Texas A&M Transportation Institute» environment

Looking into the Retroreflective Glass

Tobey — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 18:08:39 +0000

Could glass beads used in pavement paint be harmful to human health?

Lines, signs and symbols painted on the pavement play a major role in providing drivers with needed information about how to navigate the roadway safely and legally. In order to ensure that drivers can see the markings at night, the paint is mixed with micro-sized glass spheres, making it retroreflect the light from vehicle headlamps to drivers’ eyes. But as this paint–glass bead mixture is applied to the road, degrades over time, and is reapplied, what effect does it have on the people handling it and on our environment? Researchers with the Texas Transportation Institute (TTI) and the Texas A&M University Zachry Department of Civil Engineering (CE) recently began an effort to find an answer to this question.

Mixed with paint, microscopic glass beads like those seen here help enhance the retroreflective property of pavement markings.

The microscopic glass beads added to pavement paint most often start out as recycled glass feedstock, which can have high levels of arsenic and other heavy metals.

“In the past, arsenic had been used to purify glass. While we no longer purify glass this way, arsenic is still present in recycled glass that becomes the beads,” says Bryan Boulanger, assistant professor in CE. “Volume-wise, a lot of glass beads go down on the roads, and they are constantly being replaced.”

“I estimate that there are about 80 million pounds of glass beads used each year on U.S. highways,” says Paul Carlson, head of TTI’s Operations and Design Division. With such a large quantity in use, private producers and public officials began to wonder if the beads could leach heavy metals into the ground or affect human health.

So the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) tasked Boulanger and Carlson to find out the concentrations of heavy metals in the beads. After collecting samples from around the country and participating vendors, the beads were ground down to measure the metal contents and determine what chemical forms could leach out. Researchers also observed how the glass beads are handled in the workplace to see what risks there might be to the workers. Since the glass beads are approximately the size of small ball bearings, workers could inadvertently consume them through unwashed hands.

The statistics gathered were incorporated into a risk assessment model that will be used by decision makers at all levels of transportation. The model is currently being reviewed for impartiality and refined for accuracy. An analysis of small samples of glass beads shows only a weak relationship between the metal contents and the retroreflectivity level.

“Glass beads are a very integral part of highway safety. So when considering the risk associated with heavy-metal contents in the beads, decision makers have to balance that with the risk of not having the beads in the paint,” says Boulanger. More research is needed to determine the full impact on pavement marking retroreflectivity, if any, as well as to assess how removing metals from the glass beads will affect their efficacy.

Freight Shuttle System Promises the Next Historic Milestone in Freight Movement

Tobey — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 17:54:38 +0000

The current manner of highway freight movement in Texas — for a variety of reasons — is not sustainable:

Growing volumes of harmful truck emissions foul the air and threaten our health.
Increasing amounts of cargo on an already-congested network mean costly delays for shippers and higher costs for consumers.
Declining levels of transportation funding make it increasingly difficult to repair the roadway wear and tear caused by heavy trucks.

Most experts agree: the problem has become so severe that nothing short of a game-changing development can make a meaningful difference. Fortunately, that development may be on the horizon.

Picture a system in which transporters powered by electric motors carry trailers from trucks and containers from ships on an elevated track above existing highway right-of-way, safely separated from passenger traffic. Picture a system that produces less air pollution, less traffic congestion, less wear and tear on the roads, and less noise. Clearly, it’s a more sustainable scenario, one that would add an essential new link in the transport chain of a trucking industry suffering from a severe nationwide shortage of drivers.

The Freight Shuttle System will make freight transportation safer, cleaner and more economical through innovations like raising the system itself up on guideways to take advantage of vertical space in existing rights-of-way.

Sound too good to be true? It’s not. It’s a system currently in development by Freight Shuttle International (FSI), applying technology developed at the Texas Transportation Institute (TTI) by Assistant Agency Director Steve Roop. Financed entirely from private sources and requiring no public funding, the system would provide low-cost, time-certain delivery of freight, and at the same time answer the state’s need for safe and efficient transportation.

The guideways carrying the freight could be built on existing right-of-way that would be leased by the state to FSI. The lease would produce new revenue for the state at a time when available public funding for highways is diminishing.

“The Freight Shuttle System is going to address three urgent needs we now have in freight movement,” Roop says. “It’s going to make it safer, cleaner and more economical.”

