Benjamín Colucci

NEW MODEL FOR APPLIED UNIVERSITY RESEARCH AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT: TREN URBANO PROGRAM

In preparation for operating its first modern urban rail transit system, Puerto Rico faces the challenge of creating the human resources knowledgeable in rail transit as well as the construction of the physical infrastructure itself. Because a rail transit system takes a generation or more to build, typically over several phases, professional development is aimed at the students currently in college at the start of their careers. Professional development and academic research have been implemented on the Tren Urbano program through technology transfer activities that develop local expertise in rail transit design, construction, and operations; promote research applicable to Tren Urbano and public transportation; and provide real work experience to university students supervised by practicing professionals. These goals have been pursued over the past 7 years through two programs: the Tren Urbano University of Puerto Rico–Massachusetts Institute of Technology Professional Development and Research Program, and the Tren Urbano Student Internship Program. These programs are described and their potential to become a model for applied university research in the public transportation field featuring collaboration between universities, public agencies, and private companies is discussed. Although the initial impetus for the program was driven by the unique Puerto Rican situation, its design, implementation, and evolution have pursued multiple goals that are potentially much more broadly applicable.

Driving Simulation of the Safety and Operation Performance at a Freeway Toll Plaza

Toll plaza designs have implemented electronic toll collection and other technologies to improve toll systems; however, an increase in crashes has appeared with these improvements. To study safely the pertinent aspects of driver behavior in toll plazas with electronic toll collection, a cockpit driving simulator housed at the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez was used. Specifically, in this study a comparison was made of two configurations of the signs that indicated the corresponding speed limit and toll station for each lane in the area before the toll plaza. One configuration corresponded to the current condition of the signage in Puerto Rico, with signs located at the roadside; the second configuration presented a proposed overhead signage treatment. A representative group of 20 subjects was selected to test the effectiveness of the two signage configurations on the approach zone leading to the toll plaza, calculating the standard deviation of roadway position, speed, and acceleration noise in five zones. The behavior of drivers using the proposed signage configuration appeared to be safer than the behavior of drivers following the current signage configuration. Specifically, at each of five zones in which behavior was sampled on the approach to the toll plaza, drivers using the proposed configuration changed lanes more smoothly and reduced their vehicles’ velocity more when approaching the toll plaza. Nevertheless, there was no significant difference between configurations in acceleration noise. The results of this study provide strong evidence that driving simulators can be used effectively to identify efficient and inexpensive alternative signage configurations at toll plazas.

Comparative Analysis of Toll Plaza Safety Features in Puerto Rico and Massachusetts with a Driving Simulator

Driving simulators have been widely used in transportation research and have potential applications for toll plaza safety research. The University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez (UPRM) and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst (UMass-Amherst) performed a collaborative investigation using driving simulators to evaluate drivers’ behavior in two toll plazas with different signage and lane configurations that operate under the U.S. jurisdiction. The studied toll roads were the Caguas South Toll Plaza in Puerto Rico and the West Springfield Toll Plaza in Massachusetts. The major safety issues identified in both toll roads were unexpected lane changes, sudden vehicle stops, and variable speed patterns. The purpose of this study was to exchange research scenarios between UPRM and UMass-Amherst to test drivers who were unfamiliar with the areas of the study and enlarge the scope. Assuming that the patterns of behavior were similar, the results would suggest that drivers’ behaviors from different regions depend largely on the geometry of the toll plaza and not on the driving culture particular to a region. This study will greatly add to the utility of driving simulator studies because the results reported from one region and one toll plaza arrangement should generalize to other regions around the country and to territories. Results show that familiar drivers had a better driving performance, with respect to variability of lane position, when compared with unfamiliar drivers. However, the proposed treatments for each toll plaza improved road safety for both familiar and unfamiliar drivers.

