UNIVERSITY TRANSPORTATION CENTER
(UTC)
ANNUAL REPORT
for
University of Delaware
University Transportation Center
(UDUTC)
Year 3
October 2008 – September 2009
U.S. Department of Transportation
Research and Special Programs Administration
October 2009
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
Overview ........................................................................................ 3
Center Theme and Goals ................................................................... 3
Management Structure and Principal Center Staff ................................ 5
Examples of Specific Accomplishments ............................................... 6
Summary.............................................Error! Bookmark not defined.
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UTC Annual Report – Year 3
University of Delaware
I. Overview
The University of Delaware was designated a Tier II University Transportation
Center in the August 2005 Transportation Reauthorization - Safe, Accountable,
Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU).
Strategically located astride major national transportation corridors, Delaware is a
critical part of the national transportation network in terms of both freight and
passenger transportation. Specifically, the I-95 corridor, the Northeast Rail corridor,
and the Port of Wilmington are facilities of national significance. This strategic
location also serves as a rich source of examples for classes, as well as for applied
research problems that are consistent with the interests and our expertise of our
faculty in transportation and land use planning, infrastructure, environmental
quality and freight transportation. For these reasons, the University of Delaware
University Transportation Center (UDUTC) selected as our theme resiliency of
transportation corridors.
We draw on our strategic location in a region with all transportation modes that
support economic development and improved quality of life and on corridors that
are of national significance as a testbed for our work. Our region is representative
of many others with significant issues related to congestion, safety, aging
infrastructure, and the competing demands of transporting individual travelers and
freight while protecting the environment.
The center’s strategic plan was approved in May 2007 and projects were initiated in
September 2007. This annual report, our third, covers the period October 2008 to
September 2009, and describes the structure of the center and then highlights
some of the year’s activities before summarizing the funding sources. Lists of
projects, products and students are reproduced on the centers website
(http://www.ce.udel.edu/UTC/index.html).
II.
Center Theme and Goals
Our theme is resiliency of transportation corridors. The overall goal of the
UDUTC is to support research, education, and technology transfer that will improve
our ability to plan, design, construct, manage, and maintain an advanced
transportation infrastructure. To date, our work focuses on all surface modes
Resiliency is defined as a system’s ability to absorb, respond to, and recover from
internal and external pressures and disturbances that impact the performance of
the system in both the short and long term. That is, resiliency is a measure of the
persistence and sustainability of systems and their ability to maintain the same
relationships among populations or changing state variables, including land use
patterns, environmental changes, unexpected events, and the ecology of
transportation corridors.
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University of Delaware
Our concept of a corridor continues to evolve from Gotttman’s 1961 seminal work
Megalopolis. Consistent with Gottman’s work, we view a corridor as a network of
transportation functions connecting activity centers.
Located centrally in the BOSWASH corridor, which now extends to Norfolk, Virginia,
the UDUTC uses the megapolitan regional transportation corridor as the organizing
concept for our research.
Our research concentrates on four areas:

Planning—Understanding and anticipating the relationships among
transportation, land use, and economic development in corridors is essential to
resiliency. We need to develop planning approaches that are based on
understanding the dynamics of transportation systems and corridors in terms of
a model of resiliency. In short, the concept of resiliency makes special demands
on the conventional planning processes, and we must recognize and
accommodate this. Also, the long history of transportation systems in the
BOSTFOLK corridor offers an opportunity to study the historic resiliency of
systems with long functional/engineering lives as a basis for understanding and
modeling contemporary and future behavior and resiliency.

Ecology and the Environment—Corridors not only transport people and goods
but also facilitate the spread of invasive species, concentrate air quality issues,
and impose external pressures on the environment. Also, corridors not only
break up ecological zones and habitats but create their own linear ecological
environments, which are poorly understood. Linking planning, design,
operating, and maintenance strategies to enhance the ecological and
environmental quality of transportation corridors is a challenging problem.

Infrastructure Renewal—Planning for and executing infrastructure renewal
projects and strategies are key to the proper functioning of transportation
corridors. Asset management strategies, innovative repair and replacement
techniques, and new materials and contracting practices require additional
research to be effective for corridor applications.