The system promises safety benefits by removing thousands of trucks from the highways, thereby reducing the chance of fatal crashes involving those trucks (one in nine traffic fatalities results from a collision involving a large truck). The system will also eliminate the pollution created by the exhaust from those trucks, and be more economical by sharply reducing the cost of moving goods.

“And the benefits don’t stop there,” Roop continues. “The system will create thousands of jobs, it will reduce highway congestion, and it will make millions in new revenue for the state — all without costing taxpayers a single dime.”

To become more sustainable, the freight transportation industry needs a game-changing development. And if plans in Texas come to pass, it’s a whole new game.

A Blueprint for Sustainability

Tobey — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 17:45:47 +0000

The Big Picture of Transportation Development

Sustainability — a popular, emerging concept — has become a key consideration in the delivery and operation of transportation infrastructure, and at all levels of government. Sustainability deals with meeting human needs in the present and future, while preserving and restoring the environment, fostering community health and vitality, promoting economic development and prosperity, and ensuring equity among population groups and over generations.

“At this time of fiscal constraint, the New York State Department of Transportation [NYSDOT] must make some tough choices. To guide our decisions, we have incorporated the ‘triple bottom line’ of economic competitiveness, social equity and environmental stewardship into our programming and investment guidance. NCHRP’s A Guidebook for Sustainability Performance Measurement for Transportation Agencies provided NYSDOT with a much-needed methodology and comprehensive list to develop our sustainability performance measures.”
Debra Nelson,
NYSDOT assistant to the director of operations

“Sustainability is a way of looking at other costs that don’t always get considered in the decision-making process. Thinking about these costs should be broader than just the tangible dollars,” says Tara Ramani, assistant research scientist with the Texas Transportation Institute (TTI). “The question is less ‘how can we implement sustainable transportation?’ but really more ‘how can transportation support the principles of sustainability?’”

Ramani, along with the international team led by Joe Zietsman, head of TTI’s Environment and Air Quality Division, produced a sustainability guidebook that teaches transportation practitioners the principles of sustainability, how to develop goals and objectives based on sustainability, and how to apply performance measures for these goals.

A Guidebook for Sustainability Performance Measurement for Transportation Agencies provides a generally applicable framework that transportation agencies can adapt and use, either in their existing performance measurement programs or as a part of a new sustainability initiative. The guidebook provides a practical approach to understanding sustainability, and identifying and applying sustainability-related performance measures. It discusses linkages to an agency’s mission and strategic plan, and the integration of these sustainability measures into other programs and agency business practices. The guidebook also contains a compendium of sustainability performance measures, with a menu of goals, objectives and performance measures that agencies can use as the basis for their performance measurement applications.

Part of the concept of sustainability involves choices: walking, biking, commuting. Making multiple modes work in harmony with environmental needs and economic realities — without losing the human factor from the equation — is the real challenge.

“Working with performance measures can be a daunting task due to the large number of possible measures, extensive data required and complexity involved in applying the measures,” Zietsman said. “Moreover, a first step in developing performance measures for sustainability is to understand what sustainability means, and how it applies to transportation networks, systems, facilities, projects and activities at different stages, scales and time frames.”

The guidebook incorporates real-world examples from departments of transportation and private industry in both the United States and Europe. It’s designed to be flexible so that any division in any agency can apply, refine and modify it based on the specific context for planning, programming, project development, construction, maintenance or operations. The framework can be used in many different ways, such as to evaluate progress, assess current conditions, forecast the future, make decisions or communicate with stakeholders.

“The guidebook provides a wealth of information and resources for departments of transportation to use to understand the concept of sustainability and apply performance measures for their sustainable transportation goals,” Zietsman said.

Published by the National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) in November 2011, the guidebook has been well received across the country. Zietsman plans on leading TRB webinars to help transportation officials learn how to use the guidebook.

“This guidebook should be of immediate use to those who are familiar with their own agency’s performance measurement program but need to provide useful information to agency leadership on how effectively their organization is meeting sustainability goals,” said Lori L. Sundstrom, a senior program officer with TRB. “The examples included illustrate how sustainability can be successfully added to an agency’s existing performance measurement system.”

