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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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    <item>
      <title>Applicability of Low-Floor Light Rail Vehicles in North America </title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/2516244</link>
      <description><![CDATA[An investigation of the state of the art of low-floor light rail vehicles and an assessment of the applicability of their use in North America are presented. Low-floor light rail vehicle categories are developed to facilitate the understanding of the different types of vehicles and their applications. The growing trend toward low-floor light rail vehicles and the reasons for this growth are described. An extensive compilation of data on low-floor light rail vehicles, information on North American light rail system characteristics, and an analytical perspective on key issues relevant to the applicability of this technology in North America are provided. In addition, example applications are presented that demonstrate the cost-effectiveness of using low-floor light rail vehicles, the sources of risk, and the trade-offs regarding the use of low-floor versus high-floor light rail vehicles.   In Europe, significant progress is being made on the development and deployment of low-floor light rail vehicles. Interest in low-floor light rail vehicles in the United States began in the 1960s, but gained support more recently because of the need to be responsive to regulations implementing the Americans with Disabilities Act. Moreover, transit operators have come to recognize that improved system-performance benefits can potentially be achieved under certain conditions by using low-floor design concepts. For example, reduced boarding times mean faster service and shorter trip times for all passengers. This enables transit operators to use equipment more efficiently, thereby potentially reducing operating, maintenance, and capital costs.  Research was undertaken by Booz-Allen & Hamilton Inc. to assess the potential applicability of low-floor light rail vehicle technology in North America. A comprehensive review of existing information on the state of the art in low-floor light rail vehicles was conducted. As part of this process, transit agencies using and considering low-floor light rail vehicles and the suppliers of these vehicles were contacted to obtain information and operating experience on vehicles both in revenue service and in research and development. The research focused heavily on current European experience with low-floor light rail vehicle technology. Upon collecting this information, a framework for assessing the application of low-floor light rail vehicles in North America was developed focusing on the critical factors that should be considered. ]]></description>
      <pubDate>Tue, 25 Feb 2025 14:55:33 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/2516244</guid>
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      <title>	Guardrail Height Safety Requirements Given Recent Crash History and Evolution of Vehicle Design</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/2512572</link>
      <description><![CDATA[The purpose of this project is to evaluate the adequacy of the current 
Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) guardrail height standard in response to recent changes in vehicle design. Through a comprehensive analysis of crash data and guardrail failures or breaches in sections with both 27¾-inch and 31-inch guardrail heights, the study aims to assess the effectiveness of the 31-inch height standard in preventing vehicle breaches and providing adequate protection for occupants and other road users. This project will address the performance and suitability of the current guardrail height standard, ensuring it aligns with the evolving dynamics of modern vehicle impacts.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:48:59 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/2512572</guid>
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    <item>
      <title>How Much Pedestrian Harm Can We Attribute to Larger Vehicles in the Fleet?</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/2229412</link>
      <description><![CDATA[This study will explore pedestrian injury outcomes in traffic collisions and the kinetic energy transfer from vehicles, contingent upon impact speed and weight. While research has shown that higher vehicle speed and size amplify the risk of fatal pedestrian injuries, limited attention has been given to the combined effect of vehicle design and speed on pedestrian fatalities. Although speculation links the increasing pedestrian fatalities in the United States to the growth of a vehicle fleet dominated by larger and heavier modes, particularly Sport Utility Vehicles (SUVs), this hypothesis diverges. The research team proposes that at higher speeds, the significance of vehicle size diminishes in causing lethal pedestrian accidents. This claim is supported by the kinetic energy transfer expression where speed is raised to the second power, thus overshadowing the role of vehicle weight. However, lower-speed pedestrian crashes might involve different dynamics, particularly in neighborhoods and parking lots. Collisions with SUVs could elevate the chances of fatality not only due to excessive size but also due to potential chest or abdomen impacts followed by running over, owing to their higher hoods and larger forward blind spots compared to sedans. Consequently, differentiating the thresholds for speed and vehicle size as determinants of pedestrian injury severity becomes difficult, with each scenario demanding distinct countermeasures. Additionally, with the introduction of safety technologies such as pedestrian detection and emergency braking and increasing the trend towards vehicle electrification and automation leading to greater vehicle weight, understanding the extent of change in pedestrian injury risk is imperative. By employing econometric models, this study will utilize pedestrian crash and Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) data from California and Tennessee to investigate relationships among vehicle attributes, such as weight, speed, hood height, and safety features. For a more comprehensive understanding of these relationships, the study would also explore simulation techniques to model pedestrian-vehicle interaction during crashes involving different vehicle types, including SUVs and passenger cars.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Thu, 17 Aug 2023 16:58:06 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/2229412</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Bus of the Future Compartment Redesign</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/2093180</link>
      <description><![CDATA[The International Transportation Learning Center based in Silver Spring, Maryland, will receive funding to redesign a transit bus compartment to improve safety for drivers. By designing a barrier, the compartment will minimize operator assaults and maintain positive passenger interactions through mirrors and lighting]]></description>
      <pubDate>Tue, 03 Jan 2023 13:53:39 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/2093180</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Demonstration and Commercialization of LRV Bumper for Enhanced Safety in Shared Right-of-Way Street Environments</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/2071588</link>
      <description><![CDATA[This project aims to develop, test and demonstrate a front-end bumper design for light rail vehicles to improve safety, reduce injuries and minimize impact of collisions with automobiles, pedestrians and cyclists.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Mon, 28 Nov 2022 14:20:16 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/2071588</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Additional Considerations for Making ADS Vehicles Accessible for All Road Users</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/2062795</link>
      <description><![CDATA[The current vulnerable road users and accessibility study has identified an extensive set of research needs, use cases, and design elements as part of the User Needs Analysis, all of are needed in order to create more complete and comprehensive  design guidance for accessible autonomous vehicles (AVs).  Only a subset of these needs are being addressed in the current study.  This new project would add to the current Accessibility and Vulnerable Road Users effort by prioritizing the research needs not being worked on in the current effort, and conduct additional research on those prioritized needs to fill in key gaps towards a more complete set of design guidance recommendations. The data generated from these studies will help guide US DOT's policies on universal design need in ADS vehicles, as well as potential communication strategies for ADS vehicles to other road users.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Thu, 17 Nov 2022 11:56:34 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/2062795</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Applying the Safe System Approach to Transportation Planning, Design, and Operations in the United States



