UNIVERSITY TRANSPORTATION CENTER
(UTC)
ANNUAL REPORT
for
University of Delaware
University Transportation Center
(UDUTC)
Year 5
October 2010 – September 2011
U.S. Department of Transportation
Research and Innovative Technology Administration
October 2011
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. II. III. IV. V. VI. VII. Overview ....................................................................................... 3 Center Theme and Goals.................................................................. 3 Management Structure and Principal Center Staff ................................ 5 Examples of Specific Accomplishments .............................................. 6 Examples of Products Used by Stakeholders ...................................... 13 Funding Sources ............................................................................ 13 Summary ..................................................................................... 15 Page 2 of 16
UTC Annual Report – Year 5
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 fifth, covers the period October 2010 to
September 2011, 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). Projects will continue during a 6th year
as the first projects did not begin until the last month of the first year of operations.
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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UTC Annual Report – Year 5
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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UTC Annual Report – Year 5
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.
DCT
Projects
Director – Faghri
Policy Council
Assoc Director –
Lewis
Research Comm
T2 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. 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, and web
support.
Figure 2. UTC Organizational Chart
UTC
Director
Assoc Director
Research –
Projects
Fellowship
Students
Education
Advisory Council
Project Selection/
Committee
Outreach
In addition, two committees support the center’s operation:
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UTC Annual Report – Year 5
University of Delaware
 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)
 Michael Strange, Director of Research, DelDOT
 Henry Nejako, Federal Transit Administration
 Ralph Reeb, Director of Planning, DelDOT
 Reza Taromi, UD-CEE graduate student
 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
 Earl (Rusty) Lee, 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
The fifth year of the grant focused on student activities, network building,
conferences, brown bag discussions, speakers, research and classes. We continue
to be very proud of both our continuing students and our graduates.
Six graduate students who have worked on UTC related projects have completed
degrees this year. Weifeng Mao and Michelle Oswald completed the MA in Urban
Planning and Public Affairs. Laura Black, Trevor Booz, Charles Mitchell and Dung
Ngo completed MCE degrees in Civil Engineering, and Michelle Oswald completed
her PhD in Civil Engineering. Weifeng is working for DVRPC, Laura and Dung are
continuing for a PhD. Trevor is working for a consultant, Charlie is working for the
government and Michelle is an Assistant Professor at Bucknell University. Their
analytical papers, dissertation and theses are posted on the UTC website
(http://www.ce.udel.edu/UTC/Publications.html) and listed in Table 1.
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UTC Annual Report – Year 5
University of Delaware
Three undergraduates who have worked on UTC projects also graduated. Geoff
Dilg, Lauren Lobo and Elisa Kropat all completed Bachelors in Civil Engineering. All
three are attending graduate school.
Students receiving awards this year are:
 Michelle Oswald (Civil Engineering) – 2010 Outstanding Collegiate Student
Award from the Society of Women Engineers (SWE)
 Charles Mitchell – UTC Student of the Year
Three graduate students were awarded UTC fellowships for 2011-2012 :
 Erik Archibald, a first year Masters student in Disaster Science and
Management is focusing on disasters and infrastructures,
 Matthew Beck, a first year Master of Civil Engineering student in Civil and
Environmental Engineering focusing on Geotechnical Engineering,
 Lauren Lobo, a first year Master of Civil Engineering student in Civil and
Environmental Engineering focusing on Civil Infrastructure Systems, and
 Arthur Wicks, a second year MPA student in Urban Affairs and Public Policy
focusing on transportation planning.
In addition, two students received partial fellowships for 2011-2012:
 Elisa Kropat, a first year Master of Civil Engineering student in Civil and
Environmental Engineering focusing on Civil Infrastructure Systems
 Mindy Laybourne, a first year Master of Civil Engineering student in Civil and
Environmental Engineering focusing on Civil Infrastructure Systems
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.
Professors McNeil and Lee taught CIEG 650 Urban Transportation Systems in Fall
2010. Twenty students from three different colleges were enrolled in the class.
These students included sixteen undergraduates and three non-degree students.
The class again featured several guest lecturers including:
 Alain Kornhauser, Princeton University
 Jim Corbett, CEMS, UD
 Dan Blevins, WILMAPCO
 Cathy Smith, DART
The center also sponsored or co-sponsored several events as shown in Table 2. Five
distinguished lectures and seven brown bag discussions provided opportunities for
researchers and practitioners to get together to learn about new developments and
discuss ongoing research. A Distinguished Lecture delivered by Willem Ebersohn of
Amtrak was complemented by a field trip riding Amtrak’s track geometry car from
Wilmington to New York City and return.
