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Many women’s travel experiences relate directly to their disproportionate share of caregiving responsibilities. Travelers supervising dependents are more likely to need access to multiple destinations and may have more belongings in tow. Because dependents are unlikely to be commuting adults, travel during off-peak hours is more common, and paying multiple fares can increase the financial burden. Additionally, safety is a greater concern for women, both when they are traveling alone and when they are traveling with dependents, especially children.

TCRP Research Report 265: Addressing Travel Needs of Women and Families on Public Transportation, produced by TRB’s Transit Cooperative Research Program, presents a set of practical tools to help transit agencies better understand their riders, use existing data more effectively, assess how well they are serving women and families, build internal support for these efforts, and identify service planning, vehicle, and station design strategies that benefit women and families. The eight tools are organized into three stages: Understand Your Riders, Build Internal Capacity, and Deploy Your Tactics.

Subsurface utilities, buried from inches to many feet below roadways and rights-of way, pose significant challenges because they are not visible and cannot be assessed through visual inspection. Their location, condition, ownership, and impact on cost and schedule must instead be determined through specialized investigation methods and stakeholder coordination. Utility data depiction is the primary means of communication, yet it is often inconsistent, with varying stakeholder expectations.

NCHRP Research Report 1180: Depicting Utility Facilities in Design Plans: A Guide, produced by TRB’s National Cooperative Highway Research Program, provides a set of guidelines for transportation agencies on depicting utility data from various sources. These guidelines support design decision-making, utility conflict identification and resolution, and consistent depiction practices. The scope includes both existing and proposed utility facilities. The guide is intended to support both 2-D and 3-D formats, recognizing that agencies vary in their access to and proficiency with different software tools.

The same project that developed NCHRP Research Report 1180 also produced NCHRP Web-Only Document 449: Developing a Guide to Depicting Utility Facilities in Design Plans. This companion document summarizes the research conducted to develop the guide.

A myriad of common barriers can hinder research projects from achieving implementation. Within transportation agencies, many of these barriers are associated with organizational challenges, disconnected research outcomes, and workforce constraints. Organizational challenges arise from structures and processes that may not support effective research implementation. Disconnected research outcomes can lead end users to be unwilling to adopt those outcomes in their daily practice. Workforce constraints related to research implementation may involve staff capacity, skill sets, and levels of interest within both the agency’s research department and among the intended beneficiaries of the research outcomes.

NCHRP Research Report 1179: Overcoming Barriers to Implementing Research Outcomes, produced by TRB’s National Cooperative Highway Research Program, provides a toolkit of strategies to improve the implementation of research outcomes and maximize their impact. The toolkit introduces a common language for describing research and its implementation and presents a series of frameworks that demonstrate alternative approaches to implementation planning. It also outlines strategies for overcoming the most commonly cited barriers to implementing research outcomes.

Red-tinted bus lanes are defined as lanes featuring red-colored pavement intended to enhance the visibility of locations, station stops, or travel lanes reserved exclusively for public transit vehicles or multimodal facilities where public transit is the primary mode. Although red-tinted bus lanes have been implemented in several cities, there is relatively limited documentation on their impacts, operational challenges, and other information valuable to agencies interested in implementing them.

TCRP Synthesis 188: Red-Tinted Bus Lane Experience, produced by TRB’s Transit Cooperative Research Program, documents the current state of practice for the implementation and performance of red-tinted bus lanes in North America. The report addresses topics such as planning, design, and implementation; materials; operations and enforcement; and system impacts. It also provides guidance and lessons learned from agencies that have implemented and operate red-tinted bus lanes.

Throughout its more than 25-year history, the Transit Capacity and Quality of Service Manual (TCQSM) has compiled the state of the practice based on peer-reviewed research published by the Transportation Research Board and others. The TCQSM provides transportation practitioners of varying levels of experience and responsibility information, techniques, and resources to support the planning, design, and operation of transit services, facilities, and systems. While the TCQSM’s methods represent the best available knowledge at the time of publication, they do not establish policies regarding desirable or appropriate levels of quality of service or capacity for transit services, facilities, or systems.

TCRP Research Report 262: Transit Capacity and Quality of Service Manual, 4th edition, includes updated statistics, transit agency application examples, and photographs. The manual incorporates emerging mobility options such as microtransit and low-speed automated vehicles, with expanded coverage of widely adopted technologies such as bus and ferry electrification. This edition updates key concepts related to modes and services, operations, and quality of service. Additional updates address topics including quality of service measures and applications, bus transit, demand-responsive transit, rail transit, ferry transit, and transit stops and stations.

NCHRP Research Report 1187: A Data-Driven Tool for Optimizing Maintenance Technician Staffing in Highway Fleet Operations, produced by TRB’s National Cooperative Highway Research Program, helps transportation agencies make transparent, consistent, and defensible workforce planning decisions. The Predictive Insights for Technician Staffing and Operational Planning (PITSTOP) tool supports data driven optimization of highway fleet maintenance staffing. Using vehicle inventory, maintenance history, and operational assumptions, it estimates technician-hour standards and converts them into full-time-equivalent staffing requirements. The tool integrates multiple datasets, provides a structured workflow for data preparation and analysis, and delivers dashboard-based results that identify staffing gaps and surpluses at the state, regional, and shop levels.

