session overview

OPENING THOUGHTS I

Sat, 28 Feb 2009 20:51:12 -0600

Jim Brewer shared his perspectives on visualization in the context of today’s changes in geometric design and project delivery. He started by contrasting early forms of visualization tools (physical models) that were used to communicate complex designs to the public (40+ years ago). Engineers would bring their 2D plans along with these models and the public would consistently shake their heads when trying to comprehend the plans, then gravitate towards the physical models prompting more productive engagements with the design teams.

He went on to describe the value of visualization on two key areas: First, the expectations for communication today are much different than they were 40 years ago, and projects demand a more interactive involvement by stakeholders. He noted that in addition to addressing end-user needs (drivers, pedestrians, etc.) there is also a class of “intermediate end-users” made of more than stakeholders, but also multiple design disciplines and organizations. Second, he noted that visualization technologies will assist engineers in not only exposing design issues, but also in communicating design constraints to those trying to understand why certain decisions were made.

Mr. Brewer also noted the move to “performance-based” design decisions and pointed out four key areas where visualization stands to play an important role by improving: 1. Safety, 2. Design Consistency, 3. Design Coordination, and 4. Design Communication.

BIO: Mr. Brewer is Engineering Manager – State Road Office, Kansas Department of Transportation, which includes the functions of the Road Section and the Coordinating Section of the Bureau of Design. The office is responsible for the pre-construction engineering portion of the Kansas Transportation Program and has managed up to 350 projects concurrently with construction costs of about $ 2.5 billion.

Jim has been a member of the AASHTO Subcommittee on Design since 1984 and has served on the AASHTO Task Force on Geometric Design since 1986. The Task Force is responsible for producing several AASHTO documents including the AASHTO Green Book, A Policy on Design Standards – Interstate System, Bicycle Guide, Pedestrian Facilities Guide, and Utilities Guide. He has also served on other AASHTO and Transportation Research Board panels.

He is a member of Transportation Research Board’s Committee on Operational Effects of Geometrics, the Committee on Geometric Design, and Roundabouts Task Force. He is a registered Professional Engineer and a member of the Kansas Society of Professional Engineers and the National Society of Professional Engineers.

OPENING THOUGHTS II

Sat, 28 Feb 2009 20:50:49 -0600

Dr. Porter built on Jim Brewers perspectives and discussed the profession’s shift away from “criteria-based” decisions to more “performance-based” as they relate to highway geometric design. Accordingly, these decision-making environments are also shifting as collaboration technologies and project environments are bringing stakeholders and design disciplines closer together, and professionals will need to effectively justify their decisions to a more diverse audience.

He goes on to discuss the importance of these tools in helping to quantify the relationships between transportation consequences and geometric design decisions.

BIO: Dr. Porter has over eight years of experience in transportation research and education gained primarily through full-time appointments at the Pennsylvania Transportation Institute and Texas Transportation Institute. He has worked on a range of research projects involving components of highway safety, geometric design, traffic operations and human factors/driver behavior and has co-authored approximately 20 unique journal articles, research reports and papers in conference proceedings.

Dr. Porter served as co-instructor for three undergraduate transportation courses in the civil engineering department at the Pennsylvania State University: Introduction to Highway Engineering (4 semesters), Traffic Operations (1 semester) and Capstone Transportation Design (4 semesters). He is a member of TRB’s Operational Effects of Geometrics Committee [AHB65] and Chair of the Subcommittee on Performance-Based Analysis of Geometric Design [AHB65(3)].

Dr. Porter recently organized two (invited) TRB technical sessions illustrating successful incorporation of safety prediction tools such as the Interactive Highway Safety Design Model and Highway Safety Manual into project-level design decisions [Session 235 of the 87th annual meeting; Session 234 of the 88th annual meeting] and a workshop that revisited the role of speed in highway and street design decisions [Workshop 155 of the 88th annual meeting].