Innovative Programs to Raise Road User Awareness in Puerto Rico Supporting the Decade of Action for Road Safety

The Governor of Puerto Rico signed in 2011 a Proclamation supporting the Decade of Action for Road Safety: 2011-2020 in conjunction with a worldwide initiative approved by the United Nations General Assembly aimed to establish action plans to reduce the alarming 1.3 million fatalities and the 50 million major injuries and disability related crashes. This timely proclamation calls attention to the existing alarming traffic collisions in the Puerto Ricos 26,866 centerline-km highway network. In this paper, innovative programs that have been demonstrated to be successful in Puerto Rico during the first two years of the Decade of Action for Road Safety are presented along with their impacts on raising awareness regarding crash prevention and reducing fatalities in the existing highway network. Testimonies from road user victims, victimizer, leaders and administrators of profit and nonprofit organizations are noted for assessing the program. A future five-year action plan for raising road user awareness is also prepared to address the governors proclamation for improving traffic safety.

Short-Term Improvements To Increase Capacity of Highly Congested Mainline Toll Plazas in Puerto Rico

In 1993 the Department of Transportation and Public Works of Puerto Rico (DTPW) implemented toll gates at expressway toll collection plazas because of significant losses in revenue caused by failure of motorists to pay the established fee. However, it was presumed that the use of toll gates as an enforcement device for effective traffic control might create additional delays, particularly during peak hours in already highly congested toll plazas near metropolitan areas. The lack of additional open space to expand the existing toll facilities combined with the negative public image associated with high levels of congestion, attributed to implementation of the toll gates, triggered the need to explore cost-effective, short-term alternative solutions. DTPW efforts to address the issues of congestion and negative public image in the highly congested toll facilities are described. A series of experimental studies were performed to assess the effectiveness of toll gates and automatic vehicle identification (AVI) technology in increasing the capacity of low-volume and highly congested toll facilities. The findings were analyzed for significant differences in delays and for potential changes in driver behavior that could assist in mitigating delays at the toll plazas. The results of the first study revealed that the implementation of toll gates creates additional delays for users. The second study found that AVI technology is fast, efficient, and reliable in the detection of vehicles when used in low-volume toll plazas; however, it is not efficient in highly congested toll plazas because of the additional delays generated from the queue. In the third study it was demonstrated that the use of ushers to collect coins from drivers and deposit them in the toll basket resulted in a significant increase in capacity at toll plaza stations, time savings, and fuel economy for users.

Operational and Safety Analysis of Signage and Pavement Marking Treatments in Puerto Rico Dynamic Toll Lane Using a Driving Simulator

The Puerto Rico Dynamic Toll Lane (DTL) is a managed lane system for light traffic that combines congestion pricing, reversible lanes and a Bus Rapid Transit system within the median of freeway PR-22. This research aims to evaluate if modified signage and the addition of in-lane pavement markings could help improve operational and safety aspects of the DTL using the UPRM driving simulator. The performance measures used to evaluate driving behavior were vehicle average position, average speed and acceleration noise, which has been used as a surrogate measure to evaluate safety. A total of four virtual scenarios were studied using time of day and traffic flow as independent variables to evaluate two configurations: existing conditions (Configuration 1) and proposed conditions using modified signs and pavement marking treatments (Configuration 2). However, results of the study indicates that there were no significant differences between configurations for the performance measurements evaluated.

METHODOLOGY FOR DEVELOPING GENERIC PERFORMANCE CURVES FOR FLEXIBLE PAVEMENTS IN PUERTO RICO USING CLUSTERING TECHNIQUES

One of the major challenges that state highway agencies face is the need to estimate performance curves for different functional classifications of highways and traffic loads, considering the limitations of resources and equipment required for data collection and management activities. The need to estimate the remaining useful life of pavements in different climatic regions with a variety of subgrade conditions is crucial for the efficient allocation of maintenance and rehabilitation funds. A methodology that addresses both the performance and regional climatic aspects is presented. Essential elements of this methodology include clustering techniques for identifying the homogeneous climatic regions and determining serviceability in terms of accepted relationships of roughness and the use of nonlinear optimization to estimate performance curves based on equivalent 18-kip single axle loads and pavement serviceability index parameters. Generic performance curves have been developed for each climatic region. Application of the methodology for the cluster corresponding to the humid region is presented. The proposed methodology is expected to provide support to the Puerto Rico Highway and Transportation Authority, Strategic Highway Research Program, and the Long-Term Pavement Performance program in their pavement evaluation processes, thus contributing to the ongoing pavement management system in Puerto Rico.