REPORTING CATEGORIES 1. Accomplishments 1A. Research Projects Major goals as stated in New England UTC Prospectus Research Goal • To conduct research in technology applications and systems integration with related work in policy, planning and human factors that improve transportation safety as well as further our understanding and realization of livable communities to support mobility across the lifespan. • To support peer-reviewed investigations that address safety and livability by exploring and furthering research, policy, and practice in the application of ubiquitous intelligence, use of big data, and improved human performance Following is the list of the 37 research projects under this grant, and their current status: Project No. PI Project Title Status Capturing the Relationship between MITR25-1 Abou-Zeid Social Interaction and Travel Behavior active Ben-Akiva Using Smart Phones Caplice High-Resolution Urban Freight Modeling MITR25-2 Caballero in Cambridge, MA active Assessing Navigatability and Livability of MITR25-3 Coughlin Public Transportation Systems active Ellis Transportation Workforce Health and MITR25-4 Lavalliere Wellbeing active Understanding the Adoption of and MITR25-5 D'Ambrosio Education about New Auto Technologies active among Older Adults Modeling the Impact of One-Way Car MITR25-6 Frazzoli Sharing: An integrated data- and active optimization-driven approach Fusing Structured and Unstructured MITR25-7 Goentzel Transportation Data for Decision-Making active in Crisis Coupled Mobility Networks: A Data Driven MITR25-8 Gonzalez Approach active Out and About in New England: MITR25-9 Isaacson Maintaining Active Life styles in Later Life active Effectiveness of Various Information MITR25-10 Lee Channels on User Training and Learning active in Automobiles Optimal Road Traffic Operations for an MITR25-11 Osorio Increasingly Autonomous and Connected active Vehicle Fleet Pentland Incentivizing Safer Driving Using Peer- MITR25-12 Shmueli Pressure active Assessing the Effect of Typography on In- MITR25-13 Reimer Vehicle Glance-Like Reading Across the active Dobres Lifespan Salvucci MALL Transit and Wider Economic MITR25-14 Murga Benefit Assessment active Hub Stations As Catalysts for Regional MITR25-15 Sussman Growth: The Case of New York Penn active Station From Trip Data to the Energy MITR25-16 Trancik Requirements of Personal Vehicle Travel active MITR25-17 Zegras Scenario Discovery for Resilient Urban active Pereira Systems (or, The Future is “Big Data”) Humanizing Travel: How E-hail Apps MITR25-18 Zhao Transform Stakeholder Relationships in active Taxi Services Transportation Stimulus Spending and HVDR25-19 Glaeser Long Term Unemployment active Gomez- HVDR25-20 Ibanez The Experience with Managed Toll Lanes active Fagan 2 Recreating Livable Communities after Catastrophe: Managing the Recovery HVDR25-21 Howitt from Japan’s Earthquake, Tsunami, and active Nuclear Disaster of 2011 The Politics of Transport Policy in the HVDR25-22 Mayne Greater Copenhagen Region, Part 2 active The Local Effects of the American HVDR25-23 Shoag Recovery and Reinvestment Act on active Economic Activity and Traffic Safety Operational and Emission Analyses of UMAR25-24 Christofa Roundabouts under Varied Vehicle and active Knodler Pedestrian Demands Fisher UMAR25-25 Knodler Evaluating the Effect of Google Glass on active Zafian Driver Distraction Routing Policy Choice Models in UMAR25-26 Gao Stochastic Time-Dependent Networks: active The Stockholm Case Study Route Choice in Congested Grid UMAR25-27 Gonzales Networks active A Driving Simulator Evaluation of Driver Knodler Distraction and Traffic Control Device UMAR25-28 Fisher Comprehension for At-Grade Railroad active Crossings An Innovative Design to Retrofit Seatbelts UMAR25-29 Krishnamurty in Motorcoaches active Ni Supplementary Vehicle Positioning to UMAR25-30 Wang Connected Vehicles active Atkinson- A Multi-Scalar Model to Identify the UCNR25-31 Palombo Causes of Decreased Vehicle Miles active Garrick Traveled (VMT) in the United States Garrick Factors Contributing to the Decrease in UCNR25-32 Atkinson- Traffic Fatality Rates for Young People in active Palombo America Ivan UCNR25-33 Ravishanker Social Network Effects on Attitudes about active Townsend Pedestrian Street Crossing Behavior 3 Exploration of Human Psychological UCNR25-34 Konduri Factors Underlying Mobile Phone Usage active Dalal Behaviors while Driving Clustering Algorithms for Transit UCNR25-35 Lownes Network Design active UMER25-36 Garder Deficient Bridges and Safety Information active Rubin Automated Vehicles: Economic Incentives UMER25-37 Garder for Environmental Benefits and Safety active Accomplishments under the New England UTC’s research goal MIT Student wins Volpe Award for best transportation presentation at NEC-HFES 2015 May 1, 