Locating and Costing Congestion for School Buses and Public Transportation, Phase 2 (Project L6)

This project will further NC State and University of Florida's (UF’s) previous research into developing methodologies and data architecture to quantify the effect of congestion on transit and public-school transportation services. Roadway congestion creates delays and increased costs for all roadway users, including buses. When buses are subjected to congestion, operating and capital costs increase, travel time reliability decreases, and the overall competitiveness and attractiveness of these modes decreases. In Phase I, the research team integrated three large datasets to create a practitioner tool that allows transportation planners and engineers to model the relationship between traffic flow data with public transportation and school travel data. This practitioner tool allows for the spatial identification of congestion impacts affecting public transportation and school buses, along with estimates of the costs incurred by these modes resulting from congestion. This allows practitioners to prioritize locations where treatments will be the most cost-effective and impactful. While Phase I provided a proof-of-concept, it relied on complex procedures that could exceed the capabilities of many local agencies. Phase II will refine, enhance, and simplify the methodologies so that practitioners can calculate their own congestion and analyze it using the web-based application. The team will research the different data sources available to agencies and work to scaleup the process to make it available to a larger audience. Presentations and a final report explaining the methodologies for determining congestion and the web-application will be shared with the stakeholder agencies in both states and other organizations, as appropriate.

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Active
• Funding: $69750
• Contract Numbers:

  69A3551747104

• Sponsor Organizations:

  Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology

  University Transportation Centers Program
  Department of Transportation
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Managing Organizations:

  Southeastern Transportation Research, Innovation, Development and Education Center (STRIDE)

  University of Florida
  365 Weil Hall
  Gainesville, FL  United States  32611
• Project Managers:

  Tucker-Thomas, Dawn

• Performing Organizations:

  North Carolina State University, Raleigh

  Department of Civil Engineering, Campus Box 7908
  Raleigh, NC  United States  27695-7908
• Principal Investigators:

  Monast, Kai

• Start Date: 20220701
• Expected Completion Date: 20230531
• Actual Completion Date: 0
• USDOT Program: University Transportation Centers Program

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Cost estimating; Public transit; School buses; Traffic congestion; Traffic flow
• Subject Areas: Economics; Operations and Traffic Management; Planning and Forecasting; Public Transportation;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01854185
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: Southeastern Transportation Research, Innovation, Development and Education Center (STRIDE)
• Contract Numbers: 69A3551747104
• Files: UTC, RIP
• Created Date: Aug 10 2022 2:42PM