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UTC Annual Report – Year 5
University of Delaware
Thirty students (including one undergraduate) attended the Transportation
Research Board Annual Meeting in Washington DC in January 2011. Faculty and
students were represented in eight presentations and posters (see Table 3). In
May 2011 all ongoing projects presented posters at the Research Showcase in
Dover, DE.
In June 2011, three graduate students (Mosi London, Gillian McCarthy and Sekine
Rahimian) participated in the 7th Annual Interuniversity Symposium on
Infrastructure Management at Northwestern University, Illinois. AISIM, the Annual
Interuniversity Symposium on Infrastructure Management, is organized by and for
graduate students to showcase their work and provide an opportunity to build
professional networks. Eighteen students from nine different universities presented
their work.
In 2011 UDUTC received 5 proposals from 6 researchers representing two different
colleges (Arts and Sciences; and Engineering). Each proposal was reviewed by two
or three external reviewers and the members of the review committee. All five
research proposals involving both colleges were funded. Three of the projects are
continuations from earlier projects. 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.
The project, funded by the US Chamber Foundation, has continued and is supported
by matching funds. Final reports (see Table 1) have been submitted for one of the
projects initiated in year 3 and two projects initiated in year 4. Two of these
reports are based on student theses. Three year 4 projects received continuation
funding and two new projects were initiated in September 2011. Fourteen
conference presentations (see Table 3) stemming from UTC related projects were
made and five papers (see Table 4) have been published or are scheduled to
appear in archival journals during the 2011 calendar year. Reports and dissertations
are listed in Table 1. Presentations and papers are summarized in Tables 3 and 4.
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UTC Annual Report – Year 5
University of Delaware
Table 1. UTC Reports, Dissertations, and Theses.
December
2010
April 2011
May 2011
May 2011
May 2011
May 2011
July 2011
August
2011
September
2011
Ngo, Dung, “The Impacts of I-95 Closures on Traffic and Air Quality,” Master of Civil Engineering, University of Delaware.
McNeil, Sue, Qiang Li and Michelle Oswald, "Developing an Infrastructure Index - Phase II," Interim Report - 2011 Supplement,
University Transportation Center, University of Delaware
Booz, Trevor, "Modeling the Effects of Removing Motorized Vehicle Lanes to Create Space for Bicycle Facilities: A Case Study of
MLK Drive, Philadelphia, PA," Master of Civil Engineering, University of Delaware.
Mitchell, Charles, "Impact of the Expansion of the Panama Canal: An Engineering Analysis," Master of Civil Engineering,
University of Delaware.
Oswald, Michelle, "Development of a Decision Support Tool for Transportation Adaption Practices in Response to Climate
Change," PhD, University of Delaware.
Mao, Weifeng, "The Impacts of Sea-level Rise on I-95 Corridor in Delaware," Analytical Paper, Master of Arts, Urban Affairs and
Public Policy, University of Delaware.
Lee, Earl (Rusty) and Dung Ngo, “The Impact of Disruptions along the I-95 Corridor on Congestion and Air Quality,” Final Report,
University of Delaware University Transportation Center.
Lee, Earl (Rusty) and Charles Mitchell, "An Engineering Evaluation of the Panama Canal Widening on East Coast Freight
Corridors" Final Report, University of Delaware University Transportation Center.
Qiang Li, Leslie Mills and Sue McNeil "The Implications of Climate Change on Pavement Performance and Design", Final Report,
University of Delaware University Transportation Center.
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UTC Annual Report – Year 5
University of Delaware
Table 2. UTC Speakers and Events
Event/ Location
Distinguished
Lecture
Brown Bag
Date
10/13/2010
Speaker/ Organizer
Lester Hoel, University of Virginia
Topic
"Mobility and Transportation: Providing Access to the World
10/20/2010
"Historic Resiliency of Bridges in the Bosfolk Corridor"
Distinguished
Lecture
Distinguished
Lecture
Brown Bag
Distinguished
Lecture
Distinguished
Lecture
Brown Bag
10/22/2010
Peter Seymour and Tripp Shenton,
University of Delaware
Chuck Larson, Stantech
"Implementing Pavement and Asset Management Systems"
11/1/2010
Richard Little, Keston Institute
"Taxes or Tolls: What's the Future of Infrastructure Finance?"
