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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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    <item>
      <title>Impact of Passing Lane Guidance through Angled Markings on Two-Lane Rural Highways</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/2655580</link>
      <description><![CDATA[Previous research has shown that the provision of low-cost measures, such as passing lanes, can be highly cost-effective in improving the level of service of two-lane highways, by increasing passing opportunities and safety. The passing lanes, such as Super 2 highways adopted by Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) are beneficial in dispersing platoons at locations where passing sight distance is shorter than the designated passing zones.
However, drivers should be informed, educated, and receptive to such design changes to have any positive impact on driving behavior and safety on these highways. In addition, the adopted pavement markings or design features used along passing lanes should be intuitive and considerate of human factors. Therefore, it is essential to investigate drivers’ perception and behavioral response to design changes in the passing lanes, such as any transitional lane markings, to ensure the desired safety and operational benefits prior to the installation at selected sites.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Thu, 15 Jan 2026 13:01:45 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/2655580</guid>
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    <item>
      <title>Assessment of Pedestrian Safety and Driver Behavior Near AVs</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/2531107</link>
      <description><![CDATA[As more automated vehicles enter shared roadways, an essential aspect of automated vehicle (AV) safety is understanding the interactions between these vehicles and other road users. Anecdotal incidents about aggressive following and overtaking behaviors at crosswalks near the Med City Mover (MCM), a low-speed automated shuttle (LSAV) pilot demonstration in Rochester, Minnesota, suggested the need for a scientific study of the behaviors of drivers of manual vehicles near the LSAV. In this report, the research team conducted a series of laboratory and field studies aimed at better understanding the safety relationship between LSAVs and the humans they share the road with. Overall, the studies found an increased risk of overtaking and multiple threat passing near the MCM which may increase the risk of pedestrian-involved crashes, sideswipe crashes, and rear-end crashes. Study findings suggest that poor human-machine interfaces, exceptionally slow vehicle speeds, and resultant large queues behind the MCM contribute to these risks. Improved communication interfaces, speeds more consistent with the surrounding traffic, and smaller queue size are all important factors that AV developers and future pilot demonstrations must to consider to better promote pedestrian safety near AVs.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Mon, 31 Mar 2025 15:17:00 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/2531107</guid>
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    <item>
      <title>Identifying and Analyzing Pass-by Crashes for the Purpose of Designing Proper Intervention Measures to Mitigate Crashes Involving Rural Population</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/2509040</link>
      <description><![CDATA[The United States Census Bureau reports that rural areas cover about 97% of the nation’s land area and are home to about 60 million people. About 19% of the American population lives in the rural area according to the Census Bureau. Although only 19% of the population lives in rural areas more than 70% of the 4 million miles of roadways in the United States are in rural areas. According to the NHTSA (2021) the fatality rate was 1.5 times higher in rural areas than in urban areas of the US. In Florida, the fatality rate per 100 million VMT (Vehicles Miles Travelled) in rural areas and urban areas were 2.06 and 1.64, respectively, giving a rural to urban fatality rate ratio of about 1.3.  
This research focuses on analyzing pass-by crashes in rural areas, particularly in FDOT District 3 (Northwest Florida). The primary goal is to identify trends and factors contributing to these crashes and propose interventions aimed at improving transportation safety for rural populations. By focusing on rural transportation, the study aligns with the broader objective of promoting safety in regions that often lack access to infrastructure and transportation resources. The project will explore innovative machine learning and statistical modeling methods to analyze the complex interactions between drivers’ social characteristics and roadway features that influence the frequency and severity of rural pass-by crashes. The findings will inform the development of countermeasures to mitigate risks posed by transportation systems, particularly for populations who live or commute in rural areas.
Data needed to train the models were sourced from the Florida Traffic Safety Dashboard, FDOT GIS Open Data Hub and US Census, focusing on crash events, roadway characteristics and driver demographics. To classify pass-by crashes, distances between crash locations and the drivers’ home ZIP codes were calculated, with a threshold of 30 miles used to define a pass-by crash. Logistic regression and Random Forest models were used to analyze the factors influencing these crashes, with variables such as functional class, weather conditions, vision obstruction, and type of shoulder playing significant roles in predicting crash likelihood. Preliminary results indicate that certain factors, like severe crosswinds, paved shoulders, and specific road classifications, increase the probability of pass-by crashes. Additional future work will focus on refining the models, incorporating additional demographic and roadway data, and further validating the findings.
]]></description>
      <pubDate>Wed, 12 Feb 2025 17:48:56 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/2509040</guid>
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    <item>
      <title>Motorist Behavior and Safety Impacts on Bicyclists from Centerline and Shoulder Rumble Strips on High-Speed Two-Lane Highways



</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/1854203</link>
      <description><![CDATA[Shoulder and centerline rumble strips and stripes on roadways, whether conventional or sinusoidal, provide many safety benefits to motorists. But for bicyclists, coming in contact with them can be a very jarring experience, and riding safely upon them nearly impossible. State departments of transportation (DOTs) are increasingly installing rumble strips on roads also traveled by bicyclists, particularly rural two-lane roads with speed limits over 50 miles per hour (mph). These roads often have less than four feet of clear useable shoulder space. Bicyclists, riding on such roads with rumble strips and limited rideable shoulder space, feel increasingly challenged and may find no option but to ride in the lane with high-speed mixed traffic, increasing the likelihood of a crash with a motor vehicle.

