Western Transportation Institute

Permanent URI for this communityhttps://scholarworks.montana.edu/handle/1/35

The Western Transportation Institute is the country's largest National University Transportation Center focused on rural transportation issues. Because we live and work in rural communities, we understand the critical roles rural transportation plays in the lives of people, in the environment and in the economy. We draw from our eight integrated research groups to create solutions that work for our clients, sponsors and rural transportation research partners. WTI focuses on rural issues, but some of our program areas also address the concerns of the urban environment. Whatever the objective, we bring innovation and expertise to each WTI transportation research project. WTI's main facility with its state-of-the-art labs is adjacent to the Montana State University campus in Bozeman, Montana. We have additional offices in Alberta, Canada, and central Washington, and a large testing facility in rural Montana near Lewistown. Contact us to find out how to address your rural transportation research needs.

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Animal Vehicle Collision Reduction and Habitat Connectivity Cost Effective Solutions - Final Report
(Nevada Department of Transportation, 2022-07) Ament, Rob; Huijser, Marcel; May, Dana
Wildlife-vehicle collisions (WVCs) are a significant component of overall crashes in the US and Canada. Roads and their traffic also create partial or total barriers to the movement of wildlife, both large and small. There are several well-studied proven mitigation measures that significantly reduce WVCs, provide for safe animal passage across roads, and maintain habitat connectivity. Highly effective measures, such as overpasses and underpasses with fencing can reduce large animal WVCs by over 80% – 100% on average; yet these structures can be costly and there is room for improvement in their design, the use of new materials, adding elements that improve their use by smaller animal species, such as reptiles and amphibians and improving their cost effectiveness. This Transportation Pooled Fund Study, TPF-5(358) (TPF Study), allowed researchers to evaluate the latest information on the effectiveness of 24 different highway mitigation measures designed to decrease collisions with large wildlife, large feral and domestic animals. Also reviewed were these same measures’ ability to protect small mammals, reptiles, and amphibians from collisions. The TPF Study also explored the effectiveness of the 24 measures ability to maintain or enhance habitat connectivity. It conducted 11 different research projects that variously explored a) the costs and benefits of animal-vehicle collisions and the mitigation measures that seek to reduce them, b) the ecological effectiveness of various mitigation measures, and 3) new designs for crossing structures for a variety of species. The project developed a manual of best practices and concluded with a final report.
Improving Connectivity: Innovative Fiber-Reinforced Polymer Structures for Wildlife, Bicyclists, and/or Pedestrians
(Nevada Department of Transportation, 2022-09) Bell, Matthew; Ament, Rob; Fick, Damon; Huijser, Marcel
Engineers and ecologists continue to explore new methods and adapt existing techniques to improve highway mitigation measures that increase motorist safety and conserve wildlife species. Crossing structures, overpasses and underpasses, combined with fences, are some of the most highly effective mitigation measures employed around the world to reduce wildlife-vehicle collisions (WVCs) with large animals, increase motorist safety, and maintain habitat connectivity across transportation networks for many other types and sizes of wildlife. Published research on structural designs and materials for wildlife crossings is limited and suggests relatively little innovation has occurred. Wildlife crossing structures for large mammals are crucial for many highway mitigation strategies, so there is a need for new, resourceful, and innovative techniques to construct these structures. This report explored the promising application of fiber-reinforced polymers (FRPs) to a wildlife crossing using an overpass. The use of FRP composites has increased due to their high strength and light weight characteristics, long service life, and low maintenance costs. They are highly customizable in shape and geometry and the materials used (e.g., resins and fibers) in their manufacture. This project explored what is known about FRP bridge structures and what commercial materials are available in North America that can be adapted for use in a wildlife crossing using an overpass structure. A 12-mile section of US Highway 97 (US-97) in Siskiyou County, California was selected as the design location. Working with the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) and California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW), a site was selected for the FRP overpass design where it would help reduce WVCs and provide habitat connectivity. The benefits of a variety of FRP materials have been incorporated into the US-97 crossing design, including in the superstructure, concrete reinforcement, fencing, and light/sound barriers on the overpass. Working with Caltrans helped identify the challenges and limitations of using FRP materials for bridge construction in California. The design was used to evaluate the life cycle costs (LCCs) of using FRP materials for wildlife infrastructure compared to traditional materials (e.g., concrete, steel, and wood). The preliminary design of an FRP wildlife overpass at the US-97 site provides an example of a feasible, efficient, and constructible alternative to the use of conventional steel and concrete materials. The LCC analysis indicated the preliminary design using FRP materials could be more cost effective over a 100-year service life than ones using traditional materials.
Risk mapping of wildlife–vehicle collisions across the state of Montana, USA: a machine-learning approach for imbalanced data along rural roads
(Oxford University Press, 2024-05) Bell, Matthew; Wang, Yiyi; Ament, Rob
Wildlife–vehicle collisions (WVCs) with large animals are estimated to cost the USA over 8 billion USD in property damage, tens of thousands of human injuries and nearly 200 human fatalities each year. Most WVCs occur on rural roads and are not collected evenly among road segments, leading to imbalanced data. There are a disproportionate number of analysis units that have zero WVC cases when investigating large geographic areas for collision risk. Analysis units with zero WVCs can reduce prediction accuracy and weaken the coefficient estimates of statistical learning models. This study demonstrates that the use of the synthetic minority over-sampling technique (SMOTE) to handle imbalanced WVC data in combination with statistical and machine-learning models improves the ability to determine seasonal WVC risk across the rural highway network in Montana, USA. An array of regularized variables describing landscape, road and traffic were used to develop negative binomial and random forest models to infer WVC rates per 100 million vehicle miles travelled. The random forest model is found to work particularly well with SMOTE-augmented data to improve the prediction accuracy of seasonal WVC risk. SMOTE-augmented data are found to improve accuracy when predicting crash risk across fine-grained grids while retaining the characteristics of the original dataset. The analyses suggest that SMOTE augmentation mitigates data imbalance that is encountered in seasonally divided WVC data. This research provides the basis for future risk-mapping models and can potentially be used to address the low rates of WVCs and other crash types along rural roads.
US-191/MT-64 Wildlife & Transportation Assessment
(Center for large Landscape Conservation, 2023-11) Fairbank, Elizabeth; Penrod, Kristeen; Wearn, Anna; Blank, Matt; Bell, Matthew; Huijser, Marcel; Ament, Rob; Fick, Damon; Breuer, Abigail; Hance, Braden
The US Highway 191 (US-191)/Montana Highway 64 (MT-64) Wildlife & Transportation Assessment (the “Assessment”) improves understanding of the issues affecting driver safety, wildlife mortality, and wildlife movement along the major routes that connect Yellowstone National Park, the Custer Gallatin National Forest, and other public lands to the growing population centers of Bozeman, Big Sky, and nearby communities in Southwest Montana. By engaging personnel from multiple federal, state, and local agencies along with key stakeholders to examine problems and possibilities through the lens of spatial ecology, the US-191/MT-64 Wildlife & Transportation Assessment brings new insight into the impact of two major roads that unite local communities yet divide the landscape and natural habitats. The information included in this report should inform and support area communities and agency decision-makers to select and pursue wildlife accommodation options. With the passage of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021, significant funds for wildlife accommodation measures are available nationwide on a competitive basis. The US-191/MT-64 Wildlife & Transportation Assessment better equips part of Southwest Montana’s gateway to Yellowstone National Park to take advantage of new funding opportunities.