In a reliable transportation system, motorists know with a high degree of certainty when they will arrive to their destination. Numerous factors directly affect reliability such as signal timing, work zones, incidents, unusually high demand, special events, weather, and the performance of complementary and competing modes). The purpose of a travel-time reliability monitoring system (TTRMS) is to collect travel-time data from various sources and to monitor travel-time reliability. Such a system allows transportation agencies to quantify travel-time reliability of their transportation networks and evaluate the impact of transportation network improvements on reliability. Moreover, freight carriers can make more informed decisions to minimize their travel times and possibly reducing transportation costs.
Featured News
Taking Border Performance to the Next Level
In the transportation research business, we use the term “performance measurement” when we measure how a certain aspect of our transportation system is operating. For example, through crash reporting we can tell you with certainty how safe a road is operating, or, through commute times, how well traffic is flowing. Safety and mobility of a roadway are fairly easy to determine. [Read more…] about Taking Border Performance to the Next Level
CIITR Provides More Reliable Cross-Border Travel Time Estimates
For shippers, knowing how long it takes to move freight is important to their bottom line. But until now, accurately predicting the time it takes to cross the border hasn’t been possible.
Though careful vetting of shipments crossing the border is necessary to maintain security, unreliable border wait times can cause major slowdowns for freight traveling from Mexico to the United States. In 2008, the Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI) demonstrated a system to the Federal Highway Administration that accurately, reliably leveraged technology to collect border wait time data.
Over the course of several research projects, TTI researchers created a solution that uses radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology, currently present in most trucks, to measure border wait times. Deployed at seven commercial ports of entry across Texas, this system provides anyone interested — and especially U.S. Customs and Border Protection — with reliable estimates via the website TTI created.
Before the website was available, shippers relied on the free travel-time estimates provided by Google to predict cross-border travel times, but the time spent at the crossing was not included in Google’s estimate. TTI’s approach uses the border wait times from the website combined with travel times from Google to provide a better travel-time prediction.
“We’re supplying that missing piece of the puzzle,” says TTI Software Developer Swapnil Samant. “With the machine-learning algorithm we developed, we can predict accurate travel times from origin to destination and post them to the website for a given 24-hour period. And we refine the estimate every half hour.”
By updating the estimate 48 times a day, TTI can provide shippers with an accurate travel-time estimate for commercial vehicles passing through border checkpoints. And it wouldn’t have been possible, Samant says, without the expertise of Jose Rivera Montes De Oca, a Texas A&M University graduate student studying math.
Beginning with data generated in 2013, the algorithm takes reams of historical data and predicts the expected wait time at the border for a given day and time. That means more efficient cross-border supply chains, and that can mean a better bottom line for U.S. manufacturers and, potentially, savings for consumers.
“Sometimes the field of mathematics is so theoretical, you can’t really explain what you do to other people,” says Rivera Montes De Oca. “But I can point to the website and show them how my work makes a difference. My time at TTI has been amazing. If I could work here the rest of my life, I would.”
Originally published as “Student Insights Lead to Research Innovations: TTI Provides More Reliable Cross-Border Travel Time Estimates” in the Texas Transportation Researcher, Volume 53, Number 1 (2017).
Center Researchers Provide Guidelines for Ports Seeking TRZ Financing
In 2007, The Texas Legislature enabled a new financing mechanism, the transportation reinvestment zone (TRZ), to encourage local infrastructure development. TRZs have proven very successful over the last decade for highway development.
TRZs designate an impact area around a needed improvement project. A municipality or county can use some or all of the property and sales tax increment revenue projected to accrue from the improvement to fund the project. While the original legislation applied to most transportation projects, port projects weren’t included — until now.
“The funding tools available to Texas ports have traditionally been focused on improvements within the ports themselves,” explains Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI) Senior Research Scientist Rafael Aldrete, who heads TTI’s Center for International Intelligent Transportation Research. “The legislation in 2013 recognized the positive impact expanding ports can have on the broader local landscape.”
