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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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      <title>Research in Progress (RIP)</title>
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      <title>Select High Risk Pedestrian Midblock Crossings and Perform Safety Evaluations for Developing Pedestrian Crossings Countermeasures</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/2255825</link>
      <description><![CDATA[In 2018, there were 6,227 pedestrian fatalities in the United States. Of those, 4,612 (74%) occurred outside of intersections, including midblock locations. This means that nearly 3 out of every 4 pedestrian deaths in the U.S. occur at midblock locations. Midblock pedestrian crashes are often more severe than crashes that occur at intersections. This is because drivers are not expecting pedestrians to cross at midblock locations, and they may not be paying as close attention. San Antonio, Houston, and Dallas have historically had the highest number of pedestrian crashes annually; consequently, there is a need to identify the high-risk locations within these cities and their optimal countermeasures. Several pedestrian midblock treatments can be implemented to improve pedestrian safety; however, there is a need to better understand the safety effects of some of the more promising treatments on pedestrian crashes in Texas. There is a need to develop crash modification factors (CMFs) specific to Texas for appropriate types of treatments at midblock crossings to guide the development of countermeasures. The goal of this research is to develop a system for Texas Department of Transportation districts to help identify high-risk pedestrian midblock crossings and select the most effective treatments for them. The project tasks include an information search on midblock pedestrian crossing safety, the collection and analysis of safety and operational data, the identification of high-risk locations for occurrence of midblock crossings and appropriate treatments, the development of crash modification factors for midblock crossings, including benefit-cost ratios.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Wed, 27 Sep 2023 15:11:50 GMT</pubDate>
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      <title>Urban Transportation Infrastructure and Cyclist and Pedestrian Safety</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/1751172</link>
      <description><![CDATA[The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has designated eight cities in Region 6 as Bicycle and Pedestrian Safety Focus Cities to highlight the need for improved safety for the most vulnerable road users in these cities. Moreover, FHWA’s Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP) safety performance measures call for state and regional targets to help minimize highway fatalities and injuries, including those involving pedestrian and cyclists. The purpose of this research is to compile crash and operational data and perform a comprehensive assessment of the risk factors and root causes of crashes involving pedestrians and bicycles in the city of San Antonio, prioritize the risk factors, identify hot spot corridors, identify and evaluate safety countermeasures, and recommend the most effective, low-cost safety countermeasures. The analysis will include review of crash narratives and diagrams, and pedestrians, bicyclists, and motorists movements and actions prior to a crash, as well as the common environment characteristics that contribute to unsafe actions and conditions. This information can be used to develop educational programs needed to prevent such crashes. The countermeasures to be developed will address regional and state targets to reduce deaths and injuries, and to achieve the FHWA goal to reach zero deaths within the next two decades. In order to provide an efficient and quick solution to the problem, the research team aims to carry out the tasks outlined below: 1. The research team will first undertake a thorough review of the available literature. Available past research and reports of a related nature, from Texas, Region 6, across the nation, and internationally, will be reviewed. Some of these resources will be listed and individually described elsewhere in this proposal. A major focus of the research team will be identification and prioritizing of risk factors associated with crashes involving bicyclists and pedestrians and the effectiveness of engineering/educational countermeasures to improve safety. 2. The research team will download operational and safety data from sources such as Crash Records Information System (CRIS), the Fatality Analysis and Reporting System (FARS), which has far more specialized detail on bicyclist and pedestrian crashes, Texas Department of State Health Services records, and crash narratives as well as site visits. 3. The research team will use data mining to examine spatio-temporal indicators that may reveal information about the correlation between crash numbers and traffic volumes, common characteristics of the built environment that contribute to unsafe actions and conditions, and other factors. This will include development of methods to trace locations of individual bicyclist/pedestrian crashes through time and examine the impacts of safety countermeasures. 4. The research team will use different data collection techniques to understand road user’s behavior and review crash narratives and diagrams. These observations will not only be helpful in the analysis of risk factors, but also provide a framework that guides decision-making throughout the entire process, from identifying a problem to implementing a countermeasure. 5. The research team will provide accurate information on the expected benefits of engineering and educational countermeasures in terms of crash rate reductions, as well as the costs of the countermeasures and how long they are expected to provide a benefit. The research team will provide a technical brief to the city officials and an educational presentation targeting affected road users and communities.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Wed, 11 Nov 2020 09:20:47 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/1751172</guid>
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      <title>Assessing the Impacts of Super Storm Flooding in the Transportation Infrastructure - Case Study: San Antonio, Texas</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/1505470</link>
      <description><![CDATA[Data from governmental agencies shows a clear exponential growth in damages and costs due to extreme weather events in the U.S. Most critical infrastructure built in urban areas, including that for transportation and flood protection are designed to handle a design storm with a 1% probability of occurrence in one year or 100 years of return period. Superstorms are defined here as rainfall storm events with return periods higher than 100 years and have occurred lately in the U.S. In the absence of new hydrologic and hydraulic modeling frameworks as well as educational opportunities for the current and future generation of engineers, the impacts of super storms will only increase negatively affecting critical infrastructure, the economy, the environment and communities. Hence, the main goal of this project is to develop and apply a computational framework capable of predicting the impacts of super storms in the transportation infrastructure and evaluating flood protection strategies that alleviate some of the impacts in highly populated urban areas. The case study is the City of San Antonio, TX, which lays within a flood-prone region in Texas referred as the Flash Flood Alley. ]]></description>
      <pubDate>Wed, 21 Mar 2018 21:44:51 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/1505470</guid>
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      <title>Creating Neighborhood Walkability Metrics that Represent the Needs of Older People: Developing Appropriate Infrastructure and Policy Interventions 
</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/1489170</link>
      <description><![CDATA[The proposed research has three overarching goals; to: 1) synthesize the most useful and powerful metrics in multiple walkability indices that directly address the needs and perceptions of older people; 2) develop a typology of shortened but more focused and powerful walkability metrics that allow planners and communities to effectively identify the barriers that actual impede walkability in a significant ways, and, 3) link the metrics to specific infrastructure and policy alternatives known to directly address or target the barriers identified. The major focus of the work is on distilling the significant and meaningful walkability metrics and indices of direct relevance to older people from a large and unwieldy body of scholarly and professional literature AND to assess what is actually known about infrastructure and policy improvements that target the problems or gaps or barriers that the metrics identify. A key piece of the research involves conducting multiple focus groups with diverse older people in the greater Austin – San Antonio region to understand to which elements they give priority. The research will then link the most crucial metrics of the physical and social environment to specific policy and infrastructure improvements; where there is not enough knowledge to suggest intervention, the research will identify potential options and explain what is known about the situations where they might be effective and how they work to increase both actual and perceived walkability among older residents.
]]></description>
      <pubDate>Fri, 17 Nov 2017 16:44:02 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/1489170</guid>
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