Funded research projects at Penn State
- (PI) NCHRP Synthesis 20-05/Topic 54-10: State Customization of Highway Safety Manual Methods, National Cooperative Highway Research Program, April 2023 – March 2024, $55,000. [nationally competitive]
- (PSU PI) NCHRP Project 17-112: Enhancing Crash Modification Factors and Safety Performance Functions for Pedestrian and Bicyclist Countermeasures, National Cooperative Highway Research Program (subcontract to Texas Transportation Institute), July 2023 – June 2025, $600,000 (PSU amount – $150,000). [nationally competitive]
- (PSU PI) NCHRP Project 17-102: Safety performance for active transportation modes using exposure models, National Cooperative Highway Research Program (subcontract to Texas Transportation Institute), July 2023 – June 2026, $700,000 (PSU amount – $170,000). [nationally competitive]
- (co-PI) Safety effects of freeway rumble strips on crash severity, Federal Highway Administration (subcontract to VHB, Inc.), October 2022 – February 2024, $281,554 (PSU amount – $128,453). [nationally competitive]
- (PI) SCC-CIVIC-PG Track B: Novel shared transportation services to improve rural-urban commutes, National Science Foundation, October 2022 – March 2023, $49,999. [nationally competitive]
- (PI) Crash Modification Factors for high-tension cable median barriers, Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (subcontract to Kittelson & Associates, Inc.), September 2022 – June 2023, $94,806 (PSU amount – $77,920).
- (PI) Crash Modification Factors for high-friction surface treatments, Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (subcontract to Kittelson & Associates, Inc.), September 2022 – June 2023, $74,169 (PSU amount – $55,388).
- (co-PI) Behavioral safety in Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, July 2022 – June 2023, $79,437.
- (collaborating investigator) Socially responsible AI for Autonomous Vehicles, Center for Socially Responsible Artificial Intelligence (CSRAI) Seed Funding, May 2022 – April 2023, $5,000.
- (co-PI) Safety evaluation of sinusoidal centerline rumble strips, Montana Department of Transportation, January 2022 – June 2026, $184,731. [nationally competitive]
- (co-PI) Economic impacts of transportation infrastructure investments, Pennsylvania Department of Transportation and Center for Integrated Asset Management for Multimodal Transportation Infrastructure Systems, January 2022 – June 2023, $197,882.
- (co-PI) Quantifying the impact of data unavailability, inaccuracies and uncertainty on deterioration modeling and infrastructure asset management policies, Pennsylvania Department of Transportation and Center for Integrated Asset Management for Multimodal Transportation Infrastructure Systems, January 2022 – February 2024, $251,090.
- (PI) Crash Modification Factors for adaptive traffic signals update, Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (subcontract to Kittelson & Associates, Inc.), September 2021– May 2022, $48,132 (PSU amount – $34,051).
- (PI) On-demand Highway Safety Manual analysis and HSIP support, Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (subcontract to Kittelson & Associates, Inc.), August 2021– June 2023, $99,896 (PSU amount – $6,000).
- (co-PI) Development of Crash Modification Factors program: Focus crash and facility type workshops, Federal Highway Administration (subcontract to VHB, Inc.), June 2021 – December 2021, $59,630 (PSU amount – $25,265). [nationally competitive]
- (PI) Quantification of systemic risk factors for pedestrian safety on North Carolina roadways, North Carolina Department of Transportation, August 2021 – November 2022, $166,328. [nationally competitive]
- (PI) Collaborative research: Economic modeling and control methods for Next Generation carpool services, National Science Foundation, May 2021 – April 2024, $200,309. [nationally competitive]
- (PI) Interpretable machine learning methods for road crash frequency prediction, Penn State Institute for Computational and Data Sciences Seed Grant, May 2021 – December 2022, $24,612.
- (co-PI) Safe Integration of Autonomous Vehicles in Work Zones, US Department of Transportation (subcontract to HNTB Corporation), January 2021 – December 2024, $8,409,444 (PSU amount – $1,479,408). [nationally competitive]
- (PI) Network screening, Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (subcontract to Kittelson & Associates, Inc.), October 2020 – June 2021, $1,702,604 (PSU amount – $19,911).
- (co-PI) SMART Intersection multimodal safety countermeasure study, Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (subcontract to Kittelson & Associates, Inc.), October 2020 – March 2022, approx. $613,295 (PSU amount – $63,300). [ITSPA Project of the Year Award]
- (co-PI) Microsimulation of emergency evacuation of Bear Lake and Wild Basin in Rocky Mountain National Park, National Park Service, June 2020 – June 2021, $45,300. [nationally competitive]
- (co-PI) Optimization framework for infrastructure management considering traffic safety costs, Center for Integrated Asset Management for Multimodal Transportation Infrastructure Systems, June 2020 –November 2021, $193,983 (PSU amount – $96,983).
- (PI) Update PennDOT Pub. 638A, Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (subcontract to Kittelson & Associates, Inc.), April 2020 – December 2020, approx. $123,000 (PSU amount – $30,847).
- (co-PI) AI-enabled fiscally constrained life-cycle asset management for infrastructure systems, Center for Integrated Asset Management for Multimodal Transportation Infrastructure Systems, January 2020 – May 2021, $245,676 (PSU amount – $122,838).
