PROGRAM AREAS: TISEThis past year provided exciting challenges for theTransportation Infrastructure <strong>and</strong> Systems<strong>Engineering</strong> (TISE) program. The program sawsignificant increases in research <strong>and</strong> graduate studentfunding <strong>and</strong> numbers of Ph.D. students,while strengthening its main research <strong>and</strong> educational areas:air transportation, traffic, civil engineering materials, highwayinfrastructure, transportation planning, safety, mass transit,<strong>and</strong> transportation networks. Activity details of seven TISE facultymembers are provided in the following paragraphs.John Collura continued to direct the transportation engineering<strong>and</strong> infrastructure activities at the Northern VirginiaCampus in Falls Church. He served as the principal investigatoron ITS operation tests projects with Hesham Rakha <strong>and</strong>Dusan Teodorovic on the signal preemption <strong>and</strong> transit priorityproject sponsored by the ITS Task Force. Graduate studentsinclude Chuck Louisell, Houng Soo, <strong>and</strong> JonObenberger. He published three papers, gave four conferencepresentations, <strong>and</strong> organized <strong>and</strong> chaired a conference sessionon signal preemption <strong>and</strong> transit priority at the ITSAmerica <strong>Annual</strong> Meeting in San Antonio. Collura has alsobeen developing the advanced transportation instructional labin Northern Virginia SCHEV funds in conjunction with privateindustry <strong>and</strong> the computer science faculty. He offered a onedayworkshop for government <strong>and</strong> industry officials on theuse of automated vehicle location systems <strong>and</strong> contributed achapter on the application of information technologies inpublic transportation to the Transportation <strong>Engineering</strong>H<strong>and</strong>book (McGraw-Hill, <strong>2004</strong>).Tom Dingus, Newport News Shipbuilding Professor <strong>and</strong>transportation human factors <strong>and</strong> safety researcher, continuesto direct the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute (VTTI).VTTI, manager of the Smart Road research facility, is thelargest research center at Virginia Tech with more than $12million in annual research expenditures. Dingus also served asthe interim director for the newly formed Institute for Critical28Transportation InfrastructureStudent transportation alliance formedTo increase the outreach to professional organizations,the TISE program has worked with the student body toenergize the student chapter of the Institute ofTransportation Engineers (ITE) <strong>and</strong> to create a studentchapter of the American Road <strong>and</strong> Transportation BuildersAssociation (ARTBA). In addition, the TISE students createdthe Virginia Tech Student Transportation Alliance (VTSTA),an umbrella organization that brings together both studentgroups.This organization helped organize several technical<strong>and</strong> social events <strong>and</strong> provided an excellent forum for student/facultyinteraction.& Systems <strong>Engineering</strong>Technologies <strong>and</strong> Applied Science (ICTAS). This institute representsa new model for the development of cutting-edgeinterdisciplinary research at Virginia Tech. His assignmentincluded the development of policies <strong>and</strong> financial models forthis new research endeavor <strong>and</strong> development of the initialprogram of research.Trucker fatigueThis year Dingus, Vicki Neale, <strong>and</strong> VTTI colleagues completedthe data collection for the largest instrumented vehiclefield study ever attempted (100 vehicles for an entire year) forthe National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)<strong>and</strong> the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT), fundedat $3.5 million over three years. This project, studying driversin Northern Virginia, will provide a wealth of new informationto help underst<strong>and</strong>, <strong>and</strong> eventually reduce, vehiclecrashes. (See article page 2.)Also this year, Dingus <strong>and</strong> Richard Hanowski initiated a$3.8-million, large-scale instrumented truck project to studythe effectiveness of driver fatigue countermeasures.Dingus received several honors this year: he was invitedto serve on the advisory board of the National AdvancedDriving Simulator, to