NCHRP Research Report 1185: Out-of-Service Utility Facilities: Management Throughout the Highway Life Cycle, produced by TRB’s National Cooperative Highway Research Program, provides guidance on practices for locating, identifying, tracking, and managing OOS utility facilities throughout the highway life cycle. The guide is designed to help transportation officials understand the risks associated with OOS utility facilities and implement strategies to reduce project delays, costs, and construction impacts. It also supports contractors, consultants, utility owners, and other stakeholders by increasing awareness of OOS utility issues and promoting practices that improve coordination, decision-making, and project outcomes.

NCHRP Research Report 1189: Fostering Implementation of Knowledge Management: A Guide, produced by TRB’s National Cooperative Highway Research Program, documents the evolution of KM at state DOTs, identifies successes and challenges, and provides strategies to support long-term KM investment and sustainability. The report is designed to help agencies adopt KM practices that minimize disruptions, maintain organizational continuity, and preserve crucial institutional knowledge as experienced employees retire or leave the agency.

TCRP Research Results Digest 119: Consolidating Microtransit and ADA Paratransit Services, produced by TRB’s Transit Cooperative Research Program, describes methods used by transit agencies to consolidate their ADA paratransit (or other coordinated paratransit) trips with on-demand microtransit service. TCRP Research Results Digest 119 summarizes one of 12 small research tasks conducted to support the development of new content for the Transit Capacity and Quality of Service Manual, Fourth Edition.

This research presents a quantitative framework to help agencies evaluate trade-offs between safety, efficiency, and equity when redesigning urban streets for multimodal operations and connected/automated vehicle (CAV) integration. The study introduces two complementary tools: a Network Fundamental Diagram (NFD)-based optimization model for system-level performance planning and a multi-agent simulation platform that evaluates real-world interactions among vehicles, pedestrians, cyclists, micromobility, and emerging modes.

Practitioners will gain insight into how to move beyond qualitative Complete Streets guidance by applying measurable objectives—including accessibility gaps, sufficiency thresholds, and maximin equity principles—to corridor and network design. The framework also incorporates advanced safety metrics (e.g., Time-to-Collision and impact severity) to evaluate both conflict likelihood and consequence. Case studies demonstrate how agencies can transparently compare design alternatives and make evidence-based decisions when trade-offs are unavoidable.

Alternative URLs for accessing the report:

https://figshare.com/articles/preprint/Making_CAV_Deployments_Compatible_with_Complete_Streets_Objectives_for_Safe_and_Efficient_Operation_Phase_II/31021405?file=60862168

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/i5ozwm8a4tlje16u6hwjq/Making-CAV-Deployments-Compatible-with-Complete-Streets-Objectives-for-Safe-and-Efficient-Operation-Phase-II-Final-Report.pdf?rlkey=yajzaiq1q36osh1zkiclhv69w&e=1&st=8ofgbte4&dl=0

PIARC: Impact of the Development of Active Transport Modes in Road Tunnels – Current Situation Report and Case Studies examines the growing integration of active transportation modes—such as pedestrians, cyclists, and other vulnerable road users—within road tunnel environments. As cities seek to improve mobility, accessibility, and emissions outcomes, tunnel owners and operators face new safety, design, and operational challenges when authorizing active modes in these confined facilities. This international report compiles and evaluates case studies from around the world, highlighting how tunnels are being constructed or retrofitted to safely accommodate active users through infrastructure adaptations, equipment upgrades, and revised operational procedures.

The document categorizes examples into four approaches: tunnels with safety galleries usable by active modes, tunnels with protected spaces for active users, tunnels with specific geometric or operational adaptations, and tunnels dedicated entirely to active mobility. Drawing on global expert contributions, the report outlines the state of practice and identifies key considerations for safety, risk management, and coordination with emergency services. It provides a foundation for future recommendations to guide decision-making by tunnel owners, designers, safety professionals, and transportation agencies considering active mode integration.

The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) spends hundreds of millions of dollars on utility relocations every year. Of the various situations in which a utility relocation is eligible for reimbursement, one of the most complex situations is when parts of the existing utility facility involve a property interest because the utility owner either has an easement or owns the property in fee simple. A wide range of practices exist for what constitutes eligibility for reimbursement.

The purpose of this research was to review and provide recommendations on the methodologies TxDOT uses to determine reimbursement eligibility and calculate utility reimbursement amounts. The research team conducted a review of national practices that included an analysis of relevant laws, regulations, and manuals, as well as interviews with state department of transportation officials. The research team conducted an analysis of a sample of utility agreements at TxDOT, including a review of reimbursement costs and reimbursement eligibility calculation methodologies, and prepared recommendations for implementation. The recommendations include strategies to consider for the calculation of eligibility ratios as well as strategies to improve the quality of utility agreements to make the review and approval process more consistent, accurate, and reliable.