Another safety issue of much concern to the bicyclists is the motorists’ behavior when passing them on roadways with centerline rumble strips. However, there is very little information available on the motorist-bicyclist interaction on rural roads where rumble strips decrease or eliminate the rideable shoulder space. A Michigan DOT study on motorists’ behavior on rural roads with centerline rumble strips concluded that motorists were less likely to cross centerline rumble strips when passing bicyclists to avoid vibration and noise (https://www.michigan.gov/documents/mdot/RC1627_489159_7.pdf). This would most likely make them pass too closely to the bicyclist, greatly increasing the risk of the bicyclist losing control and crashing.

Federal legislation allows federal Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP) projects to install rumble strips if “the rumble strips or other warning devices do not adversely affect the safety or mobility of the bicyclists and pedestrians….” However, there is little research on quantifying the effects of shoulder and centerline rumble strips on bicyclists’ safety. With growing use of rumble strips nationwide to reduce run-off-road and head-on crashes of the motorists, it is imperative that the unintended safety impacts on the bicyclists also be determined to better inform state DOTs’ design policies.

 

OBJECTIVES: The objectives of this research are to: 1. Determine and quantify safety impacts on bicyclists on rural high-speed two-lane roadways with centerline and shoulder rumble strips; 2. Characterize motorists’ behavior when encountering bicyclists on rural high-speed two-lane roadways with centerline and shoulder rumble strips. Aspects of motorists’ behavior to be assessed could include, among other things, lateral and longitudinal controls, reaction time, and eye movement, when passing bicyclists traveling in the same direction on such roads; 3. Develop a guide on various rumble strip applications, with a focus on their impact on bicyclists’ safety.

 

