• RAIL SAFETYRegulators Blast Union Pacific for Running Unsafe Trains

    By Topher Sanders

    The nation’s largest freight rail carrier failed to fix and continued to use faulty equipment, according to the Federal Railroad Administration. Managers reportedly pressured inspectors to leave the yard so they could keep freight moving.

  • ENERGY TRANSITIONRailroads May Use Their Monopoly Power to Buffer Coal Plants from a Carbon Emissions Tax

    Railroads are likely to cut transportation prices to prop up coal-fired plants if U.S. climate policies further disadvantage coal in favor of less carbon-intensive energy sources. A new study argues that “If policymakers ignore real distortions in the market, like monopoly power in rail shipping, their climate policy efforts may not achieve the intended results.”

  • CYBERSECURITYBolstering Cyber Safety on Roads and Highways

    A new research center is helping prevent potential cyberattacks that could threaten to impede the safe and efficient movement of people and goods in the United States and throughout the world.

  • EVsPaving the Way for Electric Vehicle Adoption

    By Alex Kinsella

    For many car owners, their next purchase will be an EV. But as many current EV owners know, the environmental benefits of battery-powered cars come with a tradeoff and that tradeoff is the driving distance existing battery technology can support. The problem is the battery, specifically how much energy they can store, their longevity, and how long they take to charge.

  • EVsWill the Charging Networks Arrive in Time?

    By Peter Dizikes

    MIT Mobility Forum considers whether startups can provide the infrastructure for electric vehicles, or if more automakers must step in.

  • CYBERSECURITYBolstering Cybersecurity in Navigation Systems

    Interference such as jamming and spoofing that targets critical infrastructure has the potential to cause widespread delays and cascading failures across multiple modes of transportation including ships, trains, trucks, and cars—and the problem is only getting worse. New project aims to enhance resilience of transportation infrastructure against cyber threats, developing advanced countermeasures for GPS spoofing and jamming.

  • U.S. RAILHow the U.S. Rail System Works

    By Noah Berman

    A spate of train derailments, most notably in East Palestine, Ohio, has reinvigorated the debate over the nation’s railroad infrastructure. Here’s how U.S. rail could be brought up to speed.

  • PUBLIC HEALTHTackling Crowd Management in Subways During Pandemics

    Mass transit, and subways in particular, are essential to the economic viability and environmental sustainability of cities across the globe. Researchers are working with NYC’s MTA to develop machine learning and traffic models to optimize traffic flow during pandemics.

  • TRANSPORTATION SECUERITYTesting Environments Help Secure Transportation Infrastructure

    “All critical infrastructure sectors—including the energy, manufacturing, and transportation sectors—rely heavily on sophisticated technologies like industrial control systems, cellular networks, and artificial intelligence,” said DHS S&T’s Alex Karr. “These are all accessed, monitored, and controlled via the internet, which, in turn, makes them susceptible to hacking, malware attacks, and other malicious activities.”

  • RAIL TRANSPORTATIONRailroad Unions and Their Employers at an Impasse: Freight-Halting Strikes Are Rare, and This Would Be the First in 3 Decades

    By Erik Loomis

    The prospect of a potentially devastating rail workers strike is looming again. Strikes that obstruct transportation rarely occur in the United States, and the last one involving rail workers happened three decades ago. But when these workers do walk off the job, it can thrash the economy, inconveniencing millions of people and creating a large-scale crisis.

  • CYBERSECURITYWhy Do Self-Driving Cars Crash?

    As they traverse the air, land, or sea, encountering one another or other obstacles, these autonomous vehicles will need to talk to each other. Experts say we need to inject cybersecurity at every level of the autonomous vehicle networks of the future.

  • ELECTRIC VEHICLESCharging Cars at Home at Night Is Not the Way to Go: Study

    By Mark Golden

    The move to electric vehicles will result in large costs for generating, transmitting, and storing more power. Shifting current EV charging from home to work and night to day could cut costs and help the grid, according to a new Stanford study.

  • TRANSPORTATION SAFETYNot-So-Safe Automated Driving: Safety Risks During Drivers’ Takeover

    In a recent study on automated driving traffic and engineering psychologists analyzed reactions to possible malfunctions of this future human-machine interface. The study shows that people are only partially able to take over the wheel quickly and safely in the event of technical malfunctions.

  • CLIMATE CHALLENGESWhy UK Railways Can’t Deal with Heatwaves – and What Might Help

    By Kangkang Tang

    Like most construction materials, steel, which rails are made from, expands when air temperature increases. When this movement is restrained by the anchorage, which holds the rail and the sleeper (the rectangular supports for the rails) in place, internal stresses build up, and compression buckles or kinks the rail. Trains cannot travel over rail lines with kinks. In the US, kinks caused by the sun caused over 2,100 train derailments in the past 40 years, equivalent to around 50 derailments per year.

  • WATERWAYSMarine Highways Bolster Supply Chain Efficiency, Resilience

    The increased use of the nation’s navigable waterways relieves landside congestion, provides new and efficient transportation options, increases the productivity of the surface transportation system, and strengthens the U.S. supply chains.