AASHTO Research Advisory Committee July 24, 2012 Accelerating solutions for highway safety, renewal,...

AASHTO Research Advisory CommitteeJuly 24, 2012

Accelerating solutions for highway safety, renewal, reliability, and capacity

Innovation in Lean Times

A Brief History of SHRP 2• Role of special-purpose research

programs: focused, large-scale program of limited duration

• Success of first SHRP: Superpave, winter maintenance

• SHRP 2 proposed 2001; NCHRP with matching funds from FHWA develop detailed research plans

• SAFETEA-LU authorized the program• $218 million, 9 years, ends 3/31/15

SHRP 2 Origin & Philosophy• Needs identified by State DOT and industry

leaders—driven by customer-oriented goals:– Make highways safer: revolutionary change– Fix highways: address epidemic of aging

infrastructure– Reduce congestion: increase physical and

operational capacity

• Success requires non-traditional approach:– Multiple disciplines– Collaboration with non-DOT stakeholders– Portfolio: from new knowledge to practical tools

to allow existing innovations to be more widely used

Four Focus Areas• Safety: fielding the largest-ever naturalistic

driving study to reduce crashes and save lives through understanding driver behavior

• Renewal: making rapid, innovative construction possible for “ordinary” projects

• Reliability: Providing management and technical tools to reduce congestion through operations

• Capacity: Systematizing collaborative decision making to achieve better, faster project decisions

Program Governance• 50+ committees; 500+ members• Oversight Committee

– Chair: Kirk Steudle, Michigan DOT– Majority of members from state DOTs

• 4 Technical Coordinating Committees:– 46% current and recent state DOT employees– 11% other transportation agencies– 17% consultants, contractors, suppliers, auto mfrs, etc.– 10% federal, police, fire, other non-transportation– 16% researchers– Plus FHWA, AASHTO, and other liaisons

• ETGs/TETGs– Transportation and non-transportation expertise

Status of Research Program:The Numbers

• 106 contracts to date, 37 complete, 10-12 new contracts by end of 2012

• Nearly all of the $218 million is committed

• More than 500 expert committee members

• More than 300 research contractors

• 49 reports published or in production/review

• 30+ web tools, databases, software apps

• 24+ pilots conducted with state DOTs

Safety: Strategic Rationale

• Driver behavior is key:– Primary factor in two-thirds of crashes– Contributing factor in more than 90% of crashes– Hardest to study; the thing we know the least about

• Opportunity: Naturalistic Driving Study (NDS):– Miniaturized sensor technologies & increased

computing capacity: can observe real-world driving– Method proven with 100 car study at VA Tech– Crash, pre-crash, near-crash, and “normal” driving data

• SHRP 2 scales up NDS for more robust results– 3000 drivers, 6 sites, all ages– Data to be available for other researchers for decades

Camera Image Samples

8Source: VTTI

Safety Highlights• Progress on data collection:

– 2,122 participants so far– 384,000 trips; 5 veh-yrs of data per day– 3,100 center-line miles of roadway data– Approval to collect cell phone records and

“supplemental” data

• First four analysis projects begun

• Interest in using data from outside of SHRP 2 (FHWA, NHTSA, auto mfrs, academics, IIHS, AAA FTS, etc.)

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Initial Analysis Projects

• Rural 2-lane curves – Iowa State University– Ex. App : more cost-effective roadway measures to

prevent crashes

• Offset left-turn bays – MRI Global– Ex. App: cost-effective intersection design

• Driver inattention – SAFER, Chalmers Univ.– Ex. App: vehicle technology to track driver attention,

warn distracted drivers

• Crashes on congested freeways – U. of MN– Ex. App: effective methods to warn drivers of

downstream congestion

Renewal: Strategic Rationale• Facilities are aging, users depend on them:

– Renew infrastructure quickly– Have minimal impact on users– Produce long-lasting facilities

• We know how to do this—on special projects

• What keeps us from doing it consistently across the system?– Lack of standard methods, specs– Lack of reliable performance/usage information– Human/institutional challenges

• SHRP 2 seeks to overcome these obstacles

Renewal Highlights• Vermont Transportation Agency piloting ABC

tools in repair of bridges damaged in Tropical Storm Irene—building local expertise

• Illinois Tollway saving $350,000 using a modular pavement technology & guidelines from SHRP 2

• WSDOT used SHRP 2 interactive design guide to select rehab strategy for segment of I-5: saved 30% on agency costs, 50% on user costs

• DOT/RR Community of Interest to share/update model agreements & best practices (7 SDOTs, 4 Class I RRs, AASHTO, Rail America, FHWA, FRA, and Manitoba Infrastructure Transportation)

Capacity tackles recurring congestion

Reliability tackles nonrecurring congestion

Reliability & Capacity

Reliability Strategic Rationale• Non-recurring events account for more than

half of congestion– Impact of these events on users is reduced travel

time reliability (TTR)– TTR is valuable to users– TTR is a good tool to measure performance and

develop and target improvements

• What do we need to effectively use TTR?– Ways to measure and monitor TTR– Integration of TTR into modeling, planning,

programming, and design.– Ops-oriented business practices, training

Reliability Highlights • Multi-agency incident response training very

well-received; FHWA using SHRP 2 material in an effort to train 1 million responders

• Assessment tool and guide to becoming an operation-oriented agency has been incorporated into AASHTO SSOM web tool.

• Special session at AASHTO Board of Directors on benefits of operations and availability of resources for states

• Easy-to-use spreadsheet to assess effect of design on delay and TTR, including benefit/cost

Capacity Strategic Rationale

• Sometimes you just need more highway• Why don’t we get it when we need it?

– Multiple independent decision points that must collectively satisfy a range of goals: engineering, economic, environmental, community

– Decisions to be “lost” or revisited, which can cause opposition and delay

• Facilitate and expedite key decisions: get the right information to the right people at the right time, avoid re-do loops

Capacity Highlights

• 8 pilot tests of tools in real projects:– Web tool-guide for collaborative decision-making– Integrated approach to resource conservation,

impact mitigation, expedited project delivery

• Building foundation in freight area: – Demand modeling & data improvement strategic

plan– Workshop on potential uses of private supply

chain data– 2 modeling & data innovations symposia, awards

Research to Implementation

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Research Development Implementation

Development requires close collaboration with users to ensure that innovations work in

real-world situations.