<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><rss version="2.0" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"><channel><title>TRB Publications Index</title><link>http://pubsindex.trb.org/</link><atom:link href="http://pubsindex.trb.org/common/TRIS Suite/feeds/rss.aspx?tc=NN%3AHa" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" /><description></description><language>en-us</language><copyright>Copyright © 2015. National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.</copyright><docs>http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss</docs><managingEditor>tris-trb@nas.edu (Bill McLeod)</managingEditor><webMaster>tris-trb@nas.edu (Bill McLeod)</webMaster><image><title>TRB Publications Index</title><url>http://pubsindex.trb.org/Images/PageHeader-wTitle.png</url><link>http://pubsindex.trb.org/</link></image><item><title>Effect of Emergency Vehicle Lighting, Marking, and Message/Arrow Boards in Reducing Responder-Involved Crashes: Systematic Literature Review and National Level Survey</title><link>http://pubsindex.trb.org/view/2706085</link><description><![CDATA[Emergency responders play a vital role in roadway safety and incident management but remain highly vulnerable to secondary crashes and struck-by incidents. Despite laws such as Florida’s “Move Over” law, fatality and injury rates among responders remain high. This study presents a systematic literature review and a national expert survey examining emergency vehicle lighting, arrow boards, and retroreflective markings on responder safety. From an initial pool of 224 publications, 52 were synthesized. Key findings indicate that lighting configurations—specifically color, flash pattern, flash rate, and placement—significantly influenced driver behavior and compliance with the move-over law. Additionally, the use of arrow boards and retroreflective tapes, along with patterns and chevron markings, significantly improved vehicle visibility and conspicuity of the responder vehicles. The national survey reinforced these findings by revealing the broad variability in lighting systems, arrow boards, and retroreflective markings used, along with variations in cone deployment and other safety measures, across safety service patrol programs. Agencies emphasized the need for national standards and the integration of automated technologies to improve safety and efficiency. Future research should evaluate the influence of field variables such as geometric design, weather conditions, driver demographics, and human factors to guide the development of future policies and standards for emergency-responder safety.]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 27 May 2026 13:06:57 GMT</pubDate><guid>http://pubsindex.trb.org/view/2706085</guid></item><item><title>Reforming the Coast Guard's Certificate of Compliance Program for Liquefied Gas Carriers: Promoting Efficient Implementation and Safety Effectiveness</title><link>http://pubsindex.trb.org/view/2672508</link><description><![CDATA[As liquefied gas exports from U.S. ports have grown rapidly in recent years, reforms are needed to a U.S. Coast Guard program that examines liquefied gas carriers (LGCs). Going forward, this growth in LGC exports and arrivals is likely to increase the demand for gas carrier exams by Coast Guard marine inspectors, of which there is a chronic shortage. This Special Report was requested by Congress out of concern for the Coast Guard's ability to examine the increasing number of foreign tank ships that load liquefied gas for transport overseas. The National Academies' committee concluded that the time is right for Congress to revisit the Certificate of Compliance program's requirements mandating the frequency of exams and to allow the Coast Guard greater flexibility to decide when and how to examine individual LGCs using indicators of risk.]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 26 Feb 2026 09:15:16 GMT</pubDate><guid>http://pubsindex.trb.org/view/2672508</guid></item><item><title>Can School Bus Safety Be Improved?</title><link>http://pubsindex.trb.org/view/2613364</link><description><![CDATA[This article briefly discusses the findings of a committee that studied measures to improve school bus safety. These findings were presented at a news conference held at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C. Committee Chairman Charley V. Wootan and other committee members presented the findings.]