“The [guidebook] provided NYSDOT a great starting point for evaluating and selecting measures for the department’s Regional Infrastructure Sustainability Elements (RISE) table. The report goes beyond presenting background research; it also provides a methodology (step-by-step process) for transportation agencies to define what sustainability means to them and link this to practical goals, objectives and measures. Overall the report is well written, easy to understand and has great appendices, which offer detailed workshop materials, PowerPoint presentations and a tremendous list of possible measures.”
Paul Krekeler,
NYSDOT GreenLITES program manager

Encouraging alternate modes, like transit, helps reduce congestion, improve air quality and control infrastructure maintenance costs over the long term.

For more information:

Joe Zietsman
(979) 458-3476
zietsman@tamu.edu
or
Tara Ramani
(979) 845-9888
t-ramani@ttimail.tamu.edu

Making the Most of a Fixer-Upper

Tobey — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 22:02:39 +0000

by Dennis Christiansen Agency Director

Transportation and Sustainability in the 21st Century

Nothing lasts forever.

For researchers in transportation, that particular cliché presents a challenge. If nothing lasts forever, how can we build a better, more efficient, longer-lasting network? Bang for the buck. More from less. As stakeholders in transportation, you no doubt know these phrases by heart.

The key to sustainability in transportation is balance. We have to maintain the system we’ve inherited by getting the most out of it, while also planning improvements that meet future needs: for example, population growth, urban development and market-driven changes in how we get goods to store shelves.

In this issue of the Texas Transportation Researcher, we feature a recent project conducted for the National Cooperative Highway Research Program. Texas Transportation Institute (TTI) researchers developed A Guidebook for Sustainability Performance Measurement for Transportation Agencies, which offers transportation agencies easy-to-use tools for continuously integrating sustainability into current agency policies. The guide encourages the use of performance measures to help tweak improvements to the transportation system over time, thereby extending its life.

Monitoring how we impact the environment is a principle of sustainability. For example, TTI researchers recently assessed the impact of increases in energy-related activities in Texas — from the development of wind farms to increased heavy-truck traffic from oil and gas sites — and developed geodatabases for the Texas Department of Transportation to use in avoiding potential maintenance problems before they arise.

Making bicycle and pedestrian travel more feasible is part of creating an environmentally sustainable transportation network, and TTI’s recent work in this area is profiled in these pages. Likewise, decreasing traffic congestion, and thereby pollution, is also important, and our research into using global positioning system and Bluetooth devices to monitor traffic flow will help advance that cause (see related story).

Sometimes the best of intentions to help the environment — like reusing recycled materials — can have unintended consequences. Such is the case with recycled glass used to improve pavement marking retroreflectivity, an essential property for helping keep drivers safe at night. Turns out, arsenic in the recycled glass beads can leach into the water table, causing an environmental hazard. Using equipment in TTI’s Visibility Laboratory, researchers are assessing the scope of this problem for the Federal Highway Administration.

And, last but not least, TTI Assistant Agency Director Steve Roop is currently developing the Freight Shuttle System, a revolutionary, safe and ecologically sustainable way to move freight from point A to point B without needing gasoline, increasing traffic congestion, or adding to roadway maintenance costs. The environmental benefits of this system are profiled here.

Another old saying might be appropriate in summing up the need for sustainability in our transportation network: “It’s not having what you want; it’s wanting what you have.” Research at TTI is making what we have in our transportation system more useful, more attractive and more sustainable. Because nothing lasts — well, you know.

The Sky’s the Limit

Chris Sasser — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 14:55:17 +0000

TTI's Environmental and Emissions Research Facility is a humidity- and temperature-controlled drive-in facility for testing technologies to reduce vehicle emissions. The facility, which is large enough to accommodate tractor-trailers and buses, also tests other products for their durability under severe weather-like conditions.

The Texas Transportation Institute’s (TTI‘s) new Environmental and Emissions Research Facility (EERF) is officially open for research. Joe Zietsman, director of the Center for Air Quality Studies, describes this facility as a “researcher’s dream come true.”

The EERF was made possible by a competitive grant award from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Houston Advanced Research Center as well as supporting funds from TTI and The Texas A&M University System. Located on Texas A&M University’s Riverside Campus, the EERF is one of the few drive-in environmentally controlled test chambers based at a university and is, to our knowledge, the largest in the nation. Researchers can control temperature (from -13°F to +131°F), humidity, solar impact and wind speeds. Full-sized 18-wheelers and buses are easily accommodated in the 75-by-22-by-22-foot chamber.

