Privatization of Retail Liquor Sales in Iowa, July 16, 1999

In January 1987, when it became apparent that the Legislature did not intend to further debate the merits of retail liquor store privatization, the Iowa Alcoholic Beverages Division had only from mid-January to March 1st, to plan for the conversion fro state liquor stores to private licensed liquor retailers. A longer lead time would have effected a much smoother transition, with fewer errors. It also would have been more successful had the Alcoholic Beverages Division been able to provide input in the writing of the legislation. Many problems could have been avoided. However, any statements made by the Alcoholic Beverages Division were treated only as being self-serving and were largely ignored. Overall, privatization was a good idea and has been a financial success as well.

Report on a special investigation of the University of Iowa Athletic Ticket Office and the operations of the Hawkeye Express for the period September 1, 2005 through November 30, 2013

Report on a special investigation of the University of Iowa Athletic Ticket Office and the operations of the Hawkeye Express for the period September 1, 2005 through November 30, 2013

Quantifying Uncertainty in Real Time Performance Measurement for Highway Winter Maintenance Operations – Phase 2, RB03-013, 2014

Winter weather in Iowa is often unpredictable and can have an adverse impact on traffic flow. The Iowa Department of Transportation (Iowa DOT) attempts to lessen the impact of winter weather events on traffic speeds with various proactive maintenance operations. In order to assess the performance of these maintenance operations, it would be beneficial to develop a model for expected speed reduction based on weather variables and normal maintenance schedules. Such a model would allow the Iowa DOT to identify situations in which speed reductions were much greater than or less than would be expected for a given set of storm conditions, and make modifications to improve efficiency and effectiveness. The objective of this work was to predict speed changes relative to baseline speed under normal conditions, based on nominal maintenance schedules and winter weather covariates (snow type, temperature, and wind speed), as measured by roadside weather stations. This allows for an assessment of the impact of winter weather covariates on traffic speed changes, and estimation of the effect of regular maintenance passes. The researchers chose events from Adair County, Iowa and fit a linear model incorporating the covariates mentioned previously. A Bayesian analysis was conducted to estimate the values of the parameters of this model. Specifically, the analysis produces a distribution for the parameter value that represents the impact of maintenance on traffic speeds. The effect of maintenance is not a constant, but rather a value that the researchers have some uncertainty about and this distribution represents what they know about the effects of maintenance. Similarly, examinations of the distributions for the effects of winter weather covariates are possible. Plots of observed and expected traffic speed changes allow a visual assessment of the model fit. Future work involves expanding this model to incorporate many events at multiple locations. This would allow for assessment of the impact of winter weather maintenance across various situations, and eventually identify locations and times in which maintenance could be improved.

Audit report of the Honey Creek Resort Operations Account managed by Central Group Management, LLC (Honey Creek Resort) as of and for the year ended June 30, 2014

Audit report of the Honey Creek Resort Operations Account managed by Central Group Management, LLC (Honey Creek Resort) as of and for the year ended June 30, 2014

Audit report on the Honey Creek Resort Operations Account maintained by Central Group Management, LLC for the year ended June 30, 2014

Audit report on the Honey Creek Resort Operations Account maintained by Central Group Management, LLC for the year ended June 30, 2014

Effects of Road Construction Intensity and Operations on Rural Freeway Work Zone Capacity, TPF-5(081), 2014

Capacity is affected by construction type and its intensity on adjacent open traffic lanes. The effect on capacity is a function of vehicles moving in and out of the closed lanes of the work zone, and the presence of heavy construction vehicles. Construction activity and its intensity, however, are not commonly considered in estimating capacity of a highway lane. The main purpose of this project was to attempt to quantify the effects of construction type and intensity (e.g. maintenance, rehabilitation, reconstruction, and milling) on work zone capacity. The objective of this project is to quantify the effects of construction type and its intensity on work zone capacity and to develop guidelines for MoDOT to estimate the specific operation type and intensity that will improve the traffic flow by reducing the traffic flow and queue length commonly associated with work zones. Despite the effort put into field data collection, the data collected did not show a full speed-flow chart therefore extracting a reliable capacity value was difficult. A statistical comparison between the capacity values found in this study using either methodologies indicates that there is an effect of construction activity on the values work zone capacity. It was found that the heavy construction activity reduces the capacity. It is very beneficial to conduct similar studies on the capacity of work zone with different lane closure barriers, which is also directly related to the type of work zone being short-term or long-term work zones. Also, the effect of different geometric and environmental characteristics of the roadway should be considered in future studies.

