Transit agencies use electrical traction (overhead catenary or third rail)—which is typically designed using high alternating-current or direct-current voltages—for the propulsion of trains. The running rails are used as part of the system to return negative power to substations. Insulated joints (IJs) are trackwork components installed in the rails to provide train control circuits and traction power segment separation between blocks.
TCRP Research Report 255: Investigation and Mitigation of Insulated Joint Electrical Failure: A Guide, from TRB's Transit Cooperative Research Program, provides information on how to identify arcing at IJs, methods to diagnose the contributing factors, underlying causes, strategies for investigating IJ failures, and examples of how others have mitigated arcing.
178 pages
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ISBN Paperback: 0-309-60053-7
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-60054-5
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/29274
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2025. Investigation and Mitigation of Insulated Joint Electrical Failure: A Guide. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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Concerns about transit assaults and perceived safety play an important role in transit use and ridership. Research shows that if people felt more secure when traveling and waiting at railway stations, the ridership could increase by 10 percent.
TCRP Research Report 258: Mitigation Strategies for Deterring Transit Assaults, from TRB's Transit Cooperative Research Program, equips agencies with practical strategies and evidence-based recommendations to enhance safety and security in the transit environment.
92 pages
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ISBN Paperback: 0-309-99483-7
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-99484-5
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/29204
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2025. Mitigation Strategies for Deterring Transit Assaults. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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In today’s rapidly evolving environment, state transportation agencies frequently face challenges that require specific organizational capabilities. In 2019, the National Cooperative Highway Research Program developed the Agency Capability Building (ACB) Portal, which presents a framework, supporting tools, and resources for enhancing transportation capacity.
NCHRP Web-Only Document 439: Implementing the Agency Capability Building Framework to Activate Organizational Change documents the activities, participants, data collected, and lessons learned from a recent effort to facilitate the use of the ACB by transportation agencies. The report also includes linked resources and appendices that represent key products of the research.
54 pages
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ISBN Ebook: 0-309-60201-7
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/29324
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2025. Implementing the Agency Capability Building Framework to Activate Organizational Change. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) operates Federal Inspection Services (FIS) facilities at airports nationwide, processing some 1.1 million flights each year. From major hubs to smaller regional gateways, these facilities serve tourists, business travelers, and families connecting across borders.
ACRP Transportation Insights 7: Modernization of Federal Inspection Services Facilities at U.S. Airports, from TRB's Airport Cooperative Research Program, captures the discussions at an event that explored how CBP facilities at U.S. airports can evolve in the years and decades ahead.
64 pages
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ISBN Paperback: 0-309-60106-1
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-60107-X
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/29288
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2025. Modernization of Federal Inspection Services Facilities at U.S. Airports. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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NCHRP Web-Only Document 425: Development of the Human Factors Guidelines for Road Systems, Third Edition is supplemental to and documents the research objectives, methods, and results of NCHRP Research Report 1148: Human Factors Guidelines for Road Systems, Third Edition.
32 pages
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ISBN Ebook: 0-309-99390-3
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/29159
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2025. Development of the Human Factors Guidelines for Road Systems: Third Edition. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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NCHRP Research Report 1148: Human Factors Guidelines for Road Systems, Third Edition, from TRB's National Cooperative Highway Research Program, presents updated guidelines for integrating human factors (HF) principles into the planning, design, construction, and operation of roadway systems. The guidelines build on previous editions of Human Factors Guidelines for Road Systems.
Supplemental to the report is NCHRP Web-Only Document 425: Development of the Human Factors Guidelines for Road Systems, Third Edition.
492 pages
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ISBN Paperback: 0-309-99386-5
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-99387-3
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/29158
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2025. Human Factors Guidelines for Road Systems: Third Edition. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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The majority of bridges built in the United States utilize concrete bridge elements with prestressed uncoated steel strands that are susceptible to corrosion, leading to structure deterioration. Delaying strand corrosion will reduce maintenance needs, extend bridge service life, and enhance safety.
NCHRP Research Report 1161: Stainless Steel Strands for Prestressed Concrete Bridge Elements, from TRB's National Cooperative Highway Research Program, presents state-of-the-art guidelines to assist state departments of transportation (DOTs) in the applications of stainless steel strands for prestressed concrete bridge elements.