OPPORTUNITY OVERVIEW

Tue, 24 Feb 2009 13:44:25 -0600

Mr. Brian Ray, as Chair of the Geometric Design Committee, provided his overarching perspectives on the opportunities and interests to advance beyond visualization’s traditional uses for conveying “form”, and moving into higher levels of safety assessments, performance analysis, and design optimization.

BIO: Brian Ray is a Principal Engineer with Kittelson & Associates, Inc., a specialty transportation consulting firm. He brings over 20 years experience in transportation planning, operations, and roadway geometric design. He has worked on a wide spectrum of roadway, intersection, freeway and interchange design projects across the US. He has a special interest in advancing solutions that are consistent with the project and community’s contextual design environment.

WHERE WE'VE BEEN

Tue, 24 Feb 2009 08:56:12 -0600

Mr. Mark Taylor explored the evolution of geometric design from the early days of physical models and 2D practices, on through the initial use of computers (mainframe, and desktop) to today’s applications of 3D modeling, visualization, simulation, digital construction, and even operations.

He concluded with ideas for potential needed research which would aid the geometric design community in moving the use of visual and 3D technologies to assist advanced levels of analysis and decision-making.

BIO: Mr. Taylor joined the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) in 1974, and is currently Safety/Geometric Design Engineer in the Resource Center Safety & Design Technical Services Team. He provides technical assistance and training on design technical and policy topics for the FHWA and externally for State DOTs and other agencies. He coordinates design programs aimed at addressing roadway and roadside design and safety issues nationally. Mr. Taylor has also been closely engaged in FHWA’s context-sensitive solutions (CSS) program activities. During recent years he lead the highway design discipline for Federal Lands Highway (FLH) and developed design manuals and guides such as the Federal Lands’ Project Development and Design Manual. Earlier, Mr. Taylor was Project Development Engineer for the Central Federal Lands Highway Division (CFLHD). Mr. Taylor received a BSCE from Virginia Tech in 1974.

During his career with the FHWA Mr. Taylor has been engaged in project development, roadway design, and project management. His experience includes geometric design of highways, particularly in the rural environment, using context sensitive solutions to balance safety and mobility with environmental impacts and local needs. Mr. Taylor is a member of TRB committees on Geometric Design (AFB10), and Visualization (ABJ95), and assists other TRB committees and task forces, FHWA and AASHTO in developing national design technical initiatives and policy recommendations.

OPERATIONAL EFFECTS

Tue, 24 Feb 2009 08:55:59 -0600

Mr. Gerald (Jerry) Sudimick, representing the Operational Effects of Geometrics Committee, explored many of the challenges of operating and maintaining today’s highway infrastructure. Mr. Sudimick went on to discuss the potential value that visualization technologies used upstream in geometric design could bring to professionals managing these facilities once they are open to traffic. He also touched on the value of visualizing complex maintenance operations to support both logistics and public information efforts.

BIO: Mr. Sudimick has been in the highway engineering profession for more than 40 years. During his career he has worked in both the public and private sectors and has held positions in design, construction, and management. Currently, Jerry is a Senior Engineer with PBS&J working on the General Consultant Program with Florida’s Turnpike Enterprise.

He has authored QA/QC and Safety manuals for construction, co-authored a paper on Quiet Pavements, and has been very involved in Incident Management developments. His industry interests have led to the use of several innovative technical initiatives within the Turnpike Enterprise where he previously served as Roadway Engineer. Currently, he is leading a team for Visualization and 3D Design for the Enterprise. He is a registered professional engineering in Florida and Connecticut.

USER-IN-THE-LOOP DESIGN

Tue, 24 Feb 2009 08:53:45 -0600

Mr. Wade Allen discussed the evolution of simulator technologies and their more traditional uses in transportation research. He went on to describe the current trends and interests for using these tools as an integral part of evaluating proposed highway design alternatives. Mr. Allen also touched on some of the issues that will need to be addressed in order for practicing engineers to effectively understand their limits as well as their potential.