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 03 Nov 2025 10:05:48 GMT</pubDate><guid>http://pubsindex.trb.org/view/2613364</guid></item><item><title>Advancing Vulnerable Road Users Safety: Interdisciplinary Review on V2X Communication and Trajectory Prediction</title><link>http://pubsindex.trb.org/view/2553197</link><description><![CDATA[The advancements in Intelligent Transportation Systems have brought a heightened focus on safety, driven by innovative solutions like Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) communication, Advanced Driver Assistance Systems(ADAS), and Cooperative Intelligent Transport Systems (C-ITS). Ensuring the safety of vulnerable road users (VRUs) remains a top priority in the transportation sector, and harnessing these cutting-edge technologies offers immense potential to address this concern effectively. This collaborative approach greatly enhances VRUs safety, reduces accidents, and promotes efficient and sustainable mobility. This paper reviews the latest developments in V2X technology, emphasizing its role in improving VRU safety. It explores current V2X standards, use cases on VRU safety, and the evolving research landscape, particularly in trajectory prediction models. These models are critical for foreseeing potential collisions and mitigating V2X-based data transmission delays. Trajectory prediction models can also offer a promising solution to ongoing challenges such as data association, scalability, and bandwidth requirements. By focusing on trajectory prediction, this paper highlights the vital role of predictive analytics in safeguarding vulnerable road users and advancing transportation safety.]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 31 Oct 2025 14:24:47 GMT</pubDate><guid>http://pubsindex.trb.org/view/2553197</guid></item><item><title>Development of a MASH TL-4 Open Concrete Bridge Rail</title><link>http://pubsindex.trb.org/view/2592204</link><description><![CDATA[A new open concrete bridge rail was developed to satisfy the safety performance criteria of AASHTO’s (American Association of State Highway and Transportation Official’s) Manual for Assessing Safety Hardware (MASH) Test Level 4 (TL-4). The railing design was optimized to minimize vehicle snag, contain large openings for drainage and aesthetics, minimize installation costs, and have the capacity to withstand MASH TL-4 impacts. Additionally, the railing was designed to be crashworthy before and after roadway overlays up to 3?in. thick. The new barrier was designed with a height of 39?in. and a width of 14?in. Posts were 36?in. long, by 10?in. deep, by 12?in. tall, and were set back 4?in. from the face of the railing to minimize the risk of vehicle snag. The inelastic post-and-beam method found in Section 13 of AASHTO LRFD Bridge Design Specifications was modified to account for differences in failure shapes between steel and concrete post and beam railings. The modified method also adjusted the height for the applied design load to match the recommended 30?in. height for tall TL-4 barriers. This modified analysis method was used to optimize the barrier geometry and reinforcement. The new open concrete bridge rail was then subjected to crash testing in accordance with MASH TL-4. All three tests, MASH Tests 4-10, 4-11, and 4-12, resulted in successful capture and safe redirection of the vehicles. Thus, the new open concrete bridge railing was deemed MASH TL-4 crashworthy.]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 26 Aug 2025 09:20:02 GMT</pubDate><guid>http://pubsindex.trb.org/view/2592204</guid></item><item><title>Safe Maintenance of Airfield Electrical Systems for Small Airports</title><link>http://pubsindex.trb.org/view/2548735</link><description><![CDATA[Many of the country’s smallest airports may not have qualified onsite management or staff familiar with operational needs and risks to safely manage an airfield electrical system, and there is a lack of cost-effective training on basic airfield electrical system maintenance available for small airports.  ACRP WebResource 20: Safe Maintenance of Airfield Electrical Systems for Small Airports, from TRB’s Airport Cooperative Research Program, provides guidelines and tools to help small airports recognize hazards and mitigate risk, job aids to ensure individuals are better equipped to perform assigned tasks, a list of recommended airfield electrical training resources, and steps to identify qualified local or regional contractors.]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 30 Apr 2025 16:59:37 GMT</pubDate><guid>http://pubsindex.trb.org/view/2548735</guid></item><item><title>Data-Driven Semi-Supervised Machine Learning with Safety Indicators for Abnormal Driving Behavior Detection</title><link>http://pubsindex.trb.org/view/2526464</link><description><![CDATA[Detecting abnormal driving behavior is critical for road traffic safety and the evaluation of drivers’ behavior. With the advancement of machine learning (ML) algorithms and the accumulation of naturalistic driving data, many ML models have been adopted for abnormal driving behavior detection (also referred to in this paper as “anomalies”). Most existing ML-based detectors rely on (fully) supervised ML methods, which require substantial labeled data. However, ground truth labels are not always available in the real world, and labeling large amounts of data is tedious. Thus, there is a need to explore unsupervised or semi-supervised methods to make the anomaly detection process more feasible and efficient. To fill this research gap, this study analyzes large-scale real-world data revealing several abnormal driving behaviors (e.g., sudden acceleration, rapid lane-changing) and develops a hierarchical extreme