When you think about the future of transportation in Florida, what comes to mind? What do you envision for ports, railways, roadways, pedestrian and bike facilities, tourists, and residents? Taking another step further, what will impact and how can we prepare the state of Florida for the next 5, 25, or even 50 years? Can … Continue reading Resiliency and Risk: Preparing for the Unknown
Most drivers have encountered this situation: you are waiting to turn left at a traffic light for what seems like minutes before the arrow finally turns green and allows you to make a protected left turn. A few times while waiting for the green arrow, a gap opens in oncoming traffic, and you wish that … Continue reading Can I Make this Gap? Safety and Efficiency in Dynamic Flashing Yellow Arrows
A drill crew was staking out a project site in south Florida, trekking over the terrain and drilling bore holes into the ground. The thuds of a metal tube being driven into the ground rang out in the morning air. The crew was conducting a Standard Penetration Test, a geotechnical test that determines important soil … Continue reading Groundbreaking Full Waveform Inversion Testing Doesn’t Need to Break Ground
With road trip planned and route map in hand, three Florida A&M University (FAMU)-Florida State University (FSU) College of Engineering researchers made their first stop at a familiar intersection. A two-lane minor street intersected four lanes of free-flowing traffic with a divided median. Identified as a high-crash location, residents and commuters had become wary of … Continue reading RCUTs: An Innovative Approach to Solving Complexities in Safety and Operations in Florida
It was a typical, sticky Florida day in June when two University of Florida researchers were cruising down the highway. While the driver was behind the wheel, reading the curves of the road and navigating the peaks and valleys of northern Florida, the passenger was intently observing the terrain and surrounding plant life. The pair … Continue reading Keeping Butterflies Afloat: Adapting Roadside Maintenance to Protect Monarch Habitat, Increase Agricultural Productivity, and Save Money
The future of transportation is … complicated. Connected and automated vehicles, collectively termed CAVs, are making up an increasing share of the vehicles on the road. Fully-autonomous vehicles have already hit the streets in Gainesville. Domino’s Pizza promises a self-driving delivery fleet in the Houston area by the end of 2019. That said, a Jetsons-esque … Continue reading What Do Connected Traffic Signals Do With Unconnected Vehicles?
Stormwater management is more than just keeping streets dry. It also means keeping water clean. The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) is responsible for managing the water that runs off the state highway system. Regulations require an annual target amount of nitrogen and phosphorous to be removed from stormwater runoff. To do this, FDOT constructs … Continue reading Better Together: Stormwater Facilities Target More Than Roadway Runoff
Crowdsourcing is part of your life, whether you know it or not. Since the advent of smart phones and Web 2.0, crowdsourcing has blossomed into a mainstay of two-way communication between customers and the organizations with which they engage online. It is used for everything from emergency management to hailing a ride downtown to finding … Continue reading Strength in Numbers: Using Crowdsourcing to Improve Transit
You’ve probably seen it on your roads. A new building is constructed on a main thoroughfare to house a restaurant or other business. That business needs a driveway in and out of the thoroughfare. As drivers start entering and exiting the new driveway, there are traffic delays and a few crashes. The driveway also crosses … Continue reading The Ins and Outs of Access Management
Over the road truckers have a lot to worry about. Their prime concern has always been to deliver goods on time, of course, but today’s drivers face many new challenges, including increased demand for freight transportation coupled with a growing commercial driver shortage and unpredictable drive times from main trunk lines to distribution centers, among … Continue reading Parking with Precision: Evaluating Commercial Truck Parking Detection Technologies
Florida Department of Transportation Research Showcase 