- (co-PI) Southeastern Veterans Center Transportation Study, Pennsylvania Department of Military and Veterans Affairs, July 2019 – December 2019, $20,721.
- (PI) Adaptive signals crash modification factors, Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, May 2019 – March 2020, $73,460.
- (PI) Traffic signal control using reinforcement learning, Institute for CyberScience Seed Grant, May 2019 – December 2020, $22,433.
- (Collaborating Investigator) AI for identifying and optimizing interactions between transit systems, Institute for CyberScience Seed Grant, May 2019 – December 2020, $24,993.
- (PI) Pennsylvania traffic records integration plan, Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, September 2018 – July 2019, $92,769.
- (PSU co-PI) NCHRP Project 17-89: Safety performance of part-time shoulder use of freeways, National Cooperative Highway Research Program (subcontract to Kittelson & Associates, Inc.), June 2018 – March 2021, $400,000 (PSU amount – $45,880). [nationally competitive]
- (PI) CAREER: Multi-scale models of urban congestion dynamics to support advanced congestion management strategies, National Science Foundation, May 2018 – April 2023, $500,000. [nationally competitive]
- (co-PI) Regionalized urban/suburban collector road SPFs, Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, May 2018 – March 2019, $71,434. [AASHTO Sweet Sixteen Award]
- (co-PI) Crash data safety factors evaluation, Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, April 2017 – December 2017, $73,563.
- (PSU co-PI) NCHRP Project 17-84: Pedestrian and bicycle safety performance functions for the Highway Safety Manual, National Cooperative Highway Research Program (subcontract to MRI Global, Inc.), March 2017 – February 2019, $820,000 (PSU amount – $183,321). [nationally competitive]
- (co-PI) Financial benefits of proposed access management treatments, South Dakota Department of Transportation (subcontract to South Dakota State University.), December 2016 – February 2021, $99,982 (PSU amount – $45,287). [nationally competitive]
- (co-PI) Regionalized Safety Performance Functions, Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, March 2015 – December 2015, $121,755.
- (co-PI) Speed limits set lower than engineering recommendations, Montana Department of Transportation, September 2014 – August 2016, $143,332. [nationally competitive] [AASHTO High-Value Research Award]
- (PI) Establishing Crash Modification Factors and their use, Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, March 2014 – September 2014, $74,801.
- (Collaborating Investigator) A data-driven approach for Intelligent Transportation Systems, IST Research Seed Grant, January 2014 – May 2014, $8,821.
- (PI) Estimating uncertainty of bus arrival times and passenger occupancies, US Department of Transportation via Mineta National Transit Research Consortium, December 2013 – September 2015, $133,115 (PSU amount – $62,898).
- (PI) How can we maximize efficiency and increase person occupancy at overcrowded park and rides, Washington State Department of Transportation, October 2013 – June 2014, $147,513. [nationally competitive]
- (co-PI) Safety performance functions for rural roads in Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, August 2013 – October 2014, $499,936.
- (Collaborating Investigator) Impacts assessment of dynamic speed harmonization with queue warning, Federal Highway Association (subcontract to Kittelson & Associates, Inc.), June 2013 – March 2015, $369,750 (PSU amount – $4,382). [nationally competitive]
- (Collaborating Investigator) An examination of active travel and economic behavior, Social Science Research Institute at Penn State University, July 2013 – December 2013, $2,470.
- (co-PI) Integration of multimodal transportation services, US Department of Transportation via Mid-Atlantic Universities Transportation Center, May 2013 – June 2015, $153,301 (PSU amount – $39,985).
- (PI) Using mobile probes to inform and measure the effectiveness of macroscopic traffic control strategies on urban networks, US Department of Transportation via Mid-Atlantic Universities Transportation Center, August 2012 – June 2015, $201,375 (PSU amount – $90,435).
Selected projects participated in at VHB
- VMT prediction models to support macroscopic-level safety prediction tools, Southern California Association of Governments.
- Development of planning-level safety prediction tools for interchanges, Federal Highway Administration.
- Estimation of average daily traffic volumes using mobile probe data, North Carolina Department of Transportation.
- NCHRP Project 17-89A HOV/HOT freeway crash prediction method for the Highway Safety Manual, National Cooperative Highway Research Program.
- NCHRP Project 17-95 Crash Modification Factors (CMFs) for Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) applications, National Cooperative Highway Research Program.
- NCHRP Project 17-81 Proposed macro-level safety planning analysis chapter for the Highway Safety Manual, National Cooperative Highway Research Program.
- Data-driving models for safety measure baselines, North Carolina Department of Transportation.
- Safety measure target setting for 2020, Virginia Department of Transportation.
- NCHRP Project 17-93 Updating safety performance functions for data-driven safety analysis, National Cooperative Highway Research Program.
- NCHRP Project 17-86 Estimating effectiveness of safety treatments in the absence of crash data, National Cooperative Highway Research Program.
- Safety analysis needs assessment for transportation systems management and operations, Federal Highway Administration.
- Developing new methods for safety measure target setting, Virginia Department of Transportation.