One of the main challenges of cancer patients is making decisions simultaneously about their cancer treatments and careers because of many factors, including side-effects and the cost of treatments. For example, the most common side-effect of cancer treatments is dizziness, which reduces the ability of patients in driving. This minor side effect might completely change cancer patients’ lives if their only mode of transportation is driving.
Transportation Communication Tower Inspection Using Novel UAV Technologies
Project ID: CTEDD 019-14
Author(s): Anand J. Puppala, University of Texas at Arlington
Co-Author(s): Shima Hamidi, University of Texas at Arlington; Anurag Pande, California Polytechnic State University; Surya Sarat Chandra Congress, University of Texas at Arlington; Hani Alzralee, California Polytechnic State University
Transportation communication towers facilitate telecommunications that are essential for Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) applications in advancing transportation safety and mobility operations. State DOTs and other agencies spend considerable amount of dollars annually to maintain towers as they are an integral part of their assets.
Roadway lighting is a basic roadway infrastructure to ensure nighttime safety and security for all road users (motorists, pedestrians, cyclists, and transit passengers). To cost-effectively maintain a roadway lighting system, key tasks in infrastructure management include periodically measuring roadway lighting levels, diagnosing lighting performance based on collected data, and providing decision-making support for maintenance and improvement.
Despite disparity in methods and efforts, many Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) are seeking to incorporate equity in their planning and project prioritization processes. Yet MPOs often focus on avoiding adverse and disproportionate impacts of projects on traditionally underserved communities, without an equal focus on developing projects that advance the needs of these communities.
Over the past decade, the rapid development and adoption of mobile computing and telecommunications technology has begun to disrupt established business models based on providing mobility services that were previously available primarily through the public sector (particularly public transit agencies) or that were privately provided through households’ and firms’ directly-owned and operated vehicles.
Automobile emissions from highways are known to have harmful effects on the public. These harmful effects also raise concerns of environmental justice because their severity is highest near the transportation network. Established methodologies used in regional planning to identify the critical extent of emission dispersal from the highway and also to demarcate the boundaries of population group that is most at risk uses a fixed distance buffer analysis.
High-speed expressways functionally operate like freeways but have at-grade intersections that provide critical access to communities via minor roadways. These intersections provide key economic entry points to jobs and economic development and serve as lifelines for rural communities. They also provide ingress and egress for emergency vehicles and serve as evacuation routes in cases of natural disaster.
Capacity-flow Feature-based Restoration Strategy Optimization for Resilient Transportation Systems to Enhance Mobility, Accessibility, and Equity after Disruptive Events
Project ID: CTEDD 019-06 SG
Author(s): Tingting (Tina) Zhao, University of South Florida (USF)
Co-Author(s): Yu Zhang, University of South Florida (USF)
The resilience of Critical Infrastructures (CIs) is critical for society to resist, response to, and recover from a disruptive event. A four-phase emergency management model developed by the National Governors’ Association consists of mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery phases. This proposal focuses on the recovery phase to propose a holistic methodology to allocate limited resources after a disruptive event to restore damaged transportation infrastructure. The ultimate goal is to enhance the resiliency of the transportation system from the mobility, accessibility, and equity perspectives.
Preparing for Progress: Establishing Guidelines for the Regulation, Safe Integration, and Equitable Usage of Dockless Electric Scooters in American Cities
Project ID: CTEDD 019-02 SG
Author(s): James Wood, University of Texas at Arlington
Co-Author(s): Shima Hamidi, University of Texas at Arlington
Personal electric scooters (also called e-scooters) have quickly gained attention in Western cities as a novel means of transportation. As community leaders seek a new generation of mobility options, e-scooters represent great promise but also considerable complexity. These privately-funded vehicles operate generally without much regulation, and many of the platforms require no fixed charging stations.
The purpose of this research is to examine on-demand microtransit as a means of connecting the first-last mile segments of travel by public transit in low-density areas. We also examine the extent to which reduced travel times of first-last miles by on-demand microtransit influence low-wage job accessibility. As a case study, we compare the job accessibility outcomes across various modes of the first-last mile transit access and egress (walking, bicycle, car, and on-demand microtransit).