What's New in Environment

The Florida Department of Transportation has released a report that discusses detention ponds collection runoff from highways as possible candidates of using media mixes and methods to filter water for reuse.

VTI, the Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute, has released a report that discusses how to estimate representative road emissions factors by using representative driving resistance factors which include rolling resistance, gradient forces, and acceleration forces.

VTI, the Swedish National Road and Research Institute, has released a report that analyzes the impact of the International Maritime Organization’s sulfur regulations, which will be applicable in 2015 in the sulfur emission control area . The report is written in Swedish and contains a summary in English.

TRB’s Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) Report 86: Environmental Optimization of Aircraft Departures: Fuel Burn, Emissions, and Noise explores a protocol for evaluating and optimizing aircraft departure procedures in terms of noise exposure, emissions, and fuel burn. Included with the print version of the report is a CD-ROM that contains the spreadsheet-based Departure Optimization In...

TRB’s Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) Synthesis 42: Integrating Environmental Sustainability into Airport Contracts provides examples of how airports might help drive environmental sustainability performance improvements at their facilities by integrating environmental sustainability concepts into contracts with contractors, suppliers, and vendors.

The Montana Department of Transportation has released a report that assesses possible solutions—such as reuse and recycle options—to the accumulation of traction sand that is applied to Montana highways every winter.

TRB’s second Strategic Highway Research Program (SHRP 2) has released a project brief that summarizes the results of SHRP 2 Capacity Project C09, Incorporating Greenhouse Gas Emissions into the Collaborative Decision-Making Process. The products of this research project include  Incorporating Greenhouse Gas Emissions into the Collaborative Decision-Making Process (SHRP 2 Report S2-C09...

TRB’s National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Synthesis 444, Pollutant Load Reductions for Total Maximum Daily Loads for Highways presents information on the types of structural and non-structural best management practices currently being used by state departments of transportation, including performance and cost data.

The Texas A&M Transportation Institute has released a compilation of research papers about factors influencing run-off road crashes on horizontal curves and impacts of nighttime work zone lighting.

TRB’s second Strategic Highway Research Program (SHRP 2) has released a project brief that summarizes SHRP 2 reports An Ecological Approach to Integrating Conservation and Highway Planning: Volumes 1 and 2, which are intended to provide the structure and tools needed to implement integrated conservation plans and mitigation activities that transcend individual agency jurisdictional boundaries a...

The Board on Energy and Environmental Systems, part of the National Academies’ Division on Engineering and Physical Sciences (DEPS) has release a report that provides an assessment of the U.S. DRIVE (Driving Research and Innovation for Vehicle Efficiency and Energy Sustainability) Partnership. The mission of the U.S. DRIVE Partnership is to accelerate the development of pre-competitive and inno...

As part of the SHRP2 Tuesdays Webinar Series, TRB will conduct a webinar on June 4, 2013 from 2:00 p.m.- 3:30 p.m. ET that will explore the SHRP 2 Report S2-C19-RR-1: Expedited Planning and Environmental Review of Highway Projects (C19) . The report identifies strategies that have been successfully used to expedite the planning and environmental review of transportation and some non-transportat...

TRB is sponsoring the Transportation-Related Noise and Vibration Committee Summer Conference on July 28-31, 2013 in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The conference is designed to address transportation-related noise and vibration control strategies and techniques as well as their potential environmental impacts. Future potential research needs will also be a topic of discussion at the meeting. E...

TRB is sponsoring the Transportation: Driving a Sustainable Urban Environment in July 22-25, 2013 in New Brunswick, New Jersey. The conference will address the environmental challenges related to planning, designing, constructing, and maintaining ground transportation systems. Future potential research needs will also be a topic of discussion at the meeting.

The Center for the Commercialization of Innovative Transportation Technologies has released a report that develops a framework for estimating the emissions of freight transport operations using a software tool.

The Maryland State Highway Administration has released a report that explains methods for using biological control as a means to provide a sustainable, cost effective, and beneficial method for dealing with noxious and invasive weeds on highway rights-of-way.

The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has released a fact sheet provides an overview of data from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System and General Estimates System for a variety of areas including restraint use, children pedestrians, and bicyclists.

VTI—the Swedish National Road and Research Institute, has released a report that calculates the environmental impacts of traffic by using a computational model as a means to slow climate change and improve energy efficiency, air quality, noise, and other environmental impacts. The report is written in Swedish and contains a summary in English.

TRB standing committees have issued  calls for papers for the TRB 93rd Annual Meeting, January 12-16, 2014, in Washington, D.C, and the Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board (TRR). While papers addressing any relevant aspect of transportation research will be considered, some committees are soliciting papers in specific subject areas to help potential...

The 2013 series marks the 50th year of TRB’s peer-reviewed journal, which debuted as the Highway Research Record in 1963; became the Transportation Research Record in 1974, with Number 480; and added the subtitle, Journal of the Transportation Research Board, in 2000, with Number 1653. In all, TRB has published more than 25,000 papers in volumes of the TRR Journal and continues to build on its ...

VTI, the Swedish National Road and Transport Institute, has released a report that describes a series of measurements and calculations for determining expected rumble strip hits and sound levels.

TRB’s Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) Synthesis 44: Environmental Management System Development Process provides background on the framework of an environmental management system (EMS), explores similarities and differences of the various approaches to an EMS, explains the EMS development process, and highlights lessons learned by airports that have developed an EMS.

TRB’s Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) Report 84: Guidebook for Preparing Airport Emissions Inventories for State Implementation Plans is designed to assist in the preparation of airport emissions inventory component of a State Implementation Plan. The Guidebook offers a basic, intermediate, and advanced approach for preparation of an airport emissions inventory. Each approach is pro...

The METRANS Transportation Center has released a report that models noise of container terminals at the Port of Los Angeles as a way to predict future noise levels of the area.

The Illinois Center for Transportation at the University of Illinois has released a report that analyzes monitoring data to examine the influence of flooding on ecological mechanisms that lead to variations in floodplain compensatory mitigation wetlands.

TRB is sponsoring Meeting State and Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPO) Information Needs in a Constrained Fiscal Environment: Joint Midyear Meeting for the Transportation Research Board (TRB) and the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) Committees on June 10-12, 2013, in Washington, D.C. This unique TRB conference will blend the traditional midyear ...

The World Road Association has released a report that explains the conceptual framework for managing road noise, fundamentals of tire-pavement noise, and strategies for pavement-noise reduction. This report is available without a fee after logging on to the site.

TRB’s Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) Synthesis 39: Airport Wildlife Population Management provides direct wildlife population control techniques for reducing wildlife collisions with aircraft. In addition, the report summarizes the ecological foundation of wildlife population control and management. ACRP Synthesis 39 is designed to supplement ACRP Synthesis 23 : Bird Harassmen...

The Virginia Department of Transportation has released a report that evaluates two in-vessel composting systems for deer carcasses—a rotary drum system and a forced aeration bin system—to determine the utility of each as a carcass management option.

The Maryland State Highway Administration has released a report that defines sustainability indicators for major geometric improvement options and proposes additional multimodal corridor improvement options.