</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/1842750</link>
      <description><![CDATA[NCHRP Research Report 1135 presents a guide for applying the Safe System Approach among state departments of transportation (DOTs) and other transportation agencies. Based on extensive stakeholder outreach including practitioner focus groups, the guide covers six domains of practice in transportation safety, which users can draw from based on their organizational interests, competencies, and safety-oriented goals. The guide should be of particular use to state DOTs and any other transportation agency seeking to provide resources for transportation planners, designers, and operations managers to implement Safe System principles and make the systems under their jurisdictions safer. 

The Safe System Approach is a holistic approach that provides a framework for making the national transportation system safer. A Safe System is based on building and reinforcing multiple layers of protection to prevent crashes from happening and minimize the harm caused when crashes occur. This approach differs from conventional safety approaches, since it focuses on human vulnerability and designs a system with many redundancies to protect all transportation users. Despite increased interest in Safe System, few guidelines exist for transportation planners, designers, and operations managers for implementing a Safe System. For Safe System to be fully implemented, it must address not only infrastructure design but also vehicle design, policies and law, recognition of share safety responsibility, road user behavior, and public culture, all of which will require some degree of change. Research was needed to begin providing resources for transportation planners, designers, and operations managers to consult during safety problem identification, project development, and countermeasure selection. 

