Five Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI) researchers were presented with best paper awards during the Transportation Research Board (TRB) 96th Annual Meeting, held in Washington, D.C., Jan. 8–12. One of the researchers also received an Outstanding Student of the Year Award at the Council of University Transportation Centers banquet held prior to the TRB Annual Meeting.
Traffic Operations and Roadway Safety Division Head Paul Carlson and Professor in Civil Engineering and TTI Research Engineer Gene Hawkins co-authored a paper that received the 2017 Cunard Award, given to the best paper in the Operations Section in which the primary author was under the age of 35. The primary author in this case was Brad Brimley, a former TTI researcher and civil engineering Ph.D. student. The paper, “Guidelines for Traffic Control Devices at Changes in Horizontal Alignment,” was also chosen 2016’s best paper in the TRB Traffic Control Devices Committee. The innovative National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) research project included a field study that tested drivers on unfamiliar roadways.
Senior Research Scientist Sue Chrysler worked with colleagues from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) on a project that evaluated font styles for use on highway signs. Chrysler co-authored the paper, “Empirical Assessment of Legibility of Highway Gothic and Clearview Signage Fonts.” It received the 2017 best paper award from the Traffic Control Devices Committee.
The TRB Geometric Design Committee’s Best Paper Award was presented to Associate Research Engineer Marcus Brewer and his TTI co-author, Research Scientist Akram Abu-Odeh. The paper, “Effects of Cross-Slope Break on Roadway Departure Recovery of Trucks on Horizontal Curves,” evaluates roadside design features in an effort to reduce truck rollovers. Research on the NCHRP project was led by MRIGlobal and conducted by TTI.
Brewer, a Ph.D. candidate in civil engineering at Texas A&M University, was named the 2017 Center for Advancing Transportation Leadership and Safety (ATLAS Center) Student of the Year. A collaboration between the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute and TTI, the ATLAS Center is a Tier 1 University Transportation Center.
