Highway Topics

Issues for 1963- include section: Urban transportation research digest.

The purpose of this guide is to provide basic information about: New programs, projects, and uses of highway funds authorized by the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 (ISTEA); Continuing programs, projects, and uses of highway funds authorized by previous legislation and continued by ISTEA; Discontinued programs, projects, and uses of highway funds authorized by previous legislation and continuing only until remaining available funds are obligated, transferred, or lapsed; and Inactive programs, projects, and uses of highway funds that have existed in recent time, some of which, although no longer active, were the basis for current programs, projects, or uses of highway funds, and hence, are of possible historic interest.

TRB Special Report 244 - Highway Research: Current Programs and Future Directions describes the United States' highway industry and the major highway research and technology (R&T) programs. It then introduces a new framework for classifying highway R&T activities, maps the 1993 expenditures of the major public-sector programs on this framework, and presents suggestions and recommendations for the highway R&T program that reflect the Transportation Research Board's Research and Technology Coordinating Committee's vision of the needs of the highway transportation system for the next century.

Various methods of assessing noise, loudness, and noise annoyance are reviewed and explained; sources, types, and intensities of traffic noise are noted; typical means of abatement and attenuation are described; design criteria for various land uses ranging from low-density to industrial are suggested and compared with the results of previous BBN and British systems for predicting annoyance and complaint; and a design guide for predicting traffic noise, capable of being programmed for batch and on-line computer applications, is presented in form suitable for use as a working tool. A flow diagram describes the interrelationships of elements in the traffic noise prediction methodology, and each element is discussed in detail in the text. The text is presented of a tape recording that takes the listener through a series of traffic situations, with such variables as traffic distance, flow velocity, distance, outdoors and indoors, and presence or absence of absorbers and attenuators.