Benjamin Colucci-Rios

University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez | UPRM · Department of Civil Engineering and Surveying

A focus is set worldwide to study pedestrian behavior in road situations associated with a high frequency of crashes. This paper presents the results from a virtual reality simulation study that recorded pedestrians performing mid-block crossings on a straight segment of an urban street. The experiment was designed with eight scenarios with combina...

Willingness-to-pay measures were estimated for users of the PR-22 Freeway in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. The first dynamic toll lane (DTL) facility in Puerto Rico started operations in 2013 on PR-22. The PR-22 segment examined consists of two reversible express lanes along the median with a dynamic pricing scheme and six general traffic lanes...

A case study is presented of a dockless e-scooter rental service (MDES) in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, a city within the understudied Latin American region. MDES trip data were used to examine the spatiotemporal patterns of e-scooter trips in the city, while survey data was collected to explore the characteristics of MDES users and nonusers, as well as...

Inadequate signage and pavement markings and driver distractions in roadway work zones are contributory high-risk factors for workers and drivers on two-lane rural and multilane freeway facilities. The changes imposed by a work zone on operating conditions or roadway alignment, including the installation of temporary traffic control (TTC) devices a...

The increased use of smartphones during the last decade has resulted in thousands of crashes per year in the United States and its territories. Drivers’ usage increases are particularly concerning in highway work zones when operations and maintenance (O/M) activities are being performed. Many US states and territories, including Puerto Rico, have o...

Simulation is a proven engineering tool used to evaluate the needs of existing and future smart transportation systems. Cities are livable communities with transportation modes where drivers and pedestrians coexist. School zones are vital components in a city. A balance of mobility, speed compliance, and markings and signage in school zones is a mu...

Traffic crashes in suburban school zones pose a serious safety concern due to a higher presence of school-age pedestrians and cyclists as well as potential speeding issues. A study that investigated speed selection and driver behavior in school zones was carried out using two populations from different topographical and cultural settings: Puerto Ri...

This subject matter was developed within a seminar course at the Department of Civil Engineering, Puerto Rico, Mayagüez. A Technical Report was written and a presentation was prepared too. The subject matter focuses on the parallel use of sustainability and resilience within Whole building design as a tool to reduce and endure the consequences of...

The Puerto Rico Dynamic Toll Lane (DTL) is a reversible managed lane facility located in the median of a segment of freeway PR-22. Safety and operational concerns have emerged with vehicles traveling with higher speed profiles than the posted speed limit. The objective of this paper is focused on the application of a Random Forest Model to perform...

The Puerto Rico Dynamic Toll Lane (DTL) is a managed lane system for light traffic that combines congestion pricing, reversible lanes and a Bus Rapid Transit system within the median of freeway PR-22. This research aims to evaluate if modified signage and the addition of in-lane pavement markings could help improve operational and safety aspects of...

The Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, a territory not incorporated of the United States, through the Puerto Rico Highway and Transportation Authority (PRHTA) and Autopistas Metropolitanas of Puerto Rico, LLC established the first highway public-private partnership (PPP) in the island under Act No. 29 of June 8, 2009, known as the Puerto Rico Public-Priv...

Driving simulators have been widely used in transportation research and have potential applications for toll plaza safety research. The University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez (UPRM) and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst (UMass-Amherst) performed a collaborative investigation using driving simulators to evaluate drivers' behavior in two toll p...

The World Health Organization (WHO), State DOT’s and Ministries of Transport are concerned with the increase in fatal crashes and severe injuries related to the highway system that has been observed in the last decade. Furthermore, road users have changed their driving habits as toll plaza designs have evolved. Driving simulators are now being used...

Toll plaza designs have implemented electronic toll collection and other technologies to improve toll systems; however, an increase in crashes has appeared with these improvements. To study safely the pertinent aspects of driver behavior in toll plazas with electronic toll collection, a cockpit driving simulator housed at the University of Puerto R...

The Governor of Puerto Rico signed in 2011 a Proclamation supporting the Decade of Action for Road Safety: 2011-2020 in conjunction with a worldwide initiative approved by the United Nations General Assembly aimed to establish action plans to reduce the alarming 1.3 million fatalities and the 50 million major injuries and disability related crashes...

In preparation for operating its first modern urban rail transit system, Puerto Rico faces the challenge of creating the human resources knowledgeable in rail transit as well as the construction of the physical infrastructure itself. Because a rail transit system takes a generation or more to build, typically over several phases, professional devel...

A dramatic increase of 92% in registered motorcycles has been observed in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico between 2000 to 2005. The frequency and fatality rates of motorcycle-related crashes have also increased significantly during the same period. The increasing use of motorcycles, especially of the motor scooter-type, and the safety-related issue...

A joint multidisciplinary professional development program has been developed which uses the Tren Urbano project as a laboratory for students from the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The Tren Urbano project consists of the planning, design, construction and future operation of the first phase of...

In 1993 the Department of Transportation and Public Works of Puerto Rico (DTPW) implemented toll gates at expressway toll collection plazas because of significant losses in revenue caused by failure of motorists to pay the established fee. However, it was presumed that the use of toll gates as an enforcement device for effective traffic control mig...

One of the major challenges that state highway agencies face is the need to estimate performance curves for different functional classifications of highway and traffic loads, considering the limitation of resources and equipment required for data collection and management activities. The need to estimate the remaining useful life of pevements in di...

A structural evaluation and analysis of instrumented plain portland cement concrete pavement was performed in a rural primary highway subjected to heavy dynamic loads. Two full-scale slabs were constructed and tested to verify the dynamic analysis of the computer program UPR-PAVI2, which was developed at the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez us...

This paper discusses concepts for evaluating existing nonsurfaced roads with the end point of determining suitability for placing a surface. Emphasis is placed on field tests that can be made to evaluate the in situ strengths of existing roads. Rapid tests that might be used for evaluation are discussed. These tests include the use of penetrometers...

The Puerto Rico Transportation Technology Transfer Center of the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez will celebrate this year its 25 th anniversary serving the engineering education market in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and the United States Virgin Islands. This service has been accomplished at various levels including continuous education to...

The Puerto Rico Transportation Technology Transfer Center of the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez celebrated its 20 th anniversary on April 2006. Since its origin, the Center has thrived in the training and development of engineers and transportation officials from the local municipalities and transportation agencies in Puerto Rico and the Uni...

Since 1986 the Puerto Rico Transportation Technology Transfer (T_) Center of the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez established and developed capacity building programs in transportation and engineering related disci-plines in Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands. The main focus areas of the Center's activities are transportation safety, infras...

Emerging methods for performing road inventory and safety audits at the network macroscopic level should be automated, reliable, and cost-effective. Current methodologies include specialized automated vehicles with high initial and maintenance costs or labor intensive during data collection and reduction process that are outside the budget of many...

RESUMEN El concepto de auditorías de seguridad en las carreteras se desarrolló en el Reino Unido con el propósito de reducir la frecuencia y severidad de los choques vehiculares. Las auditorías evalúan de manera integrada todos los elementos de seguridad de una carretera. Gracias a la experiencia adquirida y por los beneficios que se han obtenido d...