2015 Investigators at The New England Center continue to make headway into the expanding field of driving behavior research with three presentations at the New England Chapter of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society’s Annual Student Conference earlier this month. One of them, MIT Visiting student Mauricio Muñoz, won the Volpe Award for Best Transportation Presentation for his project “Using Hidden Markov Models for Classification of Driver Visual Behavior”. Project MITR24-1 Capturing the Relationship between Motility, Mobility and Well-Being Using Smart Phones Two surveys have been conducted to measure happiness, both on real-time and retrospectively. The respondents came from several countries covering all six continents, and included both workers and students. The results of the first survey helped in improving the methodology for collecting well-being information using a smart-phone app. An exploratory model has been developed to model both real- time and retrospective happiness as a function of activity attributes and socio-economic variables. Project MITR25-12 Incentivizing Safer Driving Using Peer-Pressure The general research framework is being considered by an MIT startup called WISE, which helps delivery drivers be more efficient and safe. The framework suggests that social incentives among drivers will be more effective than incentives aimed at individuals alone. The startup is now beginning pilots with several large companies, and is considering incorporating our incentive framework into its system. Project MITR25-16 From Trip Data to the Energy Requirements of Personal Vehicle Travel We have developed a new model of nationwide energy consumption from personally operated vehicles, allowing for the first time an examination of battery electric vehicle (BEV) technology from a policy-level perspective while faithfully considering individual drivers’ daily behavior. The model is intended to allow us to evaluate the possibility for, and the impacts of, widespread BEV adoption. In doing so, we consider how BEV range can vary depending on usage conditions such as driving speed and aggressiveness, along with external conditions such as weather, which have a large impact on BEV energy consumption. In combination with this detailed model of BEV range, we also consider how travel demand in detail. This joint approach allows us to capture how given range constraints can affect individual travelers differently given differences both in daily driving distances and in BEV performance. We have examined these results both nationally and for a range of cities, and we have 4 found high degrees of similarity between cities and consistent scaling behavior of energy needs within them, pointing to a universality of our results that has not been shown in related studies. Project HVDR25-19 Transportation Stimulus Spending and Long Term Unemployment This project provides a clearer picture of how highway construction supports jobs. The research evaluates how effective Recovery Act highway infrastructure spending was at creating construction jobs and boosting overall employment growth in the wake of the 2008 recession. We find that the supplementary highway infrastructure spending in the Recovery Act had a pronounced effect on employment in the highway construction sector, supporting 5-10 job-years per million dollars. However, we find little evidence of any employment stimulation in the same county as the work sites; rather, all detectable job creation occurs in the counties where vendors who won contracts were based. These findings, and the mere fact that most vendors were based in different communities than the project sites, suggest that economically distressed areas are not benefited by local highway construction activity. Any benefit to the community must accrue based on the actual utility of the road facility. HVDR25-21 Recreating Livable Communities after Catastrophe: Managing the Recovery from Japan’s Earthquake, Tsunami, and Nuclear Disaster of 2011 The research team conducted a three-week research trip to Japan where they interviewed community leaders and civil servants at the municipal, prefectural, and national levels of government regarding the progress and challenges of recovery in the aftermath of the 03/11/11 earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear crisis. In addition, for the first time, the researchers conducted interviews with officials from five municipalities (Futaba, Kawauchi, Minami-Soma, Namie, and Tomioka) which had endured the effects of the meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. Also interviewed were national officials in the Recovery Agency; the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport, and Tourism; the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry; and