Portfolio of Owen Kehoe's work, for general consumption.

Here are some examples of the kinds of things that I work on in my professional life as a transportation engineer; but first a little info about my background: I obtained a B.S. degree in Civil Engineering at the University of Washington, and then earned a M.S.C.E. Degree in Transportation Engineering in March 2004. I am a certified Professional Engineer in the State of Washington and I also have Professional Traffic Operations Engineer certification. I have an extensive background in traffic engineering and traffic modeling software, but my interest is in transit systems. I currently work for King County Metro in the Transit Speed & Reliability group.

This portfolio is split into three parts, first shown is my recent work at Metro. Next, some of my academic work is featured. After that are some comments about my prior work history. Browse, read, and comment if you like.

King County Metro Work

At Metro, I work in a team called Transit Speed & Reliability. Our job is just that, to make buses run faster and more reliable. We do this through a number of different angles: We design and operate systems that detect buses and give them green lights at traffic signals (this is called TSP, see below), we work with cities when they are rebuilding roadways to make sure that they include things like bus lanes, we provide recommendations to transit planning and scheduling staff about better ways to run the buses, and we also try to fix traffic problems that hinder bus movement. It is mostly behind-the-scenes engineering-type work, which the average person may not notice. But if you are observant, you might see some of my work in action on the streets of the Puget Sound area. Here are a few examples of my work:

Some fine print: The information and opinions expressed above and below are my personal perspectives and do not necessarily reflect the official viewpoints of Metro, King County, or any other affiliated jurisdictions.

Bus Stop/Bus Lane Capacity Calculator

Did you ever wonder:

This is an Excel worksheet that I developed to answer those questions. It's based on methods and formulas that are published in the Transit Capacity and Quality of Service Manual, developed by the Transit Cooperative Research Program. I took these formulas and designed a set of worksheets that are easy to use and take input data that are readily available to transit planners. The first worksheet calculates the capacity of an individual bus stop, in buses/hour. The second worksheet takes the output from a set of individual bus stop capacity worksheets, and calculates the capacity of a bus lane or roadway that those bus stops are on. The bus lane worksheet can account for skip-stops (where buses are grouped into alternating stops and do not stop at each one).

We used this worksheet to plan bus route changes in Downtown Seattle for when the bus tunnel reopened in September 2007. Metro management wanted to put as many bus routes on 3rd Avenue as possible, to maximize the effictiveness of the peak-hour traffic restrictions and "transit way" classification, but we didn't want to go to far and overload the bus stops. This worksheet let us do a lot of "what-if" scenarios and distribute the buse routes among the downtown streets and among the skip-stops for the most efficient operation. As a result, there are more buses running down 3rd Avenue today than there were during the tunnel closure, and a similar level of reliability has been maintained.

Download the worksheet: Bus_zone_capacity_worksheet_v1.1_(Blank).xls (Contains Macros; don't worry, they won't hurt you)

In 2007, I presented the topic of bus stop capacity at the American Public Transit Association's (ATPA) Intermodal Operations Workshop in San Francisco, CA. I discussed the basics of the calculation, a spreadsheet that we developed to streamline the calculations, and how we applied the method to plan bus routes and skip-stop assignments through Downtown Seattle. You can download and view the PowerPoint that I created for the conference here.

Pedestrian Congestion Study
When the Downtown Seattle Bus Tunnel was scheduled to be closed for a 2-year period, there was a big concern among the downtown interests that the surface bus stops would become overcrowded. To address this issue, it was decided that a pedestrian congestion study would be conducted before, during, and after the tunnel closure. This project was placed in my lap without much direction as to how one would go about measuring "pedestrian congestion." So I started by boning up on the national research on theses issues, then I worked with my co-workers and a consultant to devise a method for measuring pedestrian level-of-service for walkways and for queuing and waiting areas. With this, we sent out an army of data collectors (UW students) to the busiest downtown bus stops to count the number of people waiting at each stop in 5-minute intervals, and the number of people walking on the sidewalk through the bus stop area.

After the initial data came in and we ran some calculations, one thing became apparent: Seattleites like their space and will adjust themselves to achieve their preferred berth. The national pedestrian level-of service criteria seemed to be based on east coast standards, and the pedestrian density that we measured in downtown Seattle (measured in peds/ft2) barely even tipped the scales of the A through F level-of-service criteria. So, we had to come up with our own pedestrian congestion criteria in order to make any meaningful comparisons.