94 pages
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ISBN Paperback: 0-309-59931-8
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-59932-6
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/29245
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2025. Stainless Steel Strands for Prestressed Concrete Bridge Elements. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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Transportation agencies, including state departments of transportation (DOTs), are increasing their focus on resilience as they continue to manage the impacts of extreme weather and natural hazard variability on transportation infrastructure and communities that rely on them to sustain and improve their quality of life. To enable evaluation and an eventual transition to a performance-based planning and implementation approach for investing in resilience, agencies need approaches and tools to track the efficacy of resilience initiatives, projects, and investments.
NCHRP Web-Only Document 432: Impacts and Performance of State DOT Resilience Efforts, from TRB's National Cooperative Highway Research Program, is supplemental to NCHRP Research Report 1159: Measuring Impacts and Performance of State DOT Resilience Efforts: A Guide.
105 pages
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ISBN Ebook: 0-309-99487-X
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/29208
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2025. Impacts and Performance of State DOT Resilience Efforts. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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Ensuring the safety and security of customers is a core responsibility of public transit agencies. Perceptions of personal safety play a critical role in influencing travel behavior, with fear and anxiety about personal safety acting as major deterrents to transit use.
TCRP Synthesis 184: Improving Transit Customer Perception of Personal Security, from TRB's Transit Cooperative Research Program, documents the current state of the practice related to customer perceptions of safety and security on bus and rail transit. Drawing from a literature review, a national survey of 35 transit providers, and in-depth case examples of five transit providers, this synthesis highlights strategies to improve customers’ outlook, the effectiveness of those strategies, how the strategies are communicated to the public, and the associated change in customers’ perceptions.
102 pages
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paperback
ISBN Paperback: 0-309-59927-X
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-59928-8
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/29244
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2025. Improving Transit Customer Perception of Personal Security. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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State departments of transportation (DOTs) have increased their focus on resilience initiatives to address impacts from short-term and long-term stressors such as extreme weather events, wildfires, and flooding. Economic shifts, changes in population, and other disruptions also cause transportation agencies to modify their practices to accommodate uncertainty. State DOTs need tools and approaches to justify additional project expenses for increasing resilience.
NCHRP Research Report 1159: Measuring Impacts and Performance of State DOT Resilience Efforts: A Guide, from TRB's National Cooperative Highway Research Program, presents a guide for applying resilience performance measures (RPMs) to resilience investments made by state DOTs.
Supplemental to the report is NCHRP Web-Only Document 432: Impacts and Performance of State DOT Resilience Efforts.
76 pages
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ISBN Paperback: 0-309-99479-9
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-99480-2
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/29207
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2025. Measuring Impacts and Performance of State DOT Resilience Efforts: A Guide. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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Derailment loads in nearly all U.S. transit design criteria documents are similar across agencies. However, it is unclear whether horizontal and vertical derailment loads for the efficient and safe design of transit structures are reasonably accurate.
TCRP Research Report 257: Determination of Actual Derailment Loads on Transit Bridges, from TRB's Transit Cooperative Research Program, provides the transit industry with a reasoned basis for derailment loads on bridges. It also offers methodologies that bridge design engineers can utilize to calculate the horizontal and vertical derailment impact loading.
92 pages
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paperback
ISBN Paperback: 0-309-59972-5
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-59973-3
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/29257
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2025. Determination of Actual Derailment Loads on Transit Bridges. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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The Census Transportation Planning Products datasets and the American Community Survey are critical data elements that support the analysis of transportation plans, policies, programs, and project selection.
NCHRP Research Report 1108: Census Data Field Guide for Transportation Applications, from TRB's National Cooperative Highway Research Program, presents a comprehensive field guide for transportation practitioners on how to effectively utilize census data to support transportation analyses.
136 pages
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paperback
ISBN Paperback: 0-309-73399-5
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-73400-2
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/29028
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2025. Census Data Field Guide for Transportation Applications. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death among teenagers in the United States. Despite significant risks associated with young drivers, current driver’s licensing exams are not strong predictors of driving safety. The on-road driving skills examination represents a “gateway” from the learner phase to licensure and independent, unsupervised driving.
BTSCRP Research Report 16: Predicting High-Risk Drivers: Skills Examination and Scoring Guidelines, from TRB's Behavioral Traffic Safety Cooperative Research Program, provides guidance and methods to reliably and consistently identify drivers who pose a high safety risk and need more driving experience before being licensed.
88 pages
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ISBN Paperback: 0-309-99549-3
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-99550-7
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/29223
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2025. Predicting High-Risk Drivers: Skills Examination and Scoring Guidelines. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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Low-level electrical fault currents are a phenomenon found in direct current (DC) traction systems used in public transit systems worldwide. These low-level currents are typically caused by small and sporadic failures of insulation within the electrification system, which makes them difficult to locate, measure, and control. If these faults are left undetected, existing evidence shows extensive damage to infrastructure of transit systems and that of adjacent private/public utilities could result.