learning machine (HELM)-based semi-supervised ML method using partly labeled data to accurately detect the identified abnormal driving behaviors. Moreover, previous ML-based approaches predominantly utilized basic vehicle motion features (such as velocity and acceleration) to label and detect abnormal driving behaviors, while this study seeks to introduce event-level safety indicators as input features for ML models to improve the detection performance. Results from extensive experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed semi-supervised ML model with the introduced safety indicators serving as important features. The proposed semi-supervised ML method outperforms other baseline semi-supervised or unsupervised methods as far as various metrics are concerned: for example, it delivers the best accuracy at 99.58% and the best F1-score at 0.9913. The ablation study further highlights the significance of safety indicators for advancing the detection performance of abnormal driving behaviors.]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 20 Mar 2025 13:25:00 GMT</pubDate><guid>http://pubsindex.trb.org/view/2526464</guid></item><item><title>An Inclusive Public Transport System for Riders Wearing Religious Attire</title><link>http://pubsindex.trb.org/view/2495032</link><description><![CDATA[Ensuring an inclusive and equitable public transport system remains a major challenge for many cities. Spaces in crowded terminals and vehicles can compel riders to interact close to each other. Some evidence shows that public transport users from racial- or ethnic-minority groups, especially individuals who wear religious attire, often encounter higher rates of discrimination and harassment. The present study contributes to the limited knowledge on their travel experiences by providing insights into perceived personal security and ridership frequency, specifically focusing on riders who wear religious attire. This study uses data involving 524 participants from an online survey administered in Auckland, New Zealand. Results showed that racial and ethnic groups are dependent on public transport in their daily lives, and those who wear religious attire are often frequent riders. Findings show statistically significant differences in perceived personal security between those who wear religious attire and others. Individuals with a religious appearance express greater concern about their personal security while riding public transport and are found to avoid using it during off-peak hours. These findings provide evidence that such groups are marginalized because of their appearance. Othering behaviors do not go unnoticed and can create a hostile environment for public transport users who wear religious attire. Findings from this study add to the growing evidence that an inclusive environment is necessary for all riders to feel safe, particularly those who are dependent on public transport. Service providers have an ethical responsibility to ensure a no-tolerance culture for discrimination toward riders that explicitly protects those of marginalized identities, including those who wear religious attire.]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 28 Jan 2025 09:19:03 GMT</pubDate><guid>http://pubsindex.trb.org/view/2495032</guid></item><item><title>Transportation Tunnel Fire Sprinklers and Opportunities</title><link>http://pubsindex.trb.org/view/2478280</link><description><![CDATA[Fire sprinklers are widely accepted as a fundamental building safety feature. Yet, in transportation tunnels where fires grow faster and hotter and exits are farther away, fire sprinklers were prohibited until recently and are still not required in underground rail public assembly areas. Fires in transportation tunnels have resulted in deaths, severe damage to tunnel structures and systems, and costly closures, all of which are preventable with fire sprinklers. The inability to suppress a fire unnecessarily exposes hazardous materials in road tunnels to potentially extreme heat and failing containment, and it sometimes allows hazardous materials to react to heat with extreme consequences. This results in the preventative rerouting of hazardous materials around tunnels at considerable expense to shipping. But we know that fire sprinklers are routinely used to protect hazardous materials manufacturing, processing, storage, and handling outside tunnels. This practice is used in four US road tunnels, which routinely allow unrestricted hazardous materials specifically because of the presence of fire sprinkler systems. Adding fire sprinklers to existing road tunnels could prevent tunnel fires from growing beyond the capability of the undersized ventilation systems which exist in many tunnels. Adding sprinklers could be less expensive than difficult ventilation upgrades. Including sprinklers in new tunnels can limit the fire growth rate and maximum heat release rate and thus reduce the ventilation size as well as passive fire system costs. If life safety is a primary consideration, fire sprinklers should be a cornerstone to improving public safety in transportation tunnels, as they protect occupants from fire as well as allow the safe passage of hazardous materials.]