Chengcheng Tao, an assistant professor in the School of Construction Management Technology (CMT), was recently awarded two grants from the Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT) for research projects that will improve the safety of the pavement and highway infrastructure system for INDOT. The two multidisciplinary projects will involve collaboration among faculty within and outside the Polytechnic.
SPR-4940 Implementing an Advanced Friction Testing Program for Seamless Coverage of INDOT System
This project will develop a roadmap to implement a previous research project involving INDOT’s friction test program. Its primary objectives include:
- Implementing the enhanced friction test program across INDOT’s network, especially friction testing on horizontal curves
- Conducting additional tests on emerging pavement marking materials to evaluate their friction performance and durability.
This project is an extension of “SPR-4646 Advancing INDOT’s Friction Test Program for Seamless Coverage of System.”
SPR-4937 Enhanced Traffic Pattern Knowledge Abstraction and Presentation from 511 Database
This project will develop a system with a user-friendly intelligent interface that will enhance the existing 511 program with new features. 511 is a phone number travelers can call to hear real-time travel information about road conditions, closures, and other traffic updates in Indiana. The new features may include:
- Providing user-adjustable spatial-temporal traffic flow information over a specified period in the display
- Allowing users to overlay additional parameters of their choice by integrating 511 traffic data and another related database, such as weather and event data
- Supporting pattern analysis for the historical data already stored in 511
Tao, the principal investigator on SPR-4949, is collaborating with Yi Jiang, a CMT professor, and Shuo Li, a research engineer at INDOT. Tao will be a co-principal investigator on SPR-4937 with Yaobin Chen, Stanley Chien, and Tianyi Li.
“The mutually beneficial relationship between Purdue and INDOT provide excellent opportunities for faculty and students at Purdue University to understand the needs of INDOT and collaborate with INDOT engineers on the research projects,” Tao said.
Tao has also received three U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) grants in the past.
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