Review U.S. DOT Volpe Center-authored technical materials by subject. The U.S. DOT Volpe Center is home to a number of national experts in the fields of energy and environment, human factors, structures and dynamics, wake vortices, and more. Explore our publications and research in each of these topics below.

Advanced Air Mobility 

The U.S. DOT Volpe Center team is working with sponsors, including FAA, NASA, DOD, and other government agencies and industry innovators, to explore ways to safely and efficiently incorporate transformative technologies and emerging concepts into the National Airspace System (NAS). This list outlines our experience in research and engineering related to Advanced Air Mobility (AAM), which ranges from flight operations to surveillance, from modeling to simulation, and from automation to cybersecurity.

Air Quality

This list of publications reflects Volpe’s contribution to air quality literature. Topics covered include aircraft emission measurement, particulate matter measurement at airports, air quality prediction near roadways, alternative jet fuels, and passenger vehicle and over-flight aircraft emission measurement within our national parks.

Acoustics

This bibliography includes publications and papers from 1971 to present that have been published by the Volpe Acoustics Facility. Volpe’s work in noise measurement extends to all modes of transportation; we measure aircraft noise, pavement noise, as well as vehicle and motorcycle noise in our national parks. With nearly 50 years of experience, we conduct integrated noise modeling, traffic noise modeling, helicopter noise modeling, and vibration studies. We also measures the impact of noise on our communities and on wildlife, studying the impacts of noise barriers, booms, and rail transit wayside.

Climate Change and Resilience

These collections of research and results demonstrate our work relating to key issues in resilient and sustainable transportation.

• Improving Efficiency and Energy Security of Transportation and Reducing Emissions
• Assessing Infrastructure Climate Change Vulnerability and Impacts and Promoting Resilience
• Planning for and Implementing Sustainable Transportation Systems

Connected Vehicles at Highway-Rail Grade Crossings Research

These publications and papers cover the development of the Railroad Crossing Violation Warning reference implementation system and the deployment, testing, and evaluation of this technology at a connected vehicle testbed/pilot with an active highway-rail grade crossing.

Evaluating and Mitigating the Risk of Disease Transmission at Airports and on Aircraft Reference Library

Volpe's searchable reference library of over 600 sources focuses on the impact of infectious disease at airports and on aircraft. You can search and sort by category, author, title, or abstract.

Highway-Rail Grade Crossing Safety and Trespass Prevention Research

These publications and papers feature research that the U.S. DOT Volpe Center team published associated with railroad right-of-way, including highway-rail intersection and trespass issues. 

Human Factors

This bibliography includes publications and papers from 1970 to present that have been published by Volpe’s human factors team.

Human Health Impacts of Noise in National Parks Reference Library

This searchable reference library includes abstracts and links to publications related to the study of the human health impacts of noise in our national parks. You can search and sort by category, author, title, or abstract.

Public Lands

Volpe’s Public Lands team assists federal land management agencies in resolving complex transportation challenges. The team’s work covers alternative transportation planning, lifecycle modeling, air tour management plans, transit and trail access, and climate change scenario planning. This project listing contains links to brief descriptions and reports of a selection of public lands projects.

Rail and Component Structural Integrity

This publication listing includes Volpe-authored publications dating back to 1988 on rail integrity, heavy axle loads, rail grinding practices, alternative inspection procedures, potential benefits from improved non-destructive testing, and wheel performance studies.

Rail Equipment Crashworthiness  

This publication listing reflects Volpe’s contribution to rail crashworthiness research since 1993. The publications trace the understanding of factors involved in passenger protection and impact absorption, focusing on the types of structural modifications that can make rail equipment safer.

Rail Suicide Prevention

Hundreds of people lose their lives every year on train tracks due to trespassing or suicide. The U.S. DOT Volpe Center and FRA have built a global research resource collection to identify haves to reduce rail suicide.

Tank Car Structural Integrity

These Volpe-authored publications reflect three decades of rail tank car safety support to the Federal Railroad Administration. Studies include research in puncture resistance, damage tolerance, residual cracks, and the structural behavior of tank cars during a derailment or collision, and findings from full-scale impact tests.

Track Buckling

These Volpe-authored publications evaluate advanced corridor evaluation systems, appropriate inspection thresholds and guidelines, advanced instrumentation use, data analysis, and computer modeling tools.

Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