H Gene Hawkins Jr

Assessment of Introductory Transportation Engineering Course and General Transportation Engineering Curriculum

Transportation engineering is a critical subdiscipline of the civil engineering profession as indicated by its inclusion on the Fundamentals of Engineering Examination and overlap with other specialty areas of civil engineering and as recognized by TRB, ITE, and ASCE. With increasing transportation workforce needs, low numbers of students entering the pipeline, and limited hours within undergraduate civil engineering programs, it is important to ensure that civil engineering students receive adequate preparation and exposure to career opportunities in the transportation engineering field. Thus, investigations into the status of transportation engineering within civil engineering programs and specifically the introductory transportation engineering course are essential for understanding implications to the profession. Relevant literature and findings from a new survey of civil engineering programs accredited by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology is reviewed; that survey yielded 84 responses. The survey indicates that 88% of responding programs teach an introductory course in transportation engineering, and 79% require it in their undergraduate programs. Significant variation exists in the structure of the introductory course (number of credit hours, laboratory requirements, etc.). Common responses about improvements that could be made include adding laboratories, requiring a second course, and broadening course content. In addition, nearly 15% of instructors teaching the introductory course did not have a primary focus in transportation engineering. This finding should be investigated further, given that the course may be an undergraduate civil engineering students only exposure to the profession.

Effects of Adding Dual-Logo Panels to Specific Service Signs: A Human Factors Study

Currently, FHWAs Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices for Streets and Highways allows only one business logo to be placed on a logo panel. Dual-logo panels were proposed by business owners as a solution to the complaint that single locations operating two or more business brands are ignored and unduly restricted to limited Highway signing. Business owners are concerned that separate logos do not convey to the public that two brands are available at the same location; they believe that dual logos provide a means of linking services that are combined under the same roof. However, the use of dual logos raises concerns related to category placement, dual-logo recognition and legibility, and information overload. This research effort addressed several of these issues through the use of a timed survey in which subjects were asked to indicate whether various business logos were present in a series of photographs that included both single- and dual-logo panels. The objective was to gain some understanding o...

Evaluation of Midpoint Runway Marking for General Aviation Airports

The aviation industry continues to experience landing overruns at general aviation airports due in part to pilots touching down beyond the midpoint of the available runway. In some landing overruns, pilots were unaware that the midpoint was reached and nonetheless continued the landing instead of implementing a go-around/aborted landing procedure. Incident reports confirmed that forced landings were coupled with frequent overruns. Over the years airport operators and pilots have occasionally reported that knowing the location of the midpoint of runways would help them to minimize such accidents. There is a greater tendency for landing overruns at airports that primarily serve general aviation operations with runway lengths less than 4,200 ft in length and being utilized by student pilots and those pilots that primarily fly on the weekends only. In order to identify potential markings that could assist in mitigating this risk, the research team evaluated the design for and potential benefits of a marking placed at or near the midpoint of a general aviation runway that would inform pilots of the potential for an overrun/overshoot on a landing. The research team evaluated several preliminary prototype midpoint runway markings using stakeholder input and an online survey of pilots. The best performing marking was further evaluated in an aviation training device study and in field evaluations at six airports. The study results found that the numeric ½ located to the left of the runway centerline provided pilots with useful information on the remaining length of runway.

Quantifying Access Management on Arterial Roadways

Research suggests that successfully implemented access management programs can reduce delay, increase capacity, and improve safety performance on single roadway segments and across larger roadway networks. However, quantifying how access management, as a single entity, might affect a transportation system is difficult because countless combinations of strategies can be implemented. Consequently, large-scale access management decisions are often based on subjective assessments and the engineering judgment of practitioners and decision makers. There is a need for a standard, objective, and quantifiable approach to evaluating the impacts and performance of large-scale access management applications. This paper presents a quantitative method for evaluating an access management project on factors including operations; safety; impacts to adjacent land uses; and bicycle, pedestrian, and transit facilities. The result is an access management rating (AMR), a numerical value that allows for straightforward comparisons between corridors or between design alternatives on the same corridor. The proposed methodology eliminates the subjective component of the decision-making process while maintaining enough flexibility to be tailored to a specific agency’s needs and priorities. By improving the consistency of access management evaluations, the decision-making process will be streamlined, funding will be allocated to projects with the greatest needs and opportunities for improvement, and the entire transportation industry will benefit from improved safety, operations, and land use development.

Use of Fixation Heat Maps to Evaluate Visual Behavior of Unfamiliar Drivers on Horizontal Curves

This paper presents an innovative method of visualizing eye-tracking data by using heat maps (color-coded contour maps showing distributed data). Heat maps of eye fixation points were created from data collected while drivers navigated a rural road. Comparable road segments were used to identify how a drivers visual attention changed while the driver approached and navigated a curve and to address how chevrons and time of day affected fixation patterns. Measures of the centroid and dispersion of each heat map were used to quantify the changes in visual behavior. The results suggest that as drivers approach curves, their fixation patterns become more focused, particularly during the daytime, when their gazes are more prone to shift away from the road scene on long tangents. Chevrons are most useful at night and guide drivers to select a narrower field of view on curve approaches. There were no consistent differences in fixation points within curves that had chevrons as compared with curves that did not, for either daytime or nighttime conditions. This finding suggests that drivers derive little benefit from chevrons within the curve as compared with on the approach. This research is particularly valuable because it investigates a new method for evaluating the effectiveness of traffic control devices and characterizing the driving experience.

Headlamp Luminous Intensity Matrix Adjustment Factors for Modeling Traffic Sign Performance

There have been a series of recent national activities that have increased the awareness of performance of traffic signs at night. Also, transportation agencies now have more choices than ever in the selection of retroreflective sign sheeting materials for traffic signs. Accompanying these changes is an increased ability to model the photometric performance of sign materials and predict the luminance that associated with a specific set of conditions. The headlamps may be the one factor that is the most idealized parameter in the photometric modeling process. This paper reviews work on traffic sign luminance modeling and describes how headlamp photometric data are used in these models. It also describes illuminance measurements made of a sample of 46 U.S. passenger cars and light trucks with clean and dirty headlamps. Subsequent modeling of headlamp performance, including an assessment of the impact of dirt on sign luminance is described. Recommendations are presented that can be used to adjust headlamp luminous intensity matrices to yield candela levels at typical sign geometries representing measured candelas from a pseudo random selection of vehicles.