BIO: Mr. R. Wade Allen received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in engineering from the University of California at Los Angeles in 1962 and 1965, respectively. He has been actively involved in human factors and man/machine systems research since 1960. Since 1967 he has been with Systems Technology, Inc., Hawthorne, California, where he is presently President and a Technical Director, conducting research in vehicle dynamics, human/machine interaction and human factors involved in traffic safety, car driving, and aircraft piloting problems. Mr. Allen is a Fellow of the Institute for the Advancement of Engineering and the Human Factors & Ergonomics Society.

HUMAN FACTORS GUIDE

Tue, 24 Feb 2009 08:52:05 -0600

Mr. John Campbell has been the project lead in the development of NCHRP’s Human Factors Guidelines for Road Systems: a living resource intended to complement the AASHTO Green Book, MUTCD, and other standards publications. It contains the latest in expert knowledge relating to end-user (driver, pedestrian, bicycles, etc.) needs in an effort to assist designers in making more effective decisions relating to human factors.

Mr. Campbell overviewed the Guide and described interests and opportunities to incorporate more interactive visualization tools to more effectively convey the concepts and principles therein.

BIO: Mr. Campbell is a Research Leader with Battelle’s Center for Human Performance and Safety. He also manages Battelle’s Human Performance Laboratory. Since 1985, his research activities have focused on the development and evaluation of advanced human-machine interfaces. He has developed human factors guidelines for in-vehicle navigation systems, collision warning devices, icons and symbols, and road system design. He is Battelle’s Project Manager for the NCHRP effort to develop Human Factors Guidelines for Road Systems.

CONSTRUCTION APPLICATIONS

Tue, 24 Feb 2009 08:50:03 -0600

Mr. Kevin O’Connor discussed in more detail the evolving practices for 3D modeling and visualization within the construction stage of project delivery. Machine, control, digital stakeout, constructibility reviews, and stakeholder involvement were some of the key topics he covered.

Mr. O’Conner also discussed the improvements in collaboration and efficiencies that stand to be gained if the Geometric Design community worked in 3D and provided 3D models as part of their deliverables (in addition to the traditional 2D plans) to contractors.

BIO: Kevin O’Connor is an Engineering CADD Applications Manager with HNTB Corporation. He is a 1992 graduate of the University of Central Florida and a registered engineer in the state of Florida. He has a broad range of design experience including highway, aviation and rail. He is currently managing firm wide support and implementation of Bentley Civil 3D design software. His most recent success is the Railrunner commuter rail project in New Mexico.

EDUCATION & TRAINING

Tue, 24 Feb 2009 08:40:36 -0600

Dr. Ahmed Al-Kaisy spoke on the education and training needs to support the use of visualization in geometric design. He discussed this in the context of his responsibility to turn out “competent” graduates into the work force. He covered this both in the context of providing a more “meaningful” learning environments for students, and also to inspire them to learn the concepts and fundamentals of geometric design in the first place.

BIO: Dr. Ahmed Al-Kaisy is an associate professor and the principal transportation faculty member in the Department of Civil Engineering at Montana State University. He is also the Program Manager for the Safety and Operations Focus Area at the Western Transportation Institute and a registered professional engineer in the state of Montana. Dr. Al-Kaisy has long teaching experience in many areas of transportation engineering, including highway geometric design, traffic operations and management, traffic flow theory, traffic safety, signal optimization and control, and intelligent transportation systems.

With extensive research experience in the fields of traffic flow, control, operations and safety, Dr. Al-Kaisy is widely published in many scholarly journals such as Transportation Research, Transportation Research Records, Journal of Advanced Transportation, and the Journal of Transportation Engineering (to name but a few). He has authored/co-authored around 50 refereed publications of which around 30 are fully refereed journal publications. Dr. Al-Kaisy is an active member on many university committees and is affiliated with a number of national and international professional organizations.