present on the future of crash causationresearch by the National Academy of Science (TransportationResearch Board), <strong>and</strong> to speak at the SAE Government/Industry meeting on “Progress <strong>and</strong> Future Directions ofAdaptive Driver Assistance.”Longer-lasting pavementGerardo W. Flintsch exp<strong>and</strong>ed his research on pavements<strong>and</strong> infrastructure management. He organized <strong>and</strong> hosted anationwide comparison of road profilers at the Virginia SmartRoad, which brought together 72 devices from across NorthAmerica. This event, sponsored by the FHWA, was attendedby equipment users, developers, manufacturers, <strong>and</strong> academicians.Flintsch, Al-Qadi <strong>and</strong> their Roadway InfrastructureGroup at VTTI initiated two projects sponsored by the VDOT,to develop “premium” pavement design for the state. Theseprojects included extensive field <strong>and</strong> laboratory testing programs<strong>and</strong> aim to develop longer-lasting pavement. He alsocontinued the development of enhanced life-cycle cost analysistools for evaluating transportation infrastructure investmentswith funding from the NSF <strong>and</strong> completed, in collaborationwith John Collura <strong>and</strong> R<strong>and</strong>y Dymond, a synthesis ofhighway practice on the use of geographic information systemsapplications in pavement management for the NationalHighway Cooperative Research program.Flintsch <strong>and</strong> Kevin McGhee from VTRC received the JackH. Dillard Award from the Virginia Transportation ResearchCouncil for the best paper of 2003 for their work on highspeedpavement texture measurements. Flintsch chaired the
Second Infrastructure Management Education<strong>and</strong> Research Workshop <strong>and</strong> aTRB session about innovative applicationin pavement management. Hisresearch team published 14 journal <strong>and</strong>conference papers <strong>and</strong> delivered 11presentations at international conferences<strong>and</strong> professional meetings. Hetaught classes on civil engineeringmaterials <strong>and</strong> bridge <strong>and</strong> pavementmanagement systems <strong>and</strong> participatedin many ASCE, TRB, <strong>and</strong> VDOT technicalcommittees. This past year Flintschwas appointed as a member of thenewly created Transportation ResearchBoard (TRB) Committee ABC40 onTransportation Asset Management <strong>and</strong>elected a founding member <strong>and</strong> chairmanof the Awards Committee of theInternational Society for Maintenance<strong>and</strong> Rehabilitation of TransportationInfrastructure (iSMARTi).No-passing-zone violatorsAntoine Hobeika, is conductingresearch for VDOT on transportationsafety on Route 114 in MontgomeryCounty, Va. He is using video imagingto detect <strong>and</strong> warn drivers who violatethe no-passing zone on two-lane ruralroads. He is also working for the FHWAto establish a textbook <strong>and</strong> course manualon the newly developed transportationplanning software TRANSIMS <strong>and</strong>to provide assistance in refining thecomputer package. He is the first professorin the country to offer a graduatecourse on TRANSIMS <strong>and</strong> is conductinga TRANSIMS training course in NorthernVirginia campus to selected transportationprofessionals invited by FHWA.Modeling driver behaviorHesham Rakha’s team continuedwork on the NSF major research instrumentation(MRI) grant, developing aprototype instrumented city, the Mid-Atlantic University TransportationCenter, <strong>and</strong> the ITS ImplementationCenter research. Activities includeddeveloping <strong>and</strong> modeling truck behavioralong grade sections, modeling trafficflow behavior <strong>and</strong> dispersion, modelingtraffic lane-changing behavior <strong>and</strong>its implications on weaving sections.The team also is developing <strong>and</strong> modelingvehicle energy <strong>and</strong> emissionimpacts of intelligent transportation system(ITS) applications, modeling transitsignal priority in collaboration withVDOT, <strong>and</strong> the developing real-timetravel time estimation algorithms in collaborationwith VDOT <strong>and</strong> theUniversity of Virginia. Rakha’s team alsoTraffic signal surveillance system(Instrumented City Project)Road profilers testing at the Virginia Smart Road29
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