Effect of Video Camera-Based Remote Roadway Condition Monitoring on Snow Removal-Related Maintenance Operations. 2014

Remote monitoring through the use of cameras is widely utilized for traffic operation, but has not been utilized widely for roadway maintenance operations. The Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) has implemented a new remote monitoring system, referred to as a Cloud-enabled Remote Video Streaming (CRVS) camera system for snow removal-related maintenance operations in the winter. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the use of the CRVS camera system in snow removal-related maintenance operations. This study was conducted in two parts: opinion surveys of maintenance station supervisors and an analysis on snow removal-related maintenance costs. The responses to the opinion surveys mostly displayed positive reviews of the use of the CRVS cameras. On a scale of 1 (least effective) to 5 (most effective), the average overall effectiveness given by the station supervisors was 4.3. An expedition trip for this study was defined as a trip that was made to just check the roadways if snow-removal was necessary. The average of the responses received from surveys was calculated to be a 33 percent reduction in expedition trips. For the second part of this study, an analysis was performed on the snow removal-related maintenance cost data provided by UDOT to see if the installation of a CRVS camera had an effect in reducing expedition trips. This expedition cost comparison was performed for 10 sets of maintenance stations within Utah. It was difficult to make any definitive inferences from the comparison of expedition costs over the years for which precipitation and expedition cost data were available; hence a statistical analysis was performed using the Mixed Model ANOVA. This analysis resulted in an average of 14 percent higher ratio of expedition costs at maintenance stations with a CRVS camera before the installation of the camera compared to the ratio of expedition costs after the installation of the camera. This difference was not proven to be statistically significant at the 95 percent confident level, but indicated that the installation of CRVS cameras was on the average helpful in reducing expedition costs and may be considered practically significant. It is recommended that more detailed and consistent maintenance cost records be prepared for accurate analysis of cost records for this type of study in the future.

Optimum Enforcement Level for Traffic Weight Operations, HR-138, Appendices, 1968

Appendices for HR-138.

Simulation and Analysis of Arterial Traffic Operations Along the U.S. 61 Corridor in Burlington, Iowa, 1998

The Center for Transportation Research and Education (CTRE) used the traffic simulation model CORSIM to access proposed capacity and safety improvement strategies for the U.S. 61 corridor through Burlington, Iowa. The comparison between the base and alternative models allow for evaluation of the traffic flow performance under the existing conditions as well as other design scenarios. The models also provide visualization of performance for interpretation by technical staff, public policy makers, and the public. The objectives of this project are to evaluate the use of traffic simulation models for future use by the Iowa Department of Transportation (DOT) and to develop procedures for employing simulation modeling to conduct the analysis of alternative designs. This report presents both the findings of the U.S. 61 evaluation and an overview of model development procedures. The first part of the report includes the simulation modeling development procedures. The simulation analysis is illustrated through the Burlington U.S. 61 corridor case study application. Part I is not intended to be a user manual but simply introductory guidelines for traffic simulation modeling. Part II of the report evaluates the proposed improvement concepts in a side by side comparison of the base and alternative models.

Performance Measurement for Highway Winter Maintenance Operations, TR-491, 2009

The goal of this research project was to develop a method to measure the performance of a winter maintenance program with respect to the task of providing safety and mobility to the travelling public. Developing these measures required a number of steps, each of which was accomplished. First, the impact of winter weather on safety (crash rates) and mobility (average vehicle speeds were measured by a combination of literature reviews and analysis of Iowa Department of Transportation traffic and Road Weather Information System data. Second, because not all winter storms are the same in their effects on safety and mobility, a method had to be developed to determine how much the various factors that describe a winter storm actually change safety and mobility. As part of this effort a storm severity index was developed, which ranks each winter storm on a scale between 0 (a very benign storm) and 1 (the worst imaginable storm). Additionally a number of methods of modeling the relationships between weather, winter maintenance actions and road surface conditions were developed and tested. The end result of this study was a performance measure based on average vehicle speed. For a given class of road, a maximum expected average speed reduction has been identified. For a given storm, this maximum expected average speed reduction is modified by the storm severity index to give a target average speed reduction. Thus, if for a given road the maximum expected average speed reduction is 20 mph, and the storm severity for a particular storm is 0.6, then the target average speed reduction for that road in that storm is 0.6 x 20 mph or 12 mph. If the average speed on that road during and after the storm is only 12 mph or less than the average speed on that road in good weather conditions, then the winter maintenance performance goal has been met.

Audit report on the Honey Creek Resort Operations Account maintained by Central Group Management, LLC for the year ended June 30, 2015

Audit report on the Honey Creek Resort Operations Account maintained by Central Group Management, LLC for the year ended June 30, 2015