Operations and Management—Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) have
had a significant impact on the operation and management of our transportation
systems, particularly corridors. However, in the areas of congestion mitigation
and management and emergency preparedness and response, corridors play a
unique role as critical links and bottlenecks to mobility and accessibility.
Research on how to better leverage our knowledge of the corridor is key to
preparedness and response to unanticipated events.
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University of Delaware
III.
Management Structure and Principal
Center Staff
The UTC is an operational unit under the Delaware Center for Transportation (DCT),
which in turn is an operational unit under the Department of Civil and
Environmental Engineering (CEE) at the University of Delaware. The relationship
between UTC and DCT is shown in Figure 1.
Director – Faghri
Policy Council
Assoc Director –
Lewis
Research Comm
Staff
DCT
Projects
2
T Center /
LTAP
UTC
Figure 1. DCT Organizational Structure
The structure of the UDUTC is shown in Figure 2. Sue McNeil, Professor of Civil and
Environmental Engineering at the University of Delaware, serves as the Director of
the UDUTC. Diane Kukich provides writing and web assistance to the Center. Ellen
Pletz serves as the account manager for the UD-UTC. She manages and reconciles
the accounts. Marikka Beach provides clerical and administrative assistance,
including event and meeting scheduling. Qiang (Joshua) Li joined the Department
of Civil and Environmental Engineering in July 2009 as a post doctoral researcher
and also provides some technical support for the center.
UTC
Director
Assoc Director
Research –
Projects
Fellowship
Students
Education
Advisory Council
Project Selection/
Committee
Outreach
Figure 2. UTC Organizational Chart
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UTC Annual Report – Year 3
University of Delaware
In addition, two committees support the center’s operation:
 The UDUTC Project Selection Committee, which consists of representatives from
the University and various transportation-related agencies, evaluates and selects
research projects for the annual UDUTC. Members are
 Sue McNeil, UTC Director
 Dennis R. Mertz, Dept. of Civil & Environmental Engineering
 Jerome Lewis, School of Urban Affairs & Public Policy
 James Corbett College of Marine and Earth Studies
 Patrick Kennedy, FHWA (Delmar Division)
 Dan LaCombe, Director of Research, DelDOT
 Henry Nejako, Federal Transit Administration
 Ralph Reeb Director of Planning, DelDOT
 Reza Taromi UD-CEE graduate student
Dan Sanayi and Tashia Clemons, both of FHWA DelMar Office have moved on
to other positions, we thank them for their past input.
 The UDUTC Advisory Committee advises Center administration on research
direction, curriculum, and technology transfer activities. Members are
 Arde Faghri, Director Delaware Center for Transportation
 Dennis R. Mertz, Director of the Center for Innovative Bridge
Research
 Jerome Lewis, Director of the Institute for Public Administration
 James J. Corbett, Associate Professor, College of Marine and Earth
Studies
 Larry Klepner, Director Technology Transfer Center
 Sue McNeil, UTC Director
 Reza Taromi, Graduate Assistant, Civil and Environmental
Engineering
The Advisory Committee meets on an ―as needed‖ basis. This is usually two to
three times per semester. The committee selects students for undergraduate
research, select the students of the year, select fellowship recipients, suggest
distinguished lectures and discuss budget revisions.
IV.
Examples of Specific Accomplishments
Our third year of the grant has begun to show some of the less tangible benefits of
the grant as our students graduate and are sought after by a variety of firms and
new students apply to graduate school.
In 2009 UDUTC received 8 proposals from 13 researchers representing five
different colleges (Agriculture; Arts and Sciences; Human Services, Education and
Policy; Engineering; and Marine Studies). Each proposal was reviewed by two or
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UTC Annual Report – Year 3
University of Delaware
three external reviewers and the members of the review committee. Four research
proposals involving four different colleges were funded. Two proposals received
partial support in the form of graduate student support – in one case to provide
funding for a continuing student and in the other case to support a new student.
Each researcher received copies of all external reviews and selection committee
reviews for their proposal, as well as a summary of the comments from the
selection meeting. One project was identified by DelDOT participants in the project
selection committee meeting as being appropriate for funding by DelDOT. While this
funding has not been realized we value DelDOTs’ effort to leverage the UTC
funding.
