Transportation Engineering 12 PDH Discount Package 3

This online engineering PDH course describes operating managed lane projects through a case study approach, highlighting best practices of the projects and the lessons learned. It also presents emerging issues and knowledge gaps. The intent of this course is to provide a cross-cutting study of the issues and experiences of various agencies as managed lane projects are implemented and policies are drafted.

Increasing traffic congestion in the major metropolitan areas is costing billions of dollars each year in lost productivity, wasted fuel, increasing air pollution and hours of delay. Adding new general-purpose lanes is increasingly difficult because of factors such as construction costs, limited right-of-way, environmental and societal concerns. As a result, agencies are looking for solutions to improve the flow of traffic on existing facilities.

One concept being considered is that of "managed lanes". Managed lanes employ various strategies to improve flow and maximize the efficiency of the freeway system. Common types of managed lanes include high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes, high-occupancy toll (HOT) lanes, value priced lanes, or exclusive or special use lanes.

This 4 PDH online course is applicable to traffic engineers, transportation planners, conceptual and detail designers, and other technical professionals who are involved with developing and operating managed lane facilities in freeway corridors and are interested in gaining a basic understanding of the issues associated with developing managed lane projects.

This online engineering PDH course introduces and describes four commonly used strategies that may be implemented to better manage traffic on and adjacent to freeway ramps. In doing so, this course lays the foundation from which practitioners may successfully develop, select, operate and maintain strategies and plans.

These four strategies give agencies the ability to control the rate that traffic is allowed to enter the freeway facility; temporarily or permanently restrict traffic flow, provide priority to special vehicle uses, and implement treatments at the ramp-arterial terminal to improve traffic operations on and along ramps and adjacent arterials. For each strategy, a number of associated techniques and approaches exist, some of which will prove to be better than others at fulfilling agency goals and objectives.

This 4 PDH online course is applicable to traffic engineers, transportation planners, conceptual and detail designers, and other technical professionals who are interested in gaining a better understanding in ramp management strategies.

This online engineering PDH course describes the strategy involving the application of shoulder rumble strips (SRS) and centerline rumble strips (CLRS) in combination. This strategy is intended to reduce the frequency of crashes by alerting drivers that they are about to leave the travelled lane. While research has been published on the safety effectiveness of SRS or CLRS used in isolation, the effectiveness of the combined treatment has not been shown.

Geometric, traffic, and crash data were obtained at treated two-lane rural road locations in Kentucky, Missouri and Pennsylvania. To account for potential selection bias and regression-to-the-mean, an Empirical Bayes (EB) before-after analysis was conducted using reference groups of untreated two-lane rural roads with similar characteristics to the treated sites. A slightly different approach was required for the analysis of the treatment sites in Missouri, which is installing rumble strips on two-lane rural roads whenever a resurfacing project is undertaken. As a result, a suitable reference group with no rumble strips for this road type presently or in the near future did not exist. The analysis also controls for changes in traffic volumes over time and time trends in crash counts unrelated to the treatment.