On behalf of the National Operations Center of Excellence, I am excited to be serving as the Center’s new Technical Services Manager, effective January 2016. A brief background about myself: I am a December 2015 graduate of Purdue University, where I completed my Ph.D. in transportation engineering under Dr. Darcy Bullock and the Joint Transportation Research Program (JTRP). My doctoral research was in the area of traffic operations and mobility, with a specific emphasis on traffic signal systems. Prior to working at Purdue, I was a graduate research assistant at Iowa State University, where I earned my Master’s degree in 2011 under Dr. Nadia Gkritza. Here, my research focused on transportation infrastructure investment and energy use, as well as winter weather safety. I also earned a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering from Iowa State University in 2010. I look forward to being able to use my technical skills to engage a variety of TSM&O stakeholders through the NOCoE!

As my inaugural newsletter/blog posting for the NOCoE, I wanted to start off by broadly discussing an area of TSM&O practice where I see significant opportunities for growth and knowledge transfer: intersection safety, particularly in the context of reducing red light running (RLR) crashes. Much of this was the focus of my own doctoral dissertation, and I hope to be able to continue the conversation on advancing the state of practice in this and other areas in my role as Technical Services Manager.

Signalized Intersection Safety

Intersection-related crash injuries are another concern for many TSM&O practitioners. RLR crashes are particularly disconcerting from a public welfare perspective, given that they tend to be more severe in nature – in 2009, for example, the FHWA estimated that 676 crash fatalities were directly attributable to RLR. Furthermore, in a 2007 report, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) found that approximately half of all RLR fatalities were not the signal violators themselves. The Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) is currently developing new recommendations for setting red and yellow clearance intervals, further underscoring the timeliness of enhanced focus on intersection safety practices.

Many public agencies would benefit from having strategies to proactively identify locations with high numbers of RLR incursions, rather than having to rely on crash histories. Crash histories can be time-consuming to collect, and inconsistent in terms of geographic coverage. “Hot-spot” identification using automated enforcement camera data may be one potential avenue for exploration, but this technology tends to be controversial with the general public.

More recently, there has been some research into the use of existing vehicle detection for identifying RLR behavior. While these methods hold significant promise, they must be further tested and validated in a real-world operational environment. Consequently, there is significant opportunity for transportation agencies to serve as test beds for these procedures. As the NOCoE Technical Services Manager, I intend to guide the implementation of these and other safety practices, as well as connect institutions that are performing cutting-edge TSM&O research with real-world applications. Much of this will be done through various peer exchanges and knowledge transfer programs that we will undertake throughout 2016 and beyond. Additionally, I hope that visitors to the NOCoE will feel free to reach out to me personally with any questions or feedback that you may have.