Research Projects | Transportation Research and Education Center

Advancing Safety At Intersections: Measuring The Effectiveness Of Traffic Signal Strategies For Speed Management On Operations And Safety

Principal Investigator: Sirisha Kothuri

Many states are adopting the Safe System approach (USDOT, 2022) to improve traffic safety. As the role of speed in injury severity is becoming increasingly clear, one of the key elements of a Safe System approach is Safer Speeds. Specifically, higher ... Read More

Low-Cost Camera Sensors and YOLO-Based Computer Vision for Scalable Multimodal Traffic Monitoring

Principal Investigator: Banafsheh Rekabdar

Co-Investigators: Sirisha Kothuri , Nathan McNeil

This project provides the first systematic, multi-site validation of low-cost community-deployable edge-AI camera sensors integrated with YOLO-based computer vision for pedestrian and vehicle counting in real-world transportation settings. Building o ... Read More

Bridge Pile Foundations Subjected to Liquefaction-Induced Lateral Spreading

Principal Investigator: Arash Khosravifar

The overall goal of this research is to improve the seismic safety and resiliency of highway bridges in the Pacific Northwest during earthquakes. Past earthquakes have shown that liquefaction-induced lateral spreading can be a major cause of collapse ... Read More

Establishing Risk-based Bridge Management Models and Tools for Municipal Transportation Assets

Principal Investigator: David Yang

The Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) manages a bridge inventory including National Bridge Inventory (NBI) bridges, non-NBI pedestrian bridges, and culverts. Historically, condition data has been stored in disparate and/or non-digital formats, ... Read More

Developing SafeSpot: A New Crowdsourcing Tool for Real-Time Near-Miss Detection and Risk Mapping

Principal Investigator: Tanmoy Bhowmik

Co-Investigator: Primal Pappachan

Transportation safety analysis has traditionally relied on police-reported crashes to identify dangerous locations. This reactive approach overlooks the many near-miss incidents and perceived hazards that occur daily but go unrecorded. Understanding ... Read More

Subcontract: NCHRP 17-115 Guide for Marked Crosswalk Design, Spacing, Placement, and Safety

Principal Investigator: Sirisha Kothuri

Co-Investigator: Nathan McNeil

Project Lead: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill | Project PI: Sarah O’Brien | PSU team PI: Sirisha Kothuri | In a project funded by the National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP), Portland State University is partnering ... Read More

Development of Modern Active Transportation Research Roadmap

Principal Investigator: Jennifer Dill

BACKGROUND Developed through NCHRP Project 20-123(02), AASHTO Council on Active Transportation Research Roadmap (2021) highlighted the critical need for targeted research for the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials� ... Read More

Mode-Based Benefit-Cost Analysis Calculator

Principal Investigator: Jenny Liu

Transportation decision-makers typically use benefit-cost analysis (BCA) to evaluate the tradeoffs of transportation projects. However, it is difficult to produce state-specific measures that are multimodal and can consistently evaluate the full rang ... Read More

Automated Detection, Tracking, and Safety Analysis of Pedestrians and Cyclists Using YOLOv9

Principal Investigator: Banafsheh Rekabdar

Co-Investigators: Sirisha Kothuri , Nathan McNeil

This applied research project aims to adapt and further train YOLOv9 to enhance its ability to accurately detect, track, and count cyclists and pedestrians in video data from the Portland Metro Area. The method will also extract surrogate safety metr ... Read More

Improving Accuracy and Precision of Pedestrian Volume Estimates Using Advanced Machine Learning Approaches

Principal Investigator: Sirisha Kothuri

Co-Investigator: Banafsheh Rekabdar

Counts provide the foundation for measuring nonmotorized travel along a link or a network and are also useful for monitoring trends, planning new infrastructure, and for conducting safety, health, and economic analyses. Most agencies still use manual ... Read More

PeopleforBikes- Living Lab Evaluation

Principal Investigator: John MacArthur

Researchers will conduct an evaluation of the Better Bike Share Partnership (BBSP) Living Lab. BBSP provided five organizations in Detroit, Chicago, Cincinnati, Portland and Philadelphia with funding, support and resources to develop best practices a ... Read More

State DOT and Tribal Use of Active Transportation Data: Practices, Sources, Needs, and Gaps (NCHRP 07-31)

Principal Investigator: Jennifer Dill

Co-Investigators: Nathan McNeil , Sirisha Kothuri

This project is led by the Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) at Portland State University (PSU), in collaboration with the Institute for Tribal Government (ITG) at PSU, Toole Design Group, the Highway Safety Research Center at Unive ... Read More