Under NCHRP Project 17-101, “Applying the Safe System Approach to Transportation Planning, Design, and Operations in the United States,” the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill was asked to develop materials that would enable a range of professionals and organizations to adopt and implement the Safe System Approach in their work. Using extensive outreach to a variety of safety stakeholders, the research team identified strategies, practices, and policies for implementing the Safe System Approach in the United States then modularized them using six domains of practice integral to implementation.  The resultant guide provides safety teams with the foregoing resources and a Safe System Strategy Implementation Self-Assessment designed to offer insight into teams’ progress in implementing Safe System-aligned strategies across domains of practice. 

In addition to NCHRP Research Report 1135, the following deliverables can be found on the National Academies Press website (nap.nationalacademies.org) by searching for NCHRP Research Report 1135. (1) A Conduct of research report summarizing the entire effort, available as NCHRP Web-Only Document 413, Project Summary Report: Applying the Safe System Approach to Transportation Planning, Design, and Operations in the United States. (2) A plan that identifies mechanisms and channels for communicating and implementing this research. (3) A PowerPoint presentation introducing NCHRP Research Report 1135.

]]></description>
      <pubDate>Wed, 24 Mar 2021 10:40:55 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/1842750</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Bus Operator Barrier Design</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/1709365</link>
      <description><![CDATA[The installation of driver barriers in transit buses can help to reduce the risk of assault. Assaults against transit workers pose a serious threat on many levels by threatening the physical safety and emotional well-being of transit workers, endangering passengers, and lowering employee morale. The emotional effects of assault can deter transit employees from returning to work and passengers from using transit, impacting both schedule and revenue.

The objective of this research is to give public transportation agencies practical guidance on designing, procuring, and installing bus operator barriers. ]]></description>
      <pubDate>Tue, 02 Jun 2020 10:52:22 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/1709365</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Hydraulic Inspection Vehicle Explorer (HIVE) Culvert Upgrade</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/1663537</link>
      <description><![CDATA[Currently VTrans owns 47,873 small culverts. The failure of culverts can lead to roadway closures and severe traffic disturbances. Therefore, performing accurate and timely culvert inspection is critical for asset management. Commercial video inspection equipment is costly and not suitable for large numbers of culvert inspections. In 2018, VTrans asset management team designed and built a Hydraulic Inspection Vehicle Explorer (HIVE) based on a Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) design [Griffin 2019, Coughlin 2016]. In this project, the research team proposes to collaborate with VTrans engineers to design a HIVE V2.0 robot to improve its sensing performance and functionality. Specifically, the team will focus on several aspects: (1) Improving the wireless communication reliability. To extend the communication distance, the team proposes to add repeater devices in the system that can serve as the relay between HIVE and the external operator. (2) Mechanical design to improve HIVE moving capabilities. Techniques under considerations: a) To design continuous track or large wheels to improve the barrier passing capability; b) To design small boat as the carrier for carrying HIVE in water pipes. (3) Considering attaching light weight wire, i.e. fishing line to HIVE. If HIVE gets stuck, the team may be able to drag it out. Whereas the team also needs to consider the design carefully so that the wire will not get stuck. (4) To explore HIVE 2.0 for inspecting pipes in closed system (between DIs). The mechanical structure will be designed so that the robot can be lowered and retrieved, and communication can be maintained between the robot and the operator.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Mon, 04 Nov 2019 10:19:43 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/1663537</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Computer Aided Design for Safe Autonomous Vehicles</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/1636492</link>
      <description><![CDATA[This project focuses on establishing a systematic set of testing benchmarks to ensure the safety of an autonomous vehicle given its perception, planning and control systems. We will design an autonomous vehicle computer-aided design (CAD) toolchain, which captures formal descriptions of driving scenarios in order to develop a safety case for an autonomous vehicle (AV). Rather than focus on a particular component of the AV, like adaptive cruise control, the toolchain models the end-to-end dynamics of the AV in a formal way suitable for testing and verification.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Thu, 11 Jul 2019 15:18:37 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/1636492</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>F1/10 Autonomous Racing Course and Competition</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/1636493</link>
      <description><![CDATA[The course focuses on creating a meaningful and challenging design experience for graduate and senior undergraduate electrical engineering, computer science, mechanical engineering, robotics and embedded systems students. The course involves designing, building and testing an autonomous 1/10-scale model F-1 racecar (with 10 times the fun!) using the NVIDIA Jetson platform for real-time perception, control and planning. In addition to providing read-to-use material as a Teaching Kit, the course will introduce an autonomous racing competition in conferences at Embedded Systems Week 2016 and Cyber-Physical Systems Week with challenges testing speed, agility and tracking performance of the on-board vision and control algorithms.  Modern robots tend to operate at slow speeds when in complex environments, limiting their utility in high-tempo applications. In this course, students will be tasked with pushing the boundaries of unmanned vehicle speed, decision control and response to fast changes in the environment. Students will work in teams to develop autonomy software to race a converted 1/10 scale RC car equipped with sensors and embedded processing around a large-scale, “real- world” F-1 course. The project team's goal is to teach embedded GPGPU programming in a fun context of high-speed autonomous racing but with serious constraints of real-time processing, challenging controls and fast robot planning on the NVIDIA Jetson TK1 and TX1 platforms.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Thu, 11 Jul 2019 14:51:41 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/1636493</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Update of the Policy on Geometric Design of Highways and Streets Guidance on Acceleration/Deceleration and Stopping Sight Distance Criteria</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/1628617</link>
      <description><![CDATA[In September 2018, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) published the 7th edition of A Policy on Geometric Design of Highways and Streets (also known as the 2018 Green Book). The 2018 Green Book provides guidance for determining geometric design criteria of roadways, including guidance on acceleration/deceleration and stopping sight distance criteria. Acceleration/deceleration is influenced by many factors (e.g., grade, vehicle type, and maneuver type). Stopping sight distance is influenced by many factors (e.g., perception reaction time, object height, and driver’s eye height). In addition, the recent changes in vehicle fleet, vehicle technology, and driver population impact the design criteria. Research is needed to identify the limitations of the 2018 Green Book guidelines for acceleration/deceleration and stopping sight distance criteria, develop improved guidelines, and recommend changes to the 2018 Green Book for consideration and adoption by AASHTO. Improved guidance could result in reduced environmental impacts, savings in construction costs, and reductions in construction time.  
 