Another project, focusing on education and outreach, was reviewed by the Advisory
Committee meeting for funding starting Spring 2009. This project was
recommended for funding.
Two of the five projects initiated in year one have submitted student theses or final
reports. Two of the five projects initiated with year two funding have submitted
final reports or student theses. One year two projects received continuation
funding in year 3. One new project was initiated in the spring of 2009, three other
projects were initiated in September 2009 and one project continued (with an
expanded scope of work) from the previous year. More importantly several
conference presentations stemming from UTC related projects were made and
papers have been submitted to archival journals. Reports and dissertations are
listed in Table 1. Presentations and papers are summarized in Table 2.
The outreach/ education project, initiated in the spring, involves introducing
elementary students to transportation through dance and their social studies
curriculum. The project, lead by Professor Lynnette Overby (Department of
Theater) is in partnership with elementary schools and includes three
undergraduate students who are education majors and dance minors. Michelle
Oswald a PhD student in Civil and Environmental Engineering and a UDUTC Fellow
serves as the project mentor.
Three graduate students were also awarded UTC fellowships for 2009-2010 :
 Charles Mitchell (a former undergraduate researcher with UDUTC), a first
year Master of Civil Engineering student in Civil and Environmental
Engineering focusing on Civil Infrastructure Systems,
 Trevor Booz, a first year Master of Civil Engineering student Civil and
Environmental Engineering focusing on Transportation Engineering, and
 Geoff Edwards, a second year PhD student in Urban Affairs and Public Policy
focusing on transportation planning.
Our partnership with the Disaster Research Center’s Research Experiences for
Undergraduates (REU) program, which is sponsored by the National Science
Foundation, continued during the summer of 2009. Chance Malkin (a rising senior)
and Lauren Lobo (a rising junior), both in Civil and Environmental Engineering,
worked on transportation and climate change and modeling landslides respectively.
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University of Delaware
Melissa Stewart, Cory Castellucio, Sarah Dalton and Charles Mitchell also
participated in undergraduate research.
All graduate students serving as research assistants or fellowship students on
UDUTC projects are required to take the graduate-level transportation course CIEG
650 Urban Transportation Systems or an equivalent course, unless they had
previously done so. Two of the structures students opted to take CIEG 655 Civil
Infrastructure Systems in lieu of CIEG 650.
Professors McNeil and Lee taught CIEG 650 Urban Transportation Systems in Fall
2008. Twenty five students from three different colleges were enrolled in the class.
These students included three undergraduates. The class again featured several
guest lecturers including:
 Alain Kornhauser, Princeton University
 Wolfgang Scherr, PTV
 Jim Corbett, CEMS, UD
 Buz Paaswell, City College of New York
The center also sponsored or co-sponsored several events as shown in Table 3.
Two distinguished lectures and five brown bag discussions provided opportunities
for researchers and practitioners to get together to learn about new developments
and discuss ongoing research. Twenty six students (including two undergraduates)
attended the Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting in Washington DC in
January 2009 and all ongoing projects presented posters at the Research Showcase
in Dover, DE in May 2009.
Figure 3. Distinguish Lecturers Michael Gallis and Robert (Buz) Paaswell
Five graduate students who have worked on UTC related projects have Completed
degrees this year. David Beauchamp and Todd Franzen graduate with MPAs. Their
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UTC Annual Report – Year 3
University of Delaware
analytical papers are posted on the UTC website. Michelle Oswald, Roy Wang and
Chuoran Wang completed M.Eng degrees in Civil Engineering. Their theses are
posted on the UTC website (http://www.ce.udel.edu/UTC/Publications.html) and
listed in Table 1. Michelle Oswald and Chuoran Wang are continuing in the PhD
program.
Several students have also received awards:
 Michelle Oswald (Civil Engineering) –
o UTC Student of the Year
o Women's Transportation Seminar (WTS) Philadelphia Chapter- Sylvia
Alston Graduate Scholarship
o American Council of Engineering Companies/Maryland Scholarship
o Eisenhower Graduate Fellowship
o Best Presentation - Annual Interuniversity Symposium on
Infrastructure Management - Iowa City, IA
o University of Delaware Sustainability Day Poster Finalist
 Todd Franzen (Institute for Public Administration) - United Alumni of Urban
Affairs (UAUA) Student Awards
Figure 4. Delaware Secretary of Transportation Carolann Wicks and UDUTC
Graduate Student Michelle Oswald at the Women’s Transportation Seminar Awards
Dinner
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UTC Annual Report – Year 3
University of Delaware
Table 1. UTC Reports, Dissertations, and Theses.
