WYDOT receives national recognition

WYDOT receives national recognition for high value research project

By Mark Horan

This past summer, WYDOT received an award from the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) at their annual conference.

Each year, AASHTO’s Research and Advisory Committee (RAC) asks states to identify and document recently completed “high-value” research projects which address top transportation concerns and identify solutions at the state level.

The RAC publishes an annual compilation of all the submitted projects, and selects four submittals from each of its four regions to form the “AASHTO Research Sweet Sixteen Awards.”

WYDOT was among the 2021 Sweet Sixteen award recipients for sponsoring a project studying heavy truck traffic along I-80.

The project, titled “Safety and Operational Analysis with Mitigation Strategies for Freeway Truck Traffic in Wyoming”, was conducted by three principal investigators from the University of Wyoming’s Department of Civil & Architectural Engineering: Milan Zlatkovic, Khaled Ksaibati and Muhammed Tahmidul.

The study was approved for funding by a research advisory committee within WYDOT and was supported by the agency’s Highway Safety Division.

“We felt this research would be potentially valuable to our ongoing studies on I80 truck traffic, said State Highway Safety Engineer Matt Carlson, who championed the project. “The study will help inform our decision making on future safety improvement projects, and it will hopefully be helpful to other DOT research communities as well.”

The main objective of the research was to explore the effectiveness of climbing lanes on I-80. Due to high truck traffic, Wyoming currently has about 14 miles of climbing lanes at different locations along the Interstate.

The results show that the addition of climbing lanes reduces delays and increases overall traffic speeds on upgrades, and can reduce the total number of crashes by as much as 34 %, depending on the location.

Furthermore, the study analyzed other factors contributing to truck crashes along I-80, such as icy roads and snowy weather. The analysis showed that driving too fast and driving in an improper lane contributed to approximately 45 % of total truck related crashes.

Findings from this study are expected to help WYDOT transportation managers and policy makers to take necessary actions and decide on management strategies for I-80 in Wyoming, as well as other similar highway facilities carrying a large percentage of trucks.

This is the fifth time that WYDOT has received AASHTO’s Sweet Sixteen Research Award. Awarded projects are featured in AASHTO events and publications. n