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 17 Dec 2024 09:04:53 GMT</pubDate><guid>http://pubsindex.trb.org/view/2478280</guid></item><item><title>Traveling for Safety: Price and Income Elasticities of Hurricane Evacuation Behavior</title><link>http://pubsindex.trb.org/view/2458629</link><description><![CDATA[Using multiple hurricane surveys collected from different areas in the U.S., this study estimates how much distance and how much time were traveled by evacuees to reach safer destinations during a hurricane event. Regression results indicate that flood risk, respondents’ age, income, and education levels are correlated with both the distance and travel time of hurricane evacuation trips. Moreover, to gain deeper insights, we estimated the price and income elasticities of hurricane evacuation trip characteristics. The estimated elasticities of travel distance reveal that travel distance is a necessary and ordinary good, implying that safety is essential and less responsive to price changes. In addition, the estimated elasticities of travel time suggest that travel time is an inferior good, indicating that as income goes up, people tend to spend less time traveling for evacuation. This finding provides logistic implications for emergency management agencies to analyze the evacuation travel demand and ensure safety in vulnerable communities.]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 20 Nov 2024 09:13:32 GMT</pubDate><guid>http://pubsindex.trb.org/view/2458629</guid></item><item><title>Future of E-Bikes on Public Lands: A Human Factors Field Study at Minute Man National Historical Park</title><link>http://pubsindex.trb.org/view/2452716</link><description><![CDATA[Electric-assist bicycles (e-bikes) are growing in popularity, and their use has increased on public lands managed by federal, state, and local agencies in the United States. Evaluation of e-bike use on public lands is hindered by a dearth of scientific research, as noted in a prior literature review completed by the study team. This paper presents the results of a human factors field study that evaluated participant speed and behavior on an unpaved, multiuse trail to answer research questions about trail user safety and social interaction. The study concludes that e-bike riders travel approximately 1 to 2 mph faster than conventional bike riders on average, but that individuals’ speeds among conventional and e-bike riders are widely distributed and overwhelmingly overlap, including at the upper and lower extremes. The sex of the rider predicts a greater difference in speed than whether they are using a conventional or an e-bike. The study also found conventional and e-bike riders generally reduce speed in areas of potential conflict and exhibit similar precautionary behaviors when passing other trail users and when crossing trail junctions and vehicle paths. Public lands managers can use these results to inform their decisions about managing e-bike use on multiuse trails with similar characteristics.]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 15 Nov 2024 09:48:10 GMT</pubDate><guid>http://pubsindex.trb.org/view/2452716</guid></item><item><title>TRANSBALTICA XIII: Transportation Science and Technology: Proceedings of the 13th International Conference TRANSBALTICA, September 15-16, 2022, Vilnius, Lithuania</title><link>http://pubsindex.trb.org/view/2406946</link><description><![CDATA[This book reports on innovative research and developments in the broad field of transportation. It covers solutions relating to intelligent vehicles and infrastructure, energy and combustion management, vehicle dynamics and engineering, as well as research on railway transport, aerospace technologies, logistics and security. Contributions are based on peer-reviewed papers presented at the 13th international scientific conference "Transbaltica: Transportation Science and Technology", held on September 15-16, 2022, at Vilnius Gediminas Technical University, in Vilnius, Lithuania. All in all, this book offers extensive information on modern transport systems, with a good balance of theory and practice.]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 12 Aug 2024 09:13:23 GMT</pubDate><guid>http://pubsindex.trb.org/view/2406946</guid></item><item><title>Evaluating the Impact of Maintenance Actions on Diverse Users in Shared Automobile, Bicycle, and Pedestrian Facilities</title><link>http://pubsindex.trb.org/view/2414236</link><description><![CDATA[The maintenance of roadways, bikeways, and sidewalks affects the users of not only the mode in which the maintenance action is taken, but also the users of other co-located modes. When such actions are taken simultaneously, either because of stovepiping in maintenance planning across modes or from larger projects that bundle these activities to improve efficiencies and reduce monetary costs, the activities can have very significant impacts on system users. Their impacts can be greater