May 2009
August
2009
August
2009
September
2009
Beauchamp, David A., “Measuring the Contributions of Metropolitan Planning Organizations for Local Transportation Planning,”
Analytical Paper, Public Management, School of Urban Affairs and Public Policy, University of Delaware, May 2009.
Lobo, Lauren, Landslide Hazard Mapping of Earthquake Prone Transportation Areas- Case Study: Oat Mountain Area along Route
5 in the State of California, Report, Summer Research Experience, University Transportation Center and Disaster Research Center,
University of Delaware.
Malkin, Chance, Climate Change and Rising Sea Levels: A Geographic Information Systems Analysis of the Potential Impact on
Railroad Corridors in New Castle County, Delaware, Report, Summer Research Experience, University Transportation Center and
Disaster Research Center University of Delaware
Croope, Silvana, Working with HAZUS, Working Paper
August
2009
August
2009
Wang, Chuoran, "The Study of Supply Chain Facilities and Their Interconnection with Critical Civil Infrastructure Systems”Master’s
Thesis, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Delaware.
Wang, Roy, "Simulation Based Evaluation on the Effects of Jaywalking,” Master’s Thesis, Department of Civil and Environmental
Engineering, University of Delaware.
August
2009
August
2009
Beauchamp, David and Robert Warren, Transportation Policy and Governance in the Northeast Corridor: An Overview of Major
Public Agencies, Technical Report,
December
2008
Oswald, Michelle R., “Rating the Sustainability of Transportation Investments: Corridors as a Case Study,” Master’s Thesis,
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Delaware.
Oswald, Michelle, “Literature Review: Transportation Adaptation in Response to Climate Change”, Technical Report.
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UTC Annual Report – Year 3
University of Delaware
Table 2. Presentations and Papers Related to UTC Projects
Event/ Location
Date
Speaker/ Author
Title
Presented at TRB 88th
Annual Meeting,
Washington D.C., 2009
January 2009
Michelle Oswald
Rating the Sustainability of Transportation Investments:
Corridors as a Case Study.
Impacts of Speed Reductions on Vessel-Based Emissions for
International Shipping
Visualizing a Future Supply Chain with Lower-Carbon Goods
Movement
Integrating Environmental Perspectives into Pavement
Management: Adding PaLATE to the Decision-Making Toolbox
Radical Roads: The Revolutionary Influence of the Interstate
Highway System on the Pattern of Metropolitan Development
in the United States.
Presented at the Urban
Affairs Association 2009
Annual Meeting,
Chicago, 2009.
Undergraduate
Research Scholars
Poster Session,
University of Delaware.
5th Annual InterUniversity Symposium
on Infrastructure
Management University
of Iowa: Iowa City.
James J. Corbett, Haifeng Wang and James J.
Winebrake,
James J. Corbett and James J. Winebrake
April 2009
Rachel Nathman, Sue McNeil, Thomas John Van
Dam,
David Ames, Oswald, Michelle, Sue McNeil
April 2009
Sarah Dalton
Hurricane Evacuation in Delaware
June 2009
Michelle Oswald, Sue McNeil, and David Ames.
Evaluating the Current State of the BosWash Megalopolis
Corridor and Indicators of Resiliency.
Using MCMC in Pavement Roughness Estimation
Empirical Mode Decomposition for Pavement Profile Analysis –
Some New Developments
Sustainable Air Bases: Linking Asset Management,
Sustainability, and Agile Combat Support
Rating Sustainability: Transportation Investments in Urban
Corridors as a Case Study
Les Mills
Y.O. Adu‐ Gyamfi and N.O. Attoh‐ Okine
Kelly Hannum
Journal of Urban
Planning and
Development
ASCE / SEI Structures
Congress, Austin, TX.
July 3, 2009
(Posted ahead
of print)
August 2009
3rd Annual Conference
Energy and
Sustainability, University
of Delaware
August 2009.