The pedestrian congestion study results went into a larger Tunnel Conversion Performance Report, which was issued periodically during the tunnel closure project. You can download these reports on Metro Online HERE. The pedestrian congestion results were reported as measure 4.

Spot Improvements
One of my primary work tasks is managing the transit operations spot improvement program. Spot improvements are small quick-fix type projects that help buses operate faster and more reliably on the city streets. Typically bus drivers initiate these projects by submitting complaints, and the projects are meant address a specific recurring problem to the operation of buses. I investigate the problem, develop some solutions, and work with the local authority to fix the problem. I publish a twice-yearly report that highlights some successful projects; they are written for a general audience to help staff at many different levels appreciate the kinds of projects that we do. You can download past versions of these reports in PDF format here:

South Bellevue Park & Ride
If you ever take the Sound Transit route 550 from Bellevue to Downtown Seattle, your bus will pass through the South Bellevue P&R. This park and ride used to be a major source of delay to the 550, and a few other routes, because of the heavy volume of traffic on Bellevue Way and the traffic signal at the P&R exit. I helped design and implement a unique transit signal priority system that now significantly reduces the delay to southbound buses as they enter and exit the Park & Ride. The transit priority system is unique because it uses a couple of strategically-placed loop detectors to detect buses. There are also three bright blue LED indicator lights that illuminate when a bus is detected. If you look carefully, you can see these lights in action as your bus passes through. Check out this report for more technical details and the results of a before-and-after study.

Transit Benefit/Person-Delay Calculator
This isn't a project, but rather a tool that I have developed that has proven to be useful on many occasions. This Excel worksheet takes the vehicle delay output from standard traffic engineering methods or software, such as Synchro, and given inputs for vehicle occupancy and transit ridership, calculates person-delay and compares between two alternatives. The worksheet further calculates the potential dollar savings or impact resulting from an alternative traffic control strategy, taking into account both transit operations cost and people's value of time. Other features include formulas to automatically indicate the standard A-F signalized intersection LOS designation based on the inputted vehicle delay, and also a happy-face/sad-face icon that provides unquestionable guidance about whether the proposed alternative is a good idea or not.

Most traffic modeling software and traffic analysis methods use average vehicle delay to assess level of service and develop optimum timings for traffic signals. That method works great if you think cars are more important than people. This worksheet makes it easy to take the analysis one step further and convert vehicle-delay to person-delay. In my line of work, I often need to justify special treatment for buses, using the argument that person-delay should be optimized rather than vehicle-delay, and this is how I do it.

Download the worksheet: Transit-Person_Intersection_Delay.xls

NE 45th St Transit Queue Jump Signal
Heading towards the University District on the route 44, 355, or on various Community Transit routes, you may have noticed the special transit signal located at 7th Ave NE, (a.k.a. I-5 NB ramps). The camera perched above the signal head electronically detects buses just after they leave the bus stop, and turns the transit signal green a few seconds before the general-purpose green signal, thus allowing the bus to easily merge in front of the queue of waiting vehicles. This signal was an improvement that I identified would beneft many busy bus routes, and I managed the effort to install it. It was somewhat challenging because the state owns the signal hardware while the city is responsible for the timing.

Special tip: A bicycle will also set off the queue jump signal, just place your bike directly behind the intersection stop line, and voila! Remember, you didn't hear any of this from me...

NE Campus Pkwy & University Way NE signal retiming.
This intersection had been a headache for buses for many many years. Campus Parkway has a wide boulevard between the eastbound and westbound directions, and all the intersections on Campus Parkway really operate like two intersections. At the intersection of Campus Parkway and University Way, the busy routes 71, 72, 73, and 74 make a left turn, while going in the outbound direction. The signal at the intersections had been timed such that vehicles making the eastbound left-turn would get stuck between the two intersections and would have to wait an entire cycle to get through. The Seattle Department of Transportation replaced the signal in 2003 and even added a left turn arrow, but that didn't fix the problem. I developed a new timing plan that fixed the problem without impacting vehicles on any other approaches. When you take the bus from downtown to the U-district, you won't notice the long delay that used to occur at this intersection.