OBJECTIVE: The objective of this research is to update the guidelines for acceleration/deceleration and stopping sight distance criteria contained in the 2018 Green Book.

]]></description>
      <pubDate>Sat, 08 Jun 2019 05:14:54 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/1628617</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Human Factors - Vehicle Design Focus - CU Task 353</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/1537224</link>
      <description><![CDATA[This proposed collaborative effort involves three PI’s in the Center of Excellence for Commercial Space Transportation (COE CST) – Professor David Klaus from the University of Colorado Boulder (CU), Dr. Jim Vanderploeg from the University of Texas Medical Branch Galveston (UTMB) and Professor Guy Boy from the Florida Institute of Technology (FIT).

The combined task is intended to review and augment the FAA’s Recommended Practices for Human Space Flight Occupant Safety (Version 1.0, TC14-0037 dated August 27, 2014) from the collective perspectives of each research group spanning vehicle design and outfitting (CU), medical care and health concerns (UTMB), and Human Centered Design (FIT).]]></description>
      <pubDate>Wed, 22 Aug 2018 13:03:40 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/1537224</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Adhesive Qualification Guidance for Aircraft Design and Certification</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/1532784</link>
      <description><![CDATA[No abstract provided.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Fri, 17 Aug 2018 11:42:19 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/1532784</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Takeoff/Climb Analysis to support AEDT APM Development _Project 45</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/1532775</link>
      <description><![CDATA[GIT will leverage domain expertise in aircraft and engine design and analysis to evaluate gaps in the current AEDT APM algorithms.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Fri, 17 Aug 2018 11:42:02 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/1532775</guid>
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