TCRP Research Report 259: Low-Level DC Leakage and Fault Currents in Transit Systems: Developing a Prototype for Detection and Mitigation, from TRB's Transit Cooperative Research Program, develops a prototype system that can detect low-level faults in electrified transit systems powered by third rails.
The report is supplemental to TCRP Research Report 211: Guidebook for Detecting and Mitigating Low-Level DC Leakage and Fault Currents in Transit Systems.
36 pages
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ISBN Paperback: 0-309-59935-0
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-59936-9
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/29246
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2025. Low-Level DC Leakage and Fault Currents in Transit Systems: Developing a Prototype for Detection and Mitigation. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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Traffic safety public awareness and education efforts are two countermeasures that traffic safety professionals, including those working at state highway safety offices (SHSOs), employ to improve roadway user safety. These efforts are intended to share messaging that will raise awareness of dangerous roadway behaviors, increase knowledge of the impact of these behaviors and safer alternatives, change attitudes about both those behaviors and the alternatives, and ultimately, change those behaviors.
BTSCRP Research Report 14: Evaluating Traffic Safety Campaigns: A Guide, from TRB's Behavioral Traffic Safety Cooperative Research Program, provides insights into current practices for measuring the effectiveness of behavioral-based traffic safety campaigns. It also presents a framework for evaluating traffic safety campaigns, with the goal of designing and conducting future campaigns to more effectively promote safer road user behaviors.
152 pages
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ISBN Paperback: 0-309-99370-9
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-99371-7
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/29154
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2025. Evaluating Traffic Safety Campaigns: A Guide. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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Behavioral outreach is a compelling option for improving traffic safety, because it presents a relatively low-cost and broad-based way for highway safety offices to discourage unsafe behaviors and encourage safe behaviors without requiring the same logistics and resources as deploying enforcement or changing infrastructure.
BTSCRP Web-Only Document 7: Objectives, Components, and Measures of Effective Traffic Safety Public Awareness and Education Efforts, from TRB's Behavioral Traffic Safety Cooperative Research Program, identifies current practices used by state highway safety offices (SHSOs) and other entities to evaluate the effectiveness of traffic safety campaigns and associated outcomes. The document also includes a practical and scalable framework for evaluating efforts to engage road users, through traffic safety campaigns, to change behavior and improve safety performance.
150 pages
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ISBN Ebook: 0-309-99374-1
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/29155
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2025. Objectives, Components, and Measures of Effective Traffic Safety Public Awareness and Education Efforts. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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Pedestrian fatalities in the U.S. have increased dramatically since 2010, with most of the rise occurring in dark conditions.
NCHRP Web-Only Document 430: Improving Pedestrian Safety at Night, from TRB's National Cooperative Highway Research Program, is supplemental to NCHRP Research Report 1157: Strategies to Improve Pedestrian Safety at Night: A Guide and summarizes the research from previous portions of this multiphase project.
197 pages
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ISBN Ebook: 0-309-99560-4
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/29225
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2025. Improving Pedestrian Safety at Night. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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Walking is an important part of a healthy, sustainable transportation system. Yet walking is too often inaccessible, uncomfortable, or unsafe as a practical option for large numbers of people because of traffic risk, discomfort, or inconvenience. Multilane roadways, higher design and posted speeds, and a lack of safe and convenient pedestrian walking and crossing facilities and operations, even at known attractors such as bus stops and grocery stores, are consistently associated with pedestrian fatalities in the United States. The risk is much higher at night. Between 2018 and 2022, 76% of U.S. pedestrian crash fatalities occurred in darkness.
NCHRP Research Report 1157: Strategies to Improve Pedestrian Safety at Night: A Guide, from TRB's National Cooperative Highway Research Program, is a state-of-the-art resource for state departments of transportation on addressing the high pedestrian fatalities on their roadways, especially at night. The guide features strategies for transportation professionals to implement to directly enhance pedestrian safety at night and was informed by a multimethod study of pedestrian safety in darkness in the United States.
Supplemental to the report is NCHRP Web-Only Document 430: Improving Pedestrian Safety at Night.
80 pages
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paperback
ISBN Paperback: 0-309-99555-8
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-99556-6
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17226/29224
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2025. Strategies to Improve Pedestrian Safety at Night: A Guide. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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