for the users of one mode over another and for some user groups over others. To capture the perspectives of diverse users and multi-modal traffic on shared facilities, a multi-modal network modeling methodology considering several additional important attributes (e.g., safety, slope, and costs at intersections) is proposed. An embedded traffic assignment model in mixed traffic of different modes is solved through a fast bush-based traffic assignment algorithm. Measurements of mobility, accessibility, safety, and proportional fairness are considered in impact evaluation. The developed method and metrics are applied to a case study replicating a portion of the business district adjacent to the University of Delaware campus. Outcomes from application of these tools show the existence of inequities across users.]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 09 Aug 2024 08:40:49 GMT</pubDate><guid>http://pubsindex.trb.org/view/2414236</guid></item><item><title>Human Trafficking Awareness Training and Response Procedure Template for Transit Agencies</title><link>http://pubsindex.trb.org/view/2410571</link><description><![CDATA[As the frontline eyes on communities, transit operators are uniquely positioned to recognize suspicious activities and report them to authorities. Training is necessary to inform and empower transit agencies in the fight against human trafficking. Human trafficking is modern day slavery, which the U.S. Department of Justice defines as a crime that involves the exploitation of a person for labor, services, or commercial sex. Human trafficking is a worldwide criminal industry that the denies freedom of 25?million people around the world. This heinous crime often targets the most vulnerable populations and preys on their needs, weaknesses, and insecurities as a strategy to control their victims through force, fraud, and coercion. This paper reviews the resources available for transit agencies to train their employees on the signs of human trafficking that they should be on the lookout for. Truckers Against Trafficking’s Busing on the Lookout program has shared success stories related to transit employees recognizing situations and saving human trafficking victims. However, the existence of transit agency policies and associated procedures is a recognized resource gap in the transit industry. The available training materials direct trainees to refer to their agency policy on how to report suspicious activity. However, as noted, many transit agencies do not have a formalized policy or procedures in place to dictate how to report suspected human trafficking activity. This paper provides agencies with valuable human trafficking awareness training resources and a response procedure template as tools to improve the awareness and reporting procedures in their agency.]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 02 Aug 2024 08:43:21 GMT</pubDate><guid>http://pubsindex.trb.org/view/2410571</guid></item><item><title>Review of the Impacts of Human Factors on Cycling: Perceptions, Workload, and Behavior</title><link>http://pubsindex.trb.org/view/2372917</link><description><![CDATA[Cycling remains a popular mode of transportation, yet cyclists are vulnerable road users that face numerous safety challenges. Although human factors research typically focuses on motor vehicle drivers, studies addressing active transportation users, like cyclists, are scarce. The unique aspects of cycling, such as physical effort, exposure to the environment, and disconnected infrastructure, can affect cyclists’ mental perception, workload, and behavior, which are argued to influence their safety on the road. Therefore, this scoping literature review identified factors influencing cyclists’ workload and explored different measures used to quantify mental workload. The findings highlighted age, infrastructure, portable devices, and type of bike as factors that could affect workload levels. However, research on cyclists’ workload from their perspective is limited. This paper summarizes three types of workload measure: subjective, performance, and physiological. These have been used to quantify workload in relation to cyclists and in other settings. We reflect on their benefits and challenges were they to be used to quantify cyclists’ workload. Our discussion emphasizes the need for future research to take a comprehensive approach that considers multiple factors simultaneously to gain a more holistic understanding of their collective impact on cyclists’ mental workload. Moreover, we emphasize the importance of supplementing subjective workload measures with psychophysiological ones for better accuracy and reliability. The review revealed a lack of data and guidelines specific to cycling infrastructure, contributing to cyclists’ vulnerability, and underscored the need for previous findings to be translated into actionable recommendations to improve cyclist safety.]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 29 Apr 2024 18:29:55 GMT</pubDate><guid>http://pubsindex.trb.org/view/2372917</guid></item></channel></rss>