Route 48 Bus Stop Consolidation
Part of my work at Metro involves consolidating bus stops to improve the speed and reliability of bus service. The route 48 is the longest route that operates within the Seattle city limits and is heavily traveled. Over the course of a year, I evaluated most of the bus stops along the route, closed about 40 of the bus stops, and moved some other stops in order to improve the speed and reliability of the route. I had to take feedback and form a consensus among bus drivers, commuters, little old ladies, other transit agencies, persons in wheelchairs, city officials, blind-deaf individuals, non-English speaking immigrants, irate property owners, and high school vice-principals. The bus stops you see today along the route 48 are the result of the consensus. Read my thesis (link is in the section below) for a comprehensive discussion and evaluation of the project, or look at the project website.

Transit Signal Priority
Transit Signal Priority (TSP) is big part of what my workgroup does at Metro. TSP is a technology that gives transit vehicles preferential treatment at traffic signals. TSP can use a wide variety of bus-detection technologies and signal controller hardware to accomplish its goal, some of these technologies work well and others don't work so well. My work includes recommending (but not deciding) where TSP should go, designing the placement of the bus detection systems, and developing the timing strategy that the traffic signal controller uses once a bus is detected. Metro has several TSP installations up and running around the Seattle area and many more planned; you can read about them here.
A big challenge of TSP is that city traffic engineers, signal technicians, the transit agency, and the local utility all have to work together to implement TSP. One happy family right? Well, when the traffic engineer doesn't want to adjust the timing plan that they have perfected, the signal technician doesn't want to have to maintain any new equipment, the transit agency doesn't want any buses to stop, and the utility has 6 months of work backlogged, things can get intersting.

Academic Work

Here are some examples of the work I have done as part of my academic studies. The works that I have selected here are the ones that I put the most effort into, am most proud of, and I think generally reflect the topics that most interest me. Clicking on the links will bring you a PDF file of the work.

Effects of Bus Stop Consolidation on Transit Speed and Reliability: A Test Case
Like many transit agencies in the U.S., Metro has too many bus stops on most of its routes, which slows transit service and is an inefficient use of resources. This work discusses a bus stop consolidation project that I managed on the King County Metro route 48, and provides an analysis of the results. This was my master's thesis completed in March 2004. Watch out, it's 55 pages long.

Economics of Truck and Rail Freight Transportation: A look at public and external costs and the truck-rail modal split.
This was my final paper for class CEE 591, Freight Transportation. This paper compared the costs associated with rail and truck shipping, focusing on the costs that are not directly imposed on the user, such as highway maintenance and the impacts of pollution. Some recommendations were made for controlling these so-called external costs, in order to minimize the costs to society resulting from freight transportation. Economic elasticities were used to predict the impacts that would result from internalizing these external costs.

Psychological Pollution: Thinking beyond emissions.
This was my final paper for URBDP 498B, Transportation and the Environment. This paper is a unique look at some of the social impacts of automobile dependence. It delves into such topics as American car culture, day-to-day driver interactions, effects on land use, privatization of society, and corporate interests. Some may not agree with the ideas or conclusions presented in this paper, admittedly it is fairly subjective, but I think it deserves at least a look.

Tracking Hazardous Materials
This was an assignment for CEE 582, Intelligent Transportation Systems. The assignment was to write a fictitious recommendation to the U.S. Secretary of Transportation about the development of a tracking system for hazardous materials shipments for reasons of national security. I concluded that such a system would be wasteful and ineffective. Read the memo to learn why.

Biodiversity in a Suburban Environment.
This paper looks at some of the environmental impacts of urban sprawl on local biodiveristy, with special emphasis on water quality and hydrological effects. This was my final paper for CEE 350, Environmental Engineering.

Other Work

Before I worked at Metro, I worked for a small traffic engineering consulting firm located in Everett, WA. My most notable project there was measuring new clearance intervals for every single traffic signal in the City of Everett. Clearance intervals include the Yellow Time, All-Red Time, and Flashing Don't Walk (FDW) Time that are programmed into the signal controller. The clearance intervals are based on the intersection geometrics, observed vehicle speeds and pedestrian walking speed, and were calculated to the tenth of a second using formulas recommended by the Institute of Transportation Engineers. These clearance intervals are gradually being implemented as the city transportation department routinely retimes the signals. If you watch a traffic signal in Everett and notice that the all-red time is over a couple of seconds, that's my measured clearance interval, calculated to a tenth of a second.

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