]]></description>
      <pubDate>Tue, 25 May 2021 11:24:08 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/1854203</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title> Creating a Situation-aware Sensing Environment for Cyclists: An Innovative and Cost-effective Smartphone-based Approach</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/1756017</link>
      <description><![CDATA[This research will assess the feasibility and effectiveness of a Biker Assistance System (BAS) in different roadway contexts using a prototype mobile application. The application would make use of smartphones’ onboard speaker and microphones to monitor potential hazards and help bicyclists avoid crashes. The application will detect potential hazards by emitting an imperceptible sound and interpreting its reverberations, thus becoming a “mini-sonar system.” When certain potential hazards are detected, the smartphone will alert bicyclists of the hazard. This new approach to preventing bicycle crashes has yet to be developed or tested to the researchers’ knowledge. 
This project has four components. First, the project team proposes to analyze existing crash data sources to understand the types of crashes that can be prevented or mitigated with BAS. Second, the team proposes the development of the BAS for at least two hazardous scenarios – right turning vehicle detection and front/overtaking vehicle nearing. Additional scenarios may be added based on the crash data assessment. Third, a bike simulator study will be conducted to determine effective alerts for selected hazards. Based on the simulator study outcomes, a list of multi-modular alerts will be recommended which can be easily understood and interpreted by cyclists under both day and night lights. These alerts will be included in the BAS prototype. Finally, the project team proposes testing the efficacy of BAS in these scenarios via physical testing and naturalistic observation using an instrumented bicycle. This naturalistic database will be used to identify the critical cyclists-vehicle interaction regions and scenarios. Future research will expand the sensing capacity to function in different crash scenarios, investigate cyclists’ interactions with different road users, and provide cyclists with feedback to avoid different types of on-road hazards.
]]></description>
      <pubDate>Sat, 05 Dec 2020 18:16:08 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/1756017</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Two-lane highway analysis methodology enhancements considering commercial trucks</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/1552818</link>
      <description><![CDATA[Two-lane highways are critical components of the highway system, and are continuing to see increased truck traffic along with all other components of the highway network. It is therefore essential to have analysis tools/methods that are sensitive to the unique characteristics of commercial trucks.
A significant revision to the Highway Capacity Manual (HCM) two-lane highway analysis methodology was recently completed as part of National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) project 17-65. This project made use of a microscopic simulation tool (SwashSim) that performs more detailed truck dynamics modeling than other simulation tools. For example, specific powertrain characteristics (engine, transmission) are used to determine tractive effort, and roadway and physical vehicle characteristics (e.g., weight, frontal area, coefficient of drag) are used to determine resistance forces. These variables are used to calculate maximum acceleration and velocity (values that, illogically, are often user inputs in simulation programs). Overall, the resulting revised methodology from this work better accounts for the unique operating characteristics of commercial trucks on traffic stream operational performance.
However, there are still several key areas in the new methodology where further investigation is warranted:
(1) Passing lane performance for various diverge/merge rules faster/slower vehicles.
(2) Many passing lane configurations require “slower drivers keep right”, which usually entails the slower vehicles move over to the added lane and remerge to the regular lane downstream before the added lane ends. Since commercial trucks are usually slower vehicles, their merging from the added lane to the regular lane at the lane drop area can cause disruptive turbulence at the merge point when traffic flows moderately high. Some alternative passing lane designs are starting to appear, such as slower vehicles moving right at the start of the passing lane segment, but faster vehicles having to merge at the end of the passing lane, and ‘2+1’ type of configurations where the fasters vehicles need to change lanes at both the start and end of the passing lane segment. The relative impacts to the traffic stream performance due to these different designs needs to be better understood, particularly for traffic streams with non-trivial percentages of commercial trucks.
(3) Guidance for climbing lane design (length and return to level grade conditions)
(4) The merging behavior of trucks at the end of a passing lane segment can be even more problematic on upgrades (i.e., a climbing lane), as the speed differential between the trucks and passenger cars can be quite significant. The AASHTO Green Book recommends that a passing lane on a grade be continued onto a relatively level segment of roadway until the truck speeds are at a minimum of 40 mi/h and within 10 mi/h of the passenger car speed. Some quantitative guidance on expected lengths of passing lane needed to achieve smooth reintegration of trucks to the regular lane, based on overall flow rate, grade %, and truck %, is needed.
(5) Effective length of passing lane
(6) In the NCHRP 17-65 project, quantification of the effective length of a passing lane (i.e., distance downstream of the passing lane for which the improvements to the performance measures last) was only determined for level terrain. On non-level terrain, commercial trucks can have a significant impact on this distance. Additional quantitative guidance is needed for the effective length of passing lanes on non-level terrain, when trucks are present in the traffic stream.
(7) Capacity on non-passing lane upgrade segments when trucks are present in traffic stream
(8) Field data collected as part of NCHRP 17-65 did not yield enough very high flow rate conditions to make meaningful insights into the concept of capacity. Capacity was investigated, through simulation, for passing lane segments (which was constrained by the downstream merging operations). However, capacity, for which trucks can have a significant influence, was not examined for non-passing lane segments. This issue needs further examination, particularly for non-level terrain.
This project aims to improve the state-of-the-art for accounting for the impact of trucks on two-lane highway operations. This will be accomplished by building on the work that was done for NCHRP Project 17-65. The issues examined in this project are ones which are very difficult and/or very expensive to study in the field. Thus, the SwashSim simulation tool will be utilized exclusively in this project. SwashSim has the ability to model a wide range of two-lane highway configurations and operational scenarios. Because of its detailed vehicle dynamics modeling approach, SwashSim is also well-suited to modeling situations that are sensitive to the impacts of commercial vehicles. Furthermore, through the work of the NCHRP Project 17-65, SwashSim went through an extensive calibration effort with field data.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Wed, 03 Oct 2018 15:19:28 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/1552818</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Effects of Safe Bicycle Passing Laws on Drivers’ Behavior and Bicyclists’ Safety </title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/1483418</link>
      <description><![CDATA[This report identifies the effect of passing distance laws on drivers’ behaviors and bicyclist’s safety during an overtaking maneuver. Using an instrumented bicycle and driver survey, the study measured bicycle passing in a naturalistic field experiment using video recording, an ultrasonic distance measuring device, and a LiDAR. In order to evaluate the effect of passing distance laws, the study examined jurisdictions with a three-foot passing law, with a five-foot passing law, and
without a passing law. The experiment required a bicyclist to ride the instrumented bicycle in twolane and three-lane roads to capture the distance between the bicycle and the overtaking motor vehicle. Moreover, a new analysis algorithm is presented to assess the speed and distance transformation of the vehicles approaching and entering the passing zone of the bicycle in micro level transportation systems. The results demonstrated that drivers’ overtaking distances were significantly greater in locations with the five-foot passing law than in other areas. The study also
found that roads with paved shoulders, wider travel lanes, and a greater number of lanes were associated with greater passing distances. In contrast, we found that passing distance was shorter on roads with shared lane markings (i.e., sharrows) or higher truck composition. By comparing the surveys conducted in locations with different passing laws, the study illustrates that drivers usually overestimate the distance that they pass bicyclists. These results can be useful to transportation
engineers, policymakers, and legislators who intend to provide efficient designs of road infrastructure to better accommodate bicycles
]]></description>
      <pubDate>Fri, 22 Sep 2017 10:46:09 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/1483418</guid>
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