit stops/stations in high and low crime areas of cities chosen in consultation with state and local stakeholders. The work will be accomplished through site visits, interviews with state DOT staff and local transportation agencies, and review of transportation station design standards. Based on findings, the team will develop a set of practices and priorities for integrating CPTED into transit station design to fill gaps identified through the study. 

]]></description>
      <pubDate>Thu, 21 Sep 2023 13:13:01 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/2250687</guid>
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    <item>
      <title>Transit Dependents, Choice Riders, and Service Criticality: An Analysis of the Determinants of Bus Ridership in the Philadelphia Region</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/1758050</link>
      <description><![CDATA[This project will develop and test an empirically based theory of transit-dependency using a predictive model of transit mode choice in the Philadelphia region. We will also examine station-level shifts in transit use in response to the Covid-19 outbreak in the Philadelphia region and how these correspond with the distribution of transit dependents throughout the region.   Transit dependents are sometimes crudely defined in opposition to choice riders who generally have access to a private car but choose transit, generally commuter rail or subway, instead of driving. However, lower-income riders who rely on buses to accomplish their day-to-day travel needs and are sometimes classified as transit dependents may be among the transit users who are closest to choosing between transit and an alternative mode, particularly private cars. Small increases in earnings or changes in transit service quality may therefore have the biggest influence for transit users who are sometimes viewed or described as captive. Understanding who is most likely to respond to shifts in service quality and where they live is an essential part of understanding how service improvements and deteriorations are likely to impact public transit ridership. Findings may also provide insight into factors that may have contributed to overall reductions in transit ridership over the past decade.   Examining the neighborhood factors associated with higher or lower declines in ridership since the Covid-19 outbreak will provide additional insights into where transit service is most critical and how well service-criticality overlaps with areas where residents are most and least likely to respond to changes in service quality more generally.    In addition to contributing to the general literature on the determinants of bus ridership and theories of transit dependency, the analysis may provide evidence on the types and locations of neighborhoods that are most likely to increase or decrease transit use in response to service changes from a planned bus network redesign.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Wed, 16 Dec 2020 14:35:31 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/1758050</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Reidentifying Race and Technology: Streetcars in Nineteenth Century Philadelphia</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/1232750</link>
      <description><![CDATA[Discussing Philadelphia's streetcar system with the city council in 1859, Mayor Alexander Henry proclaimed that, "Perhaps no public improvement has ever promised more general benefit to the community." But Mayor Henry did not consider Philadelphia's black residents when he made this statement. Since the city's railway companies barred black people from traveling in the streetcars, the "general benefit" created by streetcars was for the city's white residents. For many of the people watching Philadelphia industrialize in the mid-nineteenth century, the streetcar system represented more than simply a public improvement, it was a symbol of the city's progress. These horse drawn cars that smoothly traveled along iron rails laid down the middle of Philadelphia's streets helped fashion Philadelphia's new identity as a modern industrial city. Being industrial meant creating a built environment that appeared to be part of a modern, technical, and forward-looking culture. Philadelphia's emergence as a progressive industrial city coincided with a reorganization of race relations in the city. A large population of free African Americans, and an increasing number of Irish immigrants attempted to use industrial changes in Philadelphia, such as the development of the streetcar system, as a way to improve their social status. The streetcar system became a focal point in this reorganization of race relations when whites tried to define the new transportation system as a symbol of racial superiority and excluded black people from riding in the cars. Irish immigrants, who often worked as conductors, vigilantly enforced the exclusion of Black riders as a way of aligning themselves with native born whites. African Americans recognized that to be participants in modern industrial society they needed equal access to industrial technologies like the streetcar. Black residents of Philadelphia protested this racializing of the streetcar and the discriminatory practices of streetcar companies by illegally riding in the cars, creating a public dialog about the legitimacy of racial discrimination, and using the courts to confront policies that legalized racial inequality on the streetcars. Between 1859 and 1867 these struggles against the railway companies gradually made headway. Finally, in response to these protests, the state of Pennsylvania passed a law that forced the street railway companies to accept all passengers. This paper will make two scholarly contributions. First, this paper will connect race and technology. Historians of technology have only rarely thought about technology in terms of race. Almost none of the histories of race and technology consider the racial meanings of technology. This paper will explicitly link race and technology by showing how black, white, and Irish groups struggled over the racial significance of the streetcar as a way of creating new hierarchies in the mid-nineteenth century. Second, this paper will explain that when cities undergo technological transformations, as Philadelphia did in the nineteenth century when it industrialized, groups of people have opportunities to reinvent their identities via new technologies and reposition themselves socially. This point is germane not only to nineteenth-century Philadelphia, but also to many US cities today that are shedding identities as industrial cities and reinventing themselves as service oriented cities. Planners and engineers currently reshaping urban geographies across the US need to consider that the technologies they employ will have social implications beyond the obvious practical uses of the technology.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Thu, 03 Jan 2013 14:44:08 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/1232750</guid>
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    <item>
      <title>Developing Delaware's Agenda in Transportation within the Northeast Corridor</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/1232677</link>
      <description><![CDATA[While the Northeast transportation corridor is a key economic driver in the national economy, its resiliency depends on its ability to respond to multimodal transportation pressures and issues. Although considerable scholarly research and dialogue regarding challenges facing the Northeast transportation corridor, there is an unmet need to identify, understand, and better aggregate data on specific issues impacting the area between Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Baltimore, Maryland. Delaware's agenda within the Northeast transportation corridor needs to be developed to understand potential threats and opportunities, which may impact or enhance the resiliency of multimodal transportation systems within this region. The purpose of this project is to advance multimodal transportation planning to (1) frame the transportation issues impacting Philadelphia-Baltimore area, (2) foster an integration of ideas and cooperation among multi- and inter-jurisdictional transportation stakeholders, and (3) develop Delaware's transportation agenda with respect to the Northeast corridor. To accomplish this, the research approach will consist of an analysis of perspectives of regional transportation stakeholders for various modes in the Philadelphia-Baltimore area, a review of literature specific to Northeast corridor transportation studies within the Philadelphia-Baltimore area, a preliminary analysis of the literature review, and plan and execute a briefing workshop to bring together/engage regional transportation agencies and stakeholders to discuss Delaware's transportation agenda targeted to the Northeast corridor. The preliminary analysis will be distributed via an online, downloadable format to select transportation stakeholders. A working paper will be prepared to incorporate input from stakeholders at the briefing workshop.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Thu, 03 Jan 2013 14:42:45 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/1232677</guid>
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    <item>
      <title>Fatigue Resistance of Rib to Deck Welds in Steel Orthotropic Decks</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/1230551</link>
      <description><![CDATA[This research project will develop welding procedures for fabrication of steel orthotropic bridge decks.  The project will focus on the quantifying the variables affecting the fatigue resistance of rib-to-deck welds. Originally the project was to evaluate the Hybrid Laser Arc Welding (HLAW) process for re-decking the Walt Whitman Bridge in Philadelphia, but project did not get results quickly enough and the scope was expanded to also include conventionally used steel fabrication welding processes.  The project is now evaluating the fatigue resistance of rib-to-deck welds made using HLAW, SAW, and GMAW welding processes at various weld penetrations of fillet, 20%, 40%, 60%, 80% and 100% weld penetration.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Thu, 03 Jan 2013 14:02:02 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/1230551</guid>
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