Finite Element Analyses and Crash Testing of NYSDOT Bridge Railing and Barrier (MASH 2016)

The AASHTO-FHWA Joint Agreement for the Implementation of MASH 2016 requires that any roadside safety hardware (guide rail, bridge rail, transitions, attenuators, etc.) to be installed on the National Highway System must be MASH-compliant. Transitions were not previously required to be crash tested, so the NYSDOT designs needs to be.

Calibration/Development of Safety Performance Functions for New Jersey

Safety Performance Functions (SPFs) in the Highway Safety Manual (HSM) were developed using historic crash data collected in different states. Because local state or geographic conditions vary, to make the SPFs better accommodate the local data, two strategies are usually undertaken: the first strategy is to calibrate SPFs provided in HSM so that the contents of HSM can be fully leveraged and the second strategy is to develop location-specific SPFs regardless of the predictive modeling framework in the HSM.

NJDOT Bridge Resource Program

The primary mission of the Bridge Resource Program (BRP) is to provide ongoing engineering evaluation and research support to the New Jersey Department of Transportation’s (NJDOT) Division of Bridge Engineering and Infrastructure Management. Major Goals of BRP is to (1) Preserve the state’s Bridge and Structural Assets, (2) Optimize the overall condition of the state’s assets within available funding limits and (3) Assist in developing the policy and standard based on new technologies to ensure structures safety and preserve NJDOT’s structures.

AASHTO (American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials) and NBI (National Bridge Inventory) Element Deterioration Rates for Bridge Management System

The purpose of this study is to develop and implement an analytical framework to calculate deterioration rates for bridges and large culverts based AASHTO-Element inspection data as well as NBI data and demonstrate the application of the approach through currently available inspection data. This analytical approach will be applied to generate deterioration rates for NYS bridges based on, but not limited to climate and/or geographical location, DOT Region, bridge ownership, material types, design types, and bridge types. The outcome of the research will be further implemented in the AASHTO BrM and the Agile Assets Structures Manager and Bridge Analyst.

Development of Advanced Weigh-In-Motion (A-WIM) System for Effective Enforcement of Overweight Trucks to Reduce their Socioeconomic Impact on Major Highways

The research team will first establish a test bed for the development of the advanced WIM (A-WIM) system by collaborating with local transportation agencies for the selection of the test bed site near a static weighing station. Then, it will develop a set of calibration procedures to guarantee that the level of accuracy is reached and preserved over time. These procedures will include, but are not limited to, the effect of temperature, humidity, and pavement type.