By Brianne Glover Relying on gas tax is outdated as travel, vehicles become more diversified. Amid all the news of record-breaking inflation, it’s hard to think of anything that doesn’t cost more than it did a year ago — much less 30 years ago. To find one example, though, just think of your vehicle’s fuel. […]
What We're Thinking
Supply Chain Woes Are the Grinch’s Best Helpers This Year
By Jolanda Prozzi and Juan Villa If this year’s holiday shopping season has you feeling a bit more anxious than most in recent memory, you may find consolation in knowing that your angst is likely not a product of your imagination. You can blame the same supply chain woes that have plagued us since the […]
Storm Resiliency a Pay-Now Or Pay-Later Proposition
By Jolanda Prozzi The formula for surviving hurricanes and other weather disasters is part preparation and part recovery. The more effort and resources we invest in the former, the more success we can expect with the latter. That’s especially important to consider now that the nation’s infrastructure needs become more urgent. Extreme weather events disrupt […]
Does Your Teen Text While Driving? Now There’s An App For That.
By Russell Henk What we’re learning about the battle against the coronavirus could go a long way in helping us thwart vehicle crashes. It’s a simple lesson: Prevention – in the form of personal responsibility – can help us contain the public health crisis of COVID-19, and it can do the same with the epidemic […]
Pandemic Showed Traffic Can Be Cut Without New Roads
By Tim Lomax, David Schrank, and Bill Eisele COVID-19’s impact on roadway traffic was deep and widespread, and it was entirely predictable given the shutdowns that occurred. What’s equally clear, is the lesson we can draw from our experience, particularly now, as American infrastructure needs are once again top of mind. That lesson is: the […]
U.S. Roads Meant to Last Decades – But Not Forever
By: Gregory Winfree and Zachary Grasley The subject of our nation’s infrastructure is once again prominent, both in the wake of the recent release of the American Society of Civil Engineers quadrennial report card on the state of America’s infrastructure and among our policymakers in Washington, D.C. The ASCE report card presents one of those […]
Viral Spread Magnified at U.S.–Mexico Gateways
By Rafael Aldrete and Okan Gurbuz With hope growing that COVID-19 vaccines will soon be widely available, the answer to one of life’s most torturous questions — when will the pandemic end? — may soon be clearer. It will likely be a while longer, however, before we can thoroughly sort out how the disease spread so […]
Will Our Transportation System Support a Post-COVID World?
The coronavirus changed our working and shopping patterns, and the changes could be permanent. By Ginger Goodin As the COVID-19 vaccines are distributed, we’re one step closer to addressing how we can avoid falling victim to one of the most destructive diseases ever. What’s gotten less attention are the questions of how and where we […]
America Without Railroads? Yes, That Almost Happened.
By Allan Rutter You could be forgiven for not knowing who Harley Staggers was. After all, the name sounds like a character in an Elmore Leonard novel. But the next time you stop at a gas station or drive on streets and highways to get there, just know that this West Virginian made those activities […]
FCC Radio Spectrum Reallocation Could Impair Vehicle Safety
By Gretchen Stoeltje and Greg Winfree If you’ve been designing or building roads in recent years, you are probably familiar with the anticipated safety benefits of connected vehicles and the technology that will be required to make them work. You probably know that in order for connected vehicles to communicate with one another and with […]
Data From High-Tech Cars Can Help Pinpoint Road Safety Improvements and Prevent Crashes
Using the data produced by connected cars can improve safety for all of us. By Eva Shipp and Shawn Turner A growing number of higher-tech cars and trucks on the road are talking to us. And if we pay attention to what they’re saying, we could prevent a lot of crashes and save a lot […]
Federal Road Funding Nearly Expired — Let’s Focus Before the Next Deadline
By Greg Winfree Congress really has its hands full these days, with urgent priorities summoning attention from all directions. Pandemic relief. The census on a tighter schedule. Widespread social unrest. Election season. As if that wasn’t enough, with seemingly no room left on their full plate, national leaders were coming up on a dead end […]
COVID-19 Spotlights Patient Transport Delays At the Border, But We Can Slash Wait Times
By David Salgado and Rafael Aldrete There aren’t many worse places to be than in the back of an ambulance. But being in the back of an ambulance in critical condition at a congested U.S.-Mexico border crossing is surely one of those places. Worse yet, being in a car instead of an ambulance – by […]
Our Streets May Never Be the Same. And That’s a Good Thing.
By Joan Hudson and Ipek Sener Not long after the coronavirus pandemic compelled widespread stay-at-home directives, many cities from coast to coast took steps to restrict motor vehicle traffic on selected streets. With sidewalks too narrow to allow for six-foot personal buffer zones, those moves opened thoroughfares for walking and biking, and aimed to give […]
It Turns Out, Humans Are Pretty Smart: Developing Self-Driving Cars Is Harder Than We Thought
By Bob Brydia Self-driving cars. We’ve been promised for years they were “coming soon.” Most estimates a decade ago thought self-driving cars would be commonplace by now. Yet, here we are in 2020, and self-driving cars — what the industry calls autonomous vehicles (AVs) — still largely exist only in science fiction. So much for […]
For Post-COVID Transportation, We Really Can’t Settle for “Normal”
By Gregory Winfree and Joe Zietsman, Texas A&M Transportation Institute No sooner did America begin to crave a return to normal than did many of us start thinking that maybe normal wasn’t the best we could do. And that is certainly true when it comes to the issue of how best to move people and […]
Teleworking – The New Normal?
By Melissa Tooley When companies across the country recently announced new work-from-home policies in response to COVID-19, the news sent employees and companies alike into a tailspin, creating hardships for many. Workers scrambled to retrieve computers, files and supplies from their workplace and identify a space at home to work; IT departments hustled to assist […]
Truck Drivers Are Essential Workers, Too
By Allan Rutter When the Oxford Dictionary chooses its word of the year for 2020, “essential” will be a strong contender, as the label for these service providers we couldn’t function without during the COVID-19 pandemic: First responders, nurses, doctors, and other hospital workers. Grocery store stockers, cashiers, and baggers. And of course, truck drivers. […]
The Paradox of Public Transit in a Pandemic
By Michael Walk During a pandemic, public transit may illustrate the ultimate Catch 22, even as dire conditions underscore the vital need for transit services in many communities. In the widening battle against COVID-19, we’ve been admonished to distance ourselves from each other to lower our risk of contracting the disease or spreading it to […]
How Tech Can Untangle and Transform Campus Traffic
Texas A&M’s living laboratory environment harnesses the brainpower of students, faculty and researchers and fosters innovation to maintain campus mobility By Katherine Turnbull and Peter Lange Texas A&M University’s main campus, a 5,200-acre classroom/laboratory without walls in College Station, has consistently ranked in the top five for the largest student population in the nation, with […]