Once the legal framework was in place, port authorities and the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) saw the need for guidelines ports could use to set a TRZ. Under TxDOT’s direction, TTI developed webinar materials, case studies and evaluation tools, which are now available for any port to use.
“The quality of the roads — both within and outside the port — can impact a port’s effectiveness, and that in turn impacts the local economy,” says Aldrete. As ports expand by, say, increasing warehouse capacity, they naturally employ more local residents to work in those warehouses. And the residents need places to live (helping create a healthy real estate market) and buy goods (improving the local gross domestic product). In short, a healthy port makes for a healthy community.
“We used the ports in Beaumont and Brownsville to refine our model,” explains Bae, “and now it’s applicable to any port, anywhere, seeking funding through a TRZ.”
Texas has often led the nation in advancing transportation, and it was the first state to implement TRZs. Now, once again, TxDOT is setting the standard for ports nationwide to take advantage of this innovative financing tool.
Originally published as “Student Insights Lead to Research Innovations: TTI Provides Guidelines for Ports Seeking TRZ Financing” in the Texas Transportation Researcher, Volume 53, Number 1 (2017).
Featured Research: El Paso I-10 Integrated Corridor Management
Recently, TTI’s Center for International Integrated Transportation Research helped the El Paso Metropolitan Planning Organization successfully compete for a federal grant to develop an integrated corridor management concept of operations (ConOps) for a 16-mile corridor of IH-10. | Read More
Port-of-Entry Emissions Inventory for the El Paso Region
When vehicles are idling in heavy or standstill traffic congestion, the resulting emission pollutants impact air quality significantly. El Paso region border ports of entry are of particular concern due to the north- and southbound commercial and passenger vehicle queues and long wait times at inspection stations. TTI researchers recently completed a computer modeling effort to examine the emissions impacts at the Ysleta-Zaragoza port of entry at El Paso/Cuidad Juarez which provided insights into how various combinations of reduction in wait time and open inspection booths can affect emissions differently for passenger and commercial vehicles. | Read the Featured Project Page
Making Pedestrians, Bicyclists a Priority at the Border
Like motorists, pedestrians crossing the border at all four El Paso international bridges are experiencing longer crossing times. For example, 550,000 people crossed the border by foot just in the first quarter of 2014.
[Read more…] about Making Pedestrians, Bicyclists a Priority at the Border
Pope Visit Creates Few Traffic Problems: No Miracle, Just Good Planning
by Sushant Sharma and David Galicia
When a major event attracts tens of thousands of visitors to a community, the transportation network is sometimes negatively impacted near that event. The ripple effect can often be felt across the entire transportation system. We and other researchers with the Texas A&M Transportation Institute’s Center for International Intelligent Transportation Research (CIITR) had a unique opportunity to study one of the biggest and historical events in the Paso Del Norte Region — the Pope’s visit to Ciudad Juarez area in April.
[Read more…] about Pope Visit Creates Few Traffic Problems: No Miracle, Just Good Planning
Counting Cars at the Border? Not As Simple As You Might Think
by Dan Middleton
Finally, after years of searching and testing, the Center for International Intelligent Transportation Research (CIITR) may have found a device that reliably counts the thousands of passenger and commercial vehicles crossing the border between Mexico and Texas each day. Full-scale testing on the product is underway now at the Zaragoza Bridge border crossing in El Paso, and we should know soon if it’s what we’ve been looking for.
[Read more…] about Counting Cars at the Border? Not As Simple As You Might Think
The Right Modeling Tool for the Right Simulation Job: Arming Agencies with Accurate Information to Improve Border-Crossing Wait Times
by David Salgado Manzano and Jeff Shelton
If you spend much time along the border, especially during peak crossing times, you can find yourself waiting for hours to get through a checkpoint. And while improved trade between the U.S. and Mexico is a good thing, one down side is that the increased traffic is adding to the problem.
[Read more…] about The Right Modeling Tool for the Right Simulation Job: Arming Agencies with Accurate Information to Improve Border-Crossing Wait Times