Strategies for Mitigating Congestion in Small Urban & Rural Areas

Despite the common perception that congestion is primarily an issue in large urban areas, both rural areas and small urban areas (under 50,000 population) also experience congestion – and they frequently lack the resources needed to address congestion. Lack of expert staff, fewer instrumented facilities, and characteristic differences in rural traffic flow combine to create significant challenges in reducing and managing rural congestion. The southeastern region is particularly sensitive to these challenges as the region contains many small urban centers and agriculture-based communities. The objectives of this study are to: (1) Determine key characteristics of rural and small urban congestion (e.g. recurring and nonrecurring congestion, mode use, freight logistics, and special events); (2) Identify resource constraints pertinent to rural and small urban communities; (3) Identify or develop strategies to reduce and/or manage these congestion issues; (4) Develop guidance that maps strategies to congestion issues for use by rural and small urban agencies; and (5) Develop educational material (i.e. webinar, online module, short course, etc.) for use by rural and small urban agencies to help ensure successful implementation of developed guidance. The research team will identify several such communities in the region and will maintain early and ongoing engagement with their transportation agencies. For example, Dr. Srinivasan (UF) leads the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) funded Transportation Safety Center, which works with rural counties in Florida; that work will be leveraged to identify issues and case studies and to disseminate educational material.

• Record URL:
  https://stride.ce.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Project-H-Abstract.pdf
• 

Project

• Status: Active
• Funding: $107769
• Contract Numbers:

  69A3551747104

• Sponsor Organizations:

  Department of Transportation

  Intelligent Transportation Systems Joint Program Office
  1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
  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:

  The Citadel

  Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
  171 Moultrie Street
  Charleston, SC  United States  29409

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

  University of Florida
  365 Weil Hall
  Gainesville, FL  United States  32611

  Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta

  School of Civil and Environmental Engineering
  790 Atlantic Drive
  Atlanta, GA  United States  30332-0355

  Tennessee Tech University

  Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
  1020 Stadium Drive Box.5015
  Cookeville, TN  United States  38505
• Principal Investigators:

  Michalaka, Dimitra

• Start Date: 20170531
• Expected Completion Date: 20200930
• Actual Completion Date: 0
• USDOT Program: University Transportation Centers Program

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Congestion management systems; Education; Incident management; Rural areas; Small cities; Traffic flow
• Subject Areas: Education and Training; Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; Planning and Forecasting;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01659586
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: Southeastern Transportation Research, Innovation, Development and Education Center (STRIDE)
• Contract Numbers: 69A3551747104
• Files: UTC, RIP
• Created Date: Feb 7 2018 1:59PM