11/15/2010
2/28/2011
Michael Paul, Duffield
Mimi Sheller, Drexel
"An Engineers Perspective on Disasters"
"Planning for Mobility: Engineering for Tomorrow"
3/15/2011
Willem Ebersohn, Amtrak
"Asset Management on Amtrak in the Northeast Corridor
3/24/2011
Amit Mokashi, University of Delaware
"Marine Highways"
Brown Bag
Brown Bag
4/5/2011
4/26/2011
Geoff Edwards, University of Delaware
Trevor Booz, University of Delaware
"Maps of Time and Corridor Temporalities"
“ NACTO Urban Bikeway Design Guide”
Brown Bag
4/28/2011
Outreach - Bayard
Middle School
Brown Bag
Summer
2011
9/28/2011
Charlie Mitchell, University of
Delaware
Lynette Overby, University of Delaware
“ Impact of the Expansion of the Panama Canal: An Engineering
Analysis”
3 Scholars worked with 3 teachers and over 50 students teaching
transportation lessons with creative movement integrated.
“Understanding the Impacts of Climate Change on the I-95 Corridor
in Maryland and Delaware”
Sue McNeil and David Ames,
University of Delaware
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UTC Annual Report – Year 5
University of Delaware
Table 3. Presentations Related to UTC Projects
Event/ Location
Date
Speaker/ Author
Title
National Dance Education
Organization, Annual Conference
Transportation Research Board
Annual Meeting, Washington, DC.
October 2010
Lynnette Overby
Public Scholarship in Dance Education.
January 2011
Anne Lucey
Influencing Public Perception of Sustainable Roadside
Vegetation Management Strategies
Development of a Decision Support System for
Transportation Adaptation Practices in Response to
Climate Change
Methodology for Developing a National Infrastructure
Index Using Analytic Hierarchy Process
Assessments of Highway Investment Objectives Based
on Data Envelopment Analysis
Capturing Transportation Infrastructure Performance:
Data Availability, Needs, and Challenges
Michelle Oswald
Michelle Oswald
Qiang Li and Sue McNeil
Qiang Li, Sue McNeil, Taggart Foulke,
Jonathan Calhoun, Michelle Oswald, Erik Kreh,
Michael Gallis & Associates, Susanne Trimbath,
STP Advisory Services
Silvana Croope and Sue McNeil
National Dance Association Annual
Conference San Diego, CA
Journal of Commerce North American
Marin Highways and Logistics
Conference, Baltimore, MD.
Engineering Sustainability, 2011.
4th International Transportation
Systems Performance Measurement
Conference, Irvine, CA
Graduate Student Forum
7th Annual Interuniversity Symposium
on Infrastructure Management,
Northwestern University, Evanston, IL
April 2011
Lynnette Overby
Improvement of Resilience of Critical Infrastructure
System After a Disaster for Recovery and Mitigation
Assessment in Arts Integration
April 2011
Amit Mokashi
Marine Highways
April 2011
Michelle Oswald and Sue McNeil
May 201
McNeil, Sue, Qiang Li, Michelle Oswald and
Susanne Trimbath
Adaptation to Climate Change: Engineering
Sustainability into the Transportation Planning Process
Measuring Transportation Infrastructure Performance
for the United States,
May, 2011
Michelle Oswald
June 2010
Mosi London
Sekine Rahimian
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Adaptation to climate change: Engineering
sustainability into the transportation planning process
Application of Data Envelopment Analysis Method to
the Transportation Performance Index
Modeling Transportation Systems after a Disaster
UTC Annual Report – Year 5
University of Delaware
Table 4. Refereed Papers Related to UTC Projects
Croope, Silvana and Sue McNeil, “Improving Resilience of Critical Infrastructure Systems Post-Disaster for Recovery and
Mitigation”, to appear in Transportation Research Record in 2011.
Li, Qiang, Sue McNeil, Taggart Foulke, Jonathan Calhoun, Michelle Oswald, Erik Kreh, Michael Gallis and Susanne Trimbath,
“Capturing Transportation Infrastructure Performance: Data Availability, Needs and Challenges”, to appear in Transportation
Research Record in 2011.
Oswald, Michelle, Qiang Li, Sue McNeil, and Susanne Trimbath, Measuring Infrastructure Performance: Development of a
National Infrastructure Index, Public Works Management and Policy, Vol. 16, No. 4, 2011.
Lucey, Anne, "Influencing Public Perception of Sustainable Roadside Vegetation Management Strategies," to appear in
Transportation Research Record in 2011.
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UTC Annual Report – Year 5
V.
University of Delaware
Examples of Products Used by Stakeholders
The UD UTC’s projects on climate change have served as background for other
efforts related to climate change adaptation in Delaware as well as provided
opportunities for engagement in larger climate change initiatives in Delaware
and discussion of future research activities. Specifically:
 Michelle Oswald, Weifeng Mao and David Ames served on the steering
committee for Wilmapco’s regional sea-level rise (SLR) transportation
vulnerability assessment. Former UTC student (now with DelDOT) also
served on the steering committee.
