Articles

• Research Identifies Roundabout Characteristics for Safer Bicycling (May 7, 2024)
  As roundabouts become increasingly popular, and as many communities promote bicycle use, a major concern is the safety of roundabouts for bicyclists. Researchers at Utah State University studied bicyclists' safety perceptions of and preferences for roundabouts with different characteristics. The researchers...
• University of Utah and Utah State Launch Transportation Infrastructure Electrification Joint Certificate Program (May 1, 2024)
  The University of Utah was awarded approximately $600,000 by the Utah System of Higher Education (USHE) Deep Technology Talent Initiative to introduce a pioneering Transportation Infrastructure Electrification Joint Certificate Program. USHE's Technology Talent Initiative aims to support the creation...
• Cox Delivers Prakash Lecture at Geo-Congress (Apr 15, 2024)
  MPC researcher and Utah State University Professor Brady Cox is this year's recipient of the American Society of Civil Engineers Prakash Lecturer Award for outstanding research or professional practice contributions in the area of geotechnical engineering or soil dynamics. Only one person is selected...
• Paskett is Mountain-Plains Consortium Student of the Year (Jan 2, 2024)
  Aleks Paskett, a master's degree student in civil engineering at Utah State University, has been named the 2023 Student of the Year for the Mountain-Plains Consortium. He will be honored with other award winners from across the country during an awards ceremony January 6 in Washington, D.C. Paskett's...
• MPC Researchers Participate in Annual Transportation Research Board Meeting (Jan 31, 2023)
  Researchers from the Mountain-Plains Consortium's eight collaborating universities were among the more than 20,000 transportation administrators, practitioners, policy makers, and researchers who came to Washington, DC, for the Transportation Research Board's 102nd Annual Meeting, January 8–12. The...
• Utah State Transportation Students Honored During College of Engineering Research Week (Jun 28, 2022)
  Prasanna Humagain was named "Doctoral Researcher of the Year" because of his impressive publication record (six peer-reviewed articles in 2021); a timely dissertation, which advanced theory and knowledge about COVID's impacts on tourists' decision-making for outdoor recreational travel; and impact on...
• Congratulations to MPC Graduates! (Jun 24, 2022)
  MPC produces volumes of research that is critical to maintaining and improving the transportation systems of our region, the nation and the world. That research would not be possible without the efforts of our students who collect and analyze data, test new ideas and approaches, and help interpret results....
• Utah State Master's Student Receives Prestigious Eisenhower Transportation Fellowship  (Apr 19, 2022)
  Earlier this year at the 2022 Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board in Washington D.C., Utah State University Civil and Environmental Engineering master's student Joshua Ward received an Eisenhower Transportation Graduate Fellowship. Ward will receive $31,500 from the Federal Highway Administration...
• MPC Researchers Present Variety of Work at 2022 TRB Annual Meeting (Feb 11, 2022)
  Researchers from the Mountain-Plains Consortium's eight collaborating universities were among the thousands of transportation administrators, practitioners, policy makers and researchers who came to Washington, DC, for the Transportation Research Board's 101st Annual Meeting, January 9-13. The meeting...
• Research on Public Perceptions of Connected Vehicles Will Guide Policy (Oct 22, 2021)
  Research at Utah State University into public perceptions of connected vehicles (CVs) and the data from them that is collected and shared will guide policy making that will make CVs more acceptable to the public and promote their adoption. CVs offer potential improvements, including improved efficiency...
• Research Will Help Guide Decisions on Big Data and Autonomous Vehicles (Apr 27, 2021)
  Research at Utah State University is establishing a reference for transportation agencies to use in making budgetary or policy decisions regarding autonomous vehicles and big data management. The researchers collected roadway geospatial data with a simple mobile LiDAR (light detection and ranging) setup...
• Undergraduate MPC Researcher Honored at Utah State University (Apr 9, 2021)
  Joshua Ward, an undergraduate researcher at Utah State University, was recently named the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering 2021 Undergraduate Researcher of the Year and the 2021 Undergraduate Researcher of the Year for the USU College of Engineering. In part, the awards recognize his...
• MPC-Funded Research Published (Mar 2, 2021)
  Several papers from MPC-funded research projects were recently published. They include the following: "Bicycle safety at roundabouts: a systemic literature review" was written by Niranjan Pudel and Patrick Singleton with the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Utah State University....
• Research Identifies Techniques for Longer-Lasting Bridge Decks (Jul 21, 2020)
  Bridge decks strengthened with glass fiber reinforced polymers (GFRP) have shown promise for improving the service life of bridges subjected to deicing salts that corrode steel-reinforced bridges. Unfortunately, GFRP is typically brittle and prone to to possible failure. MPC researchers at Utah State...
• Research Tests New Concrete Mix for Making Bridge Girders Faster and More Sustainably (May 21, 2020)
  In the first testing of full-scale bridge girders constructed with calcium sulfoaluminate (CSA) cement, MPC researchers at Utah State University determined that the performance of CSA cement could be predicted by current load and resistance factor design specifications. The research results indicate...
• Halling Named MPC Director at USU (Apr 23, 2020)
  Marv Halling, professor of civil and environmental engineering at Utah State University and longtime MPC collaborator and principle investigator has been named MPC director for USU. He currently serves as head of the department's Structures Division. As director, he will coordinate USU's participation...
• Improved Stress Measurements for Better Bridge Design (Aug 1, 2019)
  To develop data that could help improve the design of bridge girders, MPC researchers at Utah State University investigated the amount of strain typical vehicles caused in the bottom of each girder as they travel across the bridge. This research also examined the maximum strains in the bridge girders...
• New Planning Approach Better Integrates Selection and Scheduling of Road Projects (Jun 1, 2019)
  MPC researchers have developed an improved approach to highway maintenance and rehabilitation that better integrates the selection and scheduling of projects. A goal of the approach is to select and schedule projects to maximize their benefit or effectiveness while minimizing the traffic impacts of work...
• Airborne Remote Sensing Shows Promise For Highway Data Collection (Jun 1, 2019)
  An airborne remote sensing method called LiDAR (light detection and ranging) is a promising method for collecting data on highway assets such as bridges and culverts, according to MPC research at Utah State University. The researchers found that airborne LiDAR is much faster in data collection than...
• Region 8 Student of the Year is Utah State University's Holly Lloyd (Jan 12, 2017)
  Holly Lloyd, a December 2016 graduate of Utah State University's master's program in civil engineering, was named the 2017 Student of the Year for USDOT's Region 8. Lloyd's master's project involved the analysis of the safety effectiveness of the diverging diamond interchanges in Utah. Her advisor was...
• MPC Student Wins ITE Paper Contest (Jun 29, 2016)
  Utah State University student Holly Lloyd recently won first place in the Institute of Transportation Engineers Intermountain Section Student Paper Competition. The competition was part of the annual section conference in Jackson Hole, WY, in May. The paper featured her master's project focusing on the...