Draft Minutes of Committee Meeting: January 2000

Statistical Methodology and Statistical Computer Software in Transportation Research, A5011

Balcony A, Marriott Hotel

Washington, D.C.

January 11, 2000

The meeting was called to order by Acting Chairman, Michael Griffith, at 7:30 p.m. followed by self-introduction of members and friends.  Copies of the agenda were distributed.

 

1. Introductions

 

A list of members and friends who attended the meeting is attached.

LISTNUM 1 \l 1 \s 22) Minutes of 1999 annual meeting

Minutes from the 1999 annual meeting of the Committee were distributed and approved by a unanimous vote.

LISTNUM 1 \l 13) Highway Safety Manual

Ron Pfefer gave a presentation about the “Highway Safety Manual.”  The Highway Safety Manual is envisioned to be an authoritative document for use in estimating safety impacts.  It will provide analytical tools and guidance to facilitate the explicit consideration of safety, along with other decision criteria, in making investments in the highway system.  A workshop took place in December 1999, in Irvine, CA.  The key points of the presentation were:

• better safety information will result in more accurate predictions;

• Highway Safety Manual should be a stand-alone document;

• unctions of the manual are: basic research, synthesis of research, support and outreach;

• targeted users of the manual will be practitioners;

• content will include qualitative and quantitative materials, and will provide analytical procedures and guidelines;

• implementation plan consists of 5 stages, lasting 4½ - 5 years; and

• TRB will own and publish the manual and will have policy and technical oversight.

A TRB joint subcommittee has been formed to oversee the development of the Highway Safety Manual.  Volunteers from A5011 have been asked to participate on the joint subcommittee.    Michael Griffith represented A5011 at the first joint subcommittee meeting.

LISTNUM 1 \l 14) General Items for the Record

Bhagwant Persaud indicated that he was developing a NCHRP synthesis report titled  “Statistical Methods for Highway Safety Analysis” (NCHRP project 20-5).

Simon Washington presented an overview of NCHRP project 20-45, “Scientific Approaches for Transportation Research.”  In the presentation, Simon Washington demonstrated the framework of the course on a web site.  NCHRP project 20-45 is part 2 of a 2-part series: Volume I addresses empirical experimental design, while Volume II addresses which methods to use and how to use them.  Simon Washington is hoping that the project will be completed in April 2000 and that he will be able to present it at the 2001 TRB meeting.

The “Traffic Safety on Three Continents” Conference will be held in Pretoria, South Africa on September 20-22, 2000.  Abstracts were due February 7, 2000.  Del Stewart and Bhagwant Persaud volunteered to organize a session on “Statistical Methods in Transportation Safety Analysis” for the conference.  In 2001, the conference “Traffic Safety on Two Continents” will be held in Poland.  There is an opportunity for A5011 to have a session(s) at this conference.  Rick Pain will need information at the 2001 TRB meeting.

The Transportation Research Record (TRR) has been renamed TRR: Journal of the TRB.  For the 2001 meeting, papers can again be submitted electronically (by August 1, 2000), and there will be electronic review forms available.

David Banks, Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS), informed the committee about BTS activities.  There’s an initiative by BTS to provide access to all federal transportation databases on the web.

5. 2000 Committee Program

a) Sessions

The committee sponsored three sessions at the 2000 annual meeting:

1) Session #46 (New Statistical Developments for Use in Transportation)

2) Session #144 (New Safety Prediction Tool for Two-Lane Highways)

3) Session #210 (Lies, Darn Lies, and Misused Statistics: What You Need to Know to Use Statistics Effectively)

Note: The Human Factors Session “Guide to Research Design and Statistical Data Analysis” was cancelled.

b) Papers

Eight papers were reviewed by the committee.  Of the 8, 4 were accepted for presentation and publication and 1 was accepted for presentation only.  The committee discussed the idea of distributing reviewers’ comments to all reviewers of the same paper.  The Committee decided this was a good idea, and the committee chair mailed out the relevant review comments to the reviewers.     

6. Committee Business

Newsletter - In 1999, Robert Scopatz and Gary Spring submitted a new edition of the newsletter to be published on the committee’s web site.

Web Site - The web site has a new address www.a5011.gati.org

Jennifer Ogle will continue to serve as the committee’s web master.

Statistical Software Resource - This resource is posted on the web site.  It provides descriptions of various statistical software packages and hyperlinks to them.  Review comments on the use of certain software packages are presented, and have been provided by committee members and transportation professionals.    The next task for this effort will be to advertise this resource to the transportation community possibly through TR News.  The challenge facing the committee is to keep the list of software packages current.

Conference Sessions for TRB 2001 meeting - Peter Bajorski volunteered to lead a special paper session or conference session on orientation to “Six Sigma.”    Mehdi Nassirpour volunteered to lead a conference session on sampling techniques/ statistics.  Gary Davis volunteered to lead a conference session on computational-intensive statistics.  Dick Weed has volunteered to give a presentation titled “Making Statistics Make Sense.”  The committee will co-sponsor a session with A3B05 on spatial statistics/GIS, a session with A5008 on systems reliability of ITS, and a session with A1F03 on transportation air quality issues. 

Mid-Year Meeting - The committee voted to have the mid-year meeting at the Joint Statistical Meetings (JSM) to be held August 13th-17th in Indianapolis, Indiana.  Carolee Bush volunteered to arrange for a  meeting room for A5011 at the JSM in Indianapolis.  David Banks has organized a special topic session titled “Risk Analysis in Transportation” for the JSM which is being sponsored by the committee.   The 1999 mid-year meeting was held at the Joint Statistical Meetings in Baltimore, Maryland.  At the 1999 JSM, the committee sponsored two sessions on the modeling/analysis of auto emissions.  The papers from these sessions are being published in the Journal of Transportation and Statistics.