 Michelle Oswald, as an intern at Wilmapco, assisted with integrating
climate change adaptation practice in long range planning as well as
evaluation of climate change impacts such as sea level rise.
 Professor McNeil and Ames worked with DART to FTA to develop a
proposal for a climate change adaptation pilot.
 Met with the Climate Change and Energy division of Delaware Department
of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC) to discuss
research results.
Our project on measuring infrastructure performance for the US Chamber of
Commerce Foundation has served as a foundation for discussion particularly in
the context of the emphasis on transportation performance in the transportation
reauthorization discussion. Relationships between per capita economic growth,
and transportation infrastructure performance and foreign direct investment
have also been demonstrated. Specifically, a one point change in the
Transportation Performance Index increases gross domestic product per capita
by 0.3%. In the introduction to the 2011 Update of the Transportation
Performance Index, Tom Donohue, President and CEO of the US Chamber of
Commerce said:
In this report, we have outlined the widening gap between what is needed to
fund a modern system and the investments that are actually being made
today. We have emphasized the hundreds of thousands of well-paying jobs
that could be created by modernizing our highways, transit systems, airports,
seaports, waterways, and rails. Last year, the Chamber became the first
organization ever to measure the correlation between the quality of
transportation systems and economic growth. The updated results in this
report underscore the challenges we still face today.
http://www.uschamber.com/sites/default/files/issues/infrastructure/files/2011%20Update.pdf
We are pleased to have been an integral part of this pro2ject.
VI. Funding Sources
Between 10/1/10 and 09/30/11, $398,016 of the UTC grant was expended. The
grant is matched by University, Delaware Department of Transportation and
industry funds that are tracked using a matching identification numbers. This
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UTC Annual Report – Year 5
University of Delaware
expenditure is less than budgeted amounts as PIs for individual projects continue to
leverage funds and extending graduate support over two years. We have also
streamlined our administrative expenses. All elements of the strategic plan are
currently funded. Table 5 shows expenditures over all four years of the grant to
date.
Table 5. Expenditures to Date
Source
Federal
Grant
$110,225
$267,783
$328,432
$456,279
$398,016
$1,560,735
Year 1
Year 2
Year 3
Year 4
Year 5
Total
The sources of funds are also shown in
UD UTC FUNDING SOURCES
10/1/10 ‐ 9/30/11
24%
University
State DOT
5%
50%
Industry
Federal 21%
Figure 3, which shows a significant increase in the proportion of matching funds
from industry (largely from the project funded by the US Chamber Foundation) and
a smaller proportion of funds coming from the University.
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UTC Annual Report – Year 5
University of Delaware
UD UTC FUNDING SOURCES
10/1/10 ‐ 9/30/11
24%
University
State DOT
5%
50%
Industry
Federal 21%
Figure 3. Funding Sources
Figure 4 shows expenditures in terms of administration, research, education and
technology transfer. Anticipated expenditures for education continue to be low as
we are able to leverage most of our educational activities. While this does not
directly contribute to the match (because of the challenges in tracking the dollars),
we are able to offer several education related activities. Expenditures for
technology transfer increased as the T2 center was actively involved in the center.
The proportion of funds devoted to administration continues to be significantly less
than the budget allowing us to commit to additional student support.
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UTC Annual Report – Year 5
University of Delaware
UD UTC EXPENDITURES
10/1/10 ‐ 9/30/11
15%
9%
1%
Administration
Research
Education
Technology Transfer
75%
Figure 4. Expenditures by Category
VII.
Summary
During the 2010-2011 grant year UD-UTC students, staff and faculty were actively
engaged in research related to the Resiliency of Transportation Corridors. Much of
our grant supports students and student activities. Our graduate and
undergraduate students are vital members of our research community. They have
successfully completed degrees, published papers, presented at conferences and
won awards.
Our community came together with other transportation professionals in the
Delaware region and beyond to listen to Distinguished Lectures, participate in
brown bag discussions and engage in workshops and conferences. The
transportation courses offered as part of our UTC emphasize the multi-disciplinary
nature of transportation and we have encouraged our students and faculty to think
beyond their traditional disciplines.
Our researchers shared the products of their research at conferences and meetings
and also initiated and enhanced collaborations with Delaware Department of
Transportation, Federal Highway Administration and the Maritime Administration
drawing on knowledge gained as part of UTC funded projects.
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