TRB - VibeWire Magazine

Prevention and Mitigation of Surficial Slope Failures on Fill Highway Embankment Slopes

Guest authors
March 8, 2024
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Surficial slope failures in highway fill embankments are shallow landslides that occur within the embankment fill, usually affecting only a portion of the slope’s height. These failures tend to occur after a vulnerable embankment slope is subjected to …

Advanced Air Mobility and Community Outreach: A Primer for Successful Stakeholder Engagement

Guest authors
March 7, 2024
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Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) includes the use of new aircraft technologies to transport passengers and cargo, typically on demand. The AAM ecosystem will initially rely on existing airports, heliports, and routes, but in the future, new dedicated facili…

Connected and Autonomous Vehicle Technology: Determining the Impact on State DOT Maintenance Programs

Guest authors
March 7, 2024
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Traffic control devices, markings, signals, guardrail, computing systems, communications infrastructure, and other permanent and temporary devices will likely each be affected by the operation of connected and autonomous vehicle (CAV) technology. State…

Paratransit Fleet Configurations

Guest authors
March 2, 2024
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The increase in the population of older adults who are ambulatory but are eligible to use paratransit has increased the demand for paratransit service delivery. This growth has, in turn, led some transit agencies to move away from standard one-vehicle …

TR News 348: Fresh Perspectives: Artificial Intelligence Frontiers in Transportation

Guest authors
March 1, 2024
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AI technologies have fueled advances in autonomous driving and intelligent transportation systems, for example, enabling the public in Phoenix, San Francisco, and other cities to hail a self-driving taxi from their smartphone apps. Transportation profe…

Mental Health, Wellness, and Resilience for Transit System Workers

Guest authors
February 24, 2024
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Transit agency leadership must make a real and concerted effort to take the mental health and overall wellness of frontline workers more seriously. Leadership can play an important role by making a clear commitment and dedicating resources to address m…

Development of Clear Recover Area Guidelines

Guest authors
February 24, 2024
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The clear zone concept for roadside design emerged in the mid-1960s as a single distance for lateral clearance that reduced the likelihood of an errant vehicle striking a roadside obstacle. Subsequent recovery area guidance that evolved over the next t…

Using Performance Engineered Mixtures to Improve Pavement Performance and Sustainability: State Experiences

Guest authors
February 24, 2024
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To encourage adoption of performance engineered mixtures (PEM) concepts, the U.S. Federal Highway Administration offered various levels of incentive funding to state agencies to help offset the costs of additional shadow testing, data collection, and r…

TR News 348: Fresh Perspectives: Native American Artists Portray Transportation’s Impact

Guest authors
February 23, 2024
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When gauging how roads, rails, or runways affect the societies they run through, the numbers often paint an incomplete picture. To illuminate the impact of transportation on tribal communities, the TRB Standing Committee on Native American Transportati…

TR News 348: Transportation Influencer: Margaret-Avis Akofio-Sowah

Guest authors
February 21, 2024
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“This year, TRB and members of the International Coordinating Council are supporting an initiative I am leading to establish the African Transportation Research Alliance, referred to by some as ‘TRB in Africa,'” says Margaret-Avis Akofio-Sowah, a globa…