Transportation Research
Record, No 2093.
2009
Michelle Oswald and Sue McNeil
Jennifer McConnell and Houston Brown
Michelle Oswald
Evaluation of Missing Column Analyses in Progressive Collapse
Design Codes
Rating the Sustainability of Transportation Investments:
Corridors as a Case Study
Rachel Nathman, Sue McNeil and Thomas
VanDam
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Integrating Environmental Perspectives into Pavement
Management: Adding PaLATE to the Decision Making Toolbox
UTC Annual Report – Year 3
University of Delaware
Table 3. UTC Speakers and Events
Event/ Location
Date
Speaker/ Organizer
Topic
Distinguished Lecture
Brown Bag Seminar
Distinguished Lecture
10/31/2008
11/19/08
12/4/2008
Brown Bag Seminar
2/25/2009
Brown Bag Seminar
4/22/2009
Research Showcase/
Dover DE
Brown Bag Seminar
Brown Bag Seminar
5/1/2009
Michael Gallis, Michael Gallis & Associates
Sue McNeil and Silvana Croope, UD
Robert Paaswell, City University of New
York
Anne Lucey, Susan Barton and Jules
Bruck, UD
Ed O'Donnell, Troy Mix and Geoff
Edwards, UD
All Projects
Globalization and Infrastructure needs
Resiliency of Transportation Infrastructure
Transportation Mega Projects in New York; Behind the
Scenes
On the Road to Sustainability: Managing Highway
Vegetation
Developing Delaware's Agenda in Transportation within
the Northeast Corridor
Transportation Showcase – Poster Presentations
Robert Warren and David Beauchamp, UD
Sue McNeil, Rusty Lee, Joe Trainor,
Rachel Davidson Tricia Wachtendorf Laura
Black Gabriella Wasileski Charlie Mitchell
Sarah Dalton, UD
Transportation Organizations in the BOSFOLK Corridor
Infrastructure Security and Emergency Preparedness
3/24/2009
9/16/2009
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UTC Annual Report – Year 3
University of Delaware
Figure 5. UTC Faculty, Staff and Student at Winter Dinner, 2009
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UTC Annual Report – Year 3
V.
University of Delaware
Funding Sources
Between 10/1/08 and 09/30/09, $328,432 of the UTC grant was expended. The
grant is matched by University and Delaware Department of Transportation funds
that are tracked using a matching identification numbers. This expenditure is less
than budgeted amounts as PIs for individual projects are often leveraging funds and
extending graduate support over two years. All elements of the strategic plan are
currently funded. Table 4 shows expenditures over all three years of the grant to
date.
Table 4. Expenditures to Date
Source
Federal Grant
Year 1
$110,225
Year 2
Year 3
Total
$267,783
$328,432 $706,440
The sources of funds are also shown in Figure 6, which shows a smaller proportion
of funds (4% versus 20%) coming from the state DOT than originally projected in
the budget. The discrepancy largely occurs because tuition accounts for a large
share of matching funds and can be easily tracked.
UD UTC FUNDING SOURCES
10/1/08 - 9/30/09
46%
University
State DOT
50%
Federal Grant
4%
Figure 6. Funding Sources
Figure 7 shows d expenditures in terms of administration, research, education and
technology transfer. Anticipated expenditures for education and technology
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UTC Annual Report – Year 3
University of Delaware
transfer appear low, but in reality these have been integrated into existing faculty
roles and ongoing Delaware Center for Transportation acitivites.
UD UTC EXPENDITURES
10/1/08 - 9/30/09
1%
3%
18%
Administration
Research
Education
Technology Transfer
78%
Figure 7. Expenditures by Category
The proportion of funds devoted to administration has been significantly reduced.
VI.
Summary
During the 2008-2009 grant year UD-UTC students, staff and faculty were actively
engaged in research related to the Resiliency of Transportation Corridors. The
products we are most proud of – our students completed theses, dissertations and
analytical papers, they presented their work at conferences, they won prizes and
scholarships, they complete reports and technical papers.
Distinguished lectures, brown bag discussions and conferences, as well as
traditional courses, engaged our community in continued learning and discovery.
We look forward to another fruitful year.
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