Semi-trucks that idle produce a broad range of pollutant emissions. For the first EERF project, Zietsman’s team at TTI‘s Center for Air Quality Studies is measuring idling emissions and fuel consumption of semi-trucks as well as idling and fuel consumption of auxiliary power units (APUs). APUs are small engines that power auxiliary air-conditioning or heating units on a semi-truck so that the driver does not have to idle the truck’s main engine when stopped for the night. The TTI team is developing a verification protocol for EPA for APUs. This protocol will require the measurement of emissions, fuel consumption and energy usage of these devices. The protocols and data will be available on a center website. These tests and protocols could only be developed in a humidity- and temperature-controlled chamber, such as the EERF, to ensure consistency between tests and accuracy of results.

On Sept. 17, TTI hosted a grand opening and luncheon. Guests were treated to a tour of the facility and happily soaked in the much cooler temperature of the chamber. “The type of research one can do in the EERF is only limited by your imagination,” Zietsman said. “It’s an exciting new horizon of environmental research for TTI.”

Joe Zietsman speaks at the grand opening of the Environmental and Emissions Research Facility. To his left are TTI Agency Director Dennis Christiansen, Chairman of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality Bryan Shaw and Texas A&M University System Chancellor Mike McKinney.

Speakers at the grand opening ceremony included Chairman Bryan Shaw of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality; Region 6 Administrator Al Armendariz of EPA; Chancellor Mike McKinney of The Texas A&M University System; Rick Collins, director of the Research and Technology Implementation Office of the Texas Department of Transportation; and TTI Agency Director Dennis Christiansen. Each speaker praised TTI‘s state-of-the-art facility and TTI‘s initiative in pursuing new opportunities in environmental research.

“We have to continue to foster and develop new and better understandings of emissions sources, control strategies, new fuel sources and new energy sources,” explained Shaw. “Part of doing that is making sure you have state-of-the-art facilities, state-of-the-art equipment and technical personnel who are properly trained to be able to assess and evaluate new, innovative approaches. I’m excited to see this facility online, to see the good data coming out of it.”

Keeping Tabs on the Elements: TTI’s Environmental Research Focuses on Water, Air Standards

Chris Sasser — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 14:48:25 +0000

A work in progress. TTI researchers are planting vegetation to help remove pollutants from storm water runoff.

Seeing a smoking vehicle traveling down the highway makes us think about the air we’re breathing. When rainfall causes the road to be slick from tire residue and engine spills, we don’t often think of what happens when the pollutants wash off the road. But what the roadside does with the polluted water and how well we monitor and curtail air pollution coming from vehicle emissions are two areas very important to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulators, the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.

“The roadside is more than just something pretty to look at. It’s a mini-ecosystem with environmental functions that provide storm water treatment and habitat that can be maximized through proper design and maintenance activities,” says Beverly Storey, associate research scientist.

Off the pavement, researchers consider the right-of-way as green infrastructure with benefits for water quality, vegetation, aesthetics and landscape development. EPA recently implemented new effluent limits that determine how dirty the water can be as it drains from construction sites. In response to the upcoming regulations, Storey’s team will work with Texas Tech University and The University of Texas Center for Transportation Research testing roadway construction site storm water discharges to develop site-monitoring protocols for TxDOT.

TTI Associate Research Engineer and Texas A&M Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture Ming-Han Li recently built the first bioretention pond at the corner of State Highways 6 and 21 for a TxDOT field study. This green storm water runoff management practice reduces the size of right-of-way necessary for TxDOT while being more aesthetically pleasing than the traditional, large concrete drainage structures. Based on pilot experiments with vegetation planted in recycled trash dumpsters, researchers believe the field test will show that bioretention ponds effectively remove pollutants — such as copper, zinc and lead — from storm water runoff.

Cleaning the Air…with Earth?

Meanwhile, the dumpsters from Li’s pilot test are being reused again for a Southwest University Transportation Center project. The fully vegetated dumpsters will be fitted with lights for photosynthesis and placed in TTI’s new Environmental and Emissions Research Facility for a controlled study on how vegetation and soil can remove pollutants and emissions from the air under different temperatures.

Inside the chamber, emissions will bombard the vegetation and soil. Storey’s team is excited about measuring how much carbon gets captured and developing protocols for further laboratory tests on specific plant species and soil types. With these protocols, researchers hope to find more green solutions to air quality challenges using vegetated roadsides.

Modeling: An Air of Refinement

Complying with all state and federal air quality standards requires some detailed analyses that cannot be physically measured. Advanced computer modeling using EPA’s emissions estimation software, called Motor Vehicle Emissions Simulator (MOVES), helps metropolitan planning organizations demonstrate that building new transportation structures will conform to air quality standards. TTI’s Transportation Modeling Program, led by Dennis Perkinson, approximates levels of pollutant concentrations by area all over the state. Perkinson’s team constantly updates and improves the MOVES model as new products and variables become available — new measurements that could possibly come from EERF projects.

“The mathematical model takes many variables — emissions from 28 types of vehicles over 25 model years, links of road, every hour of the day, given speed of each link per hour, types of pollutants and even fuel types,” says Perkinson. “If you change a network or build something new, you need to be able to calculate the impact for the regulators. Our group’s innovations are extremely efficient protocols and procedures for doing this, for almost the entire state.”

As EPA standards evolve, the sophistication of the environmental research methods necessary to test for them also change. More refined measures, new controlled laboratory studies and behind-the-scenes computer modeling make a huge impact. In short, TTI research helps all Texans breathe a little easier.

COMMENTARY on Environment

David Ekern
Former Transportation Commissioner/
Senior Executive — Minnesota, Idaho, and Virginia Departments of Transportation

Establishing a transportation network for economic growth and communication across the country while preserving our environment has a rich tradition in the United States.

Daniel Boone cut the Wilderness Road from North Carolina to Kentucky in 1775, opening the West for expansion. The land was seen as something to meet the people’s needs and provide sustenance and economic opportunity.

Much has changed in 200-plus years.

The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) of 1969 for the first time clearly stated the nation’s dedication to preserving the environment. Since Boone’s time, civil engineers, surveyors and road builders have tempered their development of the land for economic benefit with a reverence for what many see as the living history of our national landscape.

As we advance NEPA in the 21st century, it’s worth noting how agencies like the Texas Transportation Institute (TTI) are still combining common-sense solutions with environmental sensitivity. First-rate laboratories like TTI’s Environmental and Emissions Research Facility; nationally respected expertise demonstrated in publications like the annual Urban Mobility Report; and innovative technological solutions, such as recycled asphalt pavement — which reconstitutes old asphalt into new pavement — make TTI a principal partner in creating a sustainable transportation system.

“Sustainability” to me means creating a customer-focused system that’s flexible, responsive to needs (both human and environmental), and forward looking. Focusing on the future is fundamental to creating a sustainable transportation system. And any future worth living in must respect our connection to the environment — not just that we’re part of that natural system, but that the system itself is part of our national character.

The environment — as much as any road- , rail- or runway — is vital to the economic health of the United States. A healthy environment is a strength we can leverage as a nation to remain competitive in a global marketplace.

The time for renewed and long-term revenue investment in transportation is now. It’s good for the economy and critical for the environment. Understanding that can help us see the forest’s big picture without losing sight of the trees that make it up.

For more information:

Dennis Perkinson
(979) 462-4926
d-perkinson@tamu.edu
or
Beverly Storey
(979) 845-7217
b-storey@tamu.edu

Texas A&M Transportation Institute» environment

Looking into the Retroreflective Glass

Could glass beads used in pavement paint be harmful to human health?

This Issue

Making the Grade: Tomorrow’s Transportation System

On this page:

For more information:

Freight Shuttle System Promises the Next Historic Milestone in Freight Movement

This Issue

Making the Grade: Tomorrow’s Transportation System

On this page:

For more information:

A Blueprint for Sustainability

The Big Picture of Transportation Development

This Issue

Making the Grade: Tomorrow’s Transportation System

On this page:

For more information:

Making the Most of a Fixer-Upper

Transportation and Sustainability in the 21st Century

This Issue

Making the Grade: Tomorrow’s Transportation System

The Sky’s the Limit

This Issue

Working Across Transportation Solutions

On this page:

For more information:

Keeping Tabs on the Elements: TTI’s Environmental Research Focuses on Water, Air Standards

Cleaning the Air…with Earth?

Modeling: An Air of Refinement

COMMENTARY on Environment

This Issue

Working Across Transportation Solutions

On this page:

For more information: