My Research
My Latest Research Work:
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Statewide Analysis of Bicycle Crashes
Analyzing the bicycle hot spots in each district identified. Police Crash Report Review System (PCRRS), a web-based application, is used to review the police crash reports of all 2,954 bicycle crashes that occurred at these hot spots. Generating collision-condition diagrams of the bicycle hot spots. Finding bicycle crash patterns and contributing factors related to crash types and recommending site-specific engineering, education, and enforcement countermeasures.
Use of Communication Technologies to Enhance Public Involvement in Transportation
Public participation in transportation project development process is key to developing projects that meet the community needs and desires and reduce the risks of litigation that could result in costly project delays. Traditional methods that require people to gather at a specific time and place often fail to reach some groups of people. Fortunately, the increasing availability of today’s communication technologies offers an opportunity for the public to participate remotely. The intent of this research was to document the states’ past and current efforts related to public involvement with the use of communication technologies to identify effective ways to enhance community engagement in transportation projects. The perspectives of several states on adopting the new communication tools were obtained through the research process. The results could help the practitioners, administrators, and researchers to learn about the states’ experiences with technology-based communication tools in increasing public involvement and help to improve their current means of communication in public involvement activities.
A Data-Driven Approach to Implementing Wrong-Way Driving Countermeasures
Wrong-way driving (WWD) is “vehicular movement along a travel lane in a direction opposing the legal flow of traffic on high-speed divided highways or access ramps”. Wrong-way drivers pose a serious risk to the safety of themselves and other motorists. Although crashes involving wrong-way drivers are relatively few, they often lead to severe head-on collisions. As such, the fatality rate in WWD incidents are much higher compared to other crashes. On Average, 360 People Die Each Year Due to Wrong Way Driving Crashes. For these reasons this wrong way driving project research initiative began. The project was: A Data-Driven Approach to Implementing Wrong-Way Driving Countermeasures. The research questions in the project included: Do all locations present equal opportunities for WWD incident reduction, or do locations with specific pre-conditions offer a greater opportunity to mitigate WWD incidents?
Following tasks were carried out in the project:
Implementing Network screening methods to identify and prioritize crash hot spots using spatial analysis. Identify socio-economic, demographic, and land-use variables that could potentially affect WWD incidents. Determining Demographic and socio-economic factors affecting WWD and the relation between the variables and WWD incidents. These strategies addressed all the 4 E’sof road safety: 1. Engineering; 2. Education; 3. Enforcement; 4. Emergency Medical Services
One on the research finding was that approximately eight out of ten crashes on freeway involve drunk drivers
Highway for Life (HfL) Demonstration Project
This research analyzes the installation of innovations such as open graded friction course (OGFC), asphalt treated base (ATB), precast gravity retaining wall and construction of a center turn lane on a section of the 70th street highway of Shreveport, Louisiana. The research also analyzed the performance of the highway after the installations. The innovations were used to improve the safety, congestion, economic benefits and quality of the highway. The performance analysis of the highway showed that the noise level and the roughness decreased significantly in the post construction period after the application of OGFC on the control section. The installation of OGFC also resulted in increasing the friction of the control section. Moreover, the accident rate along the road section has decreased, and the road became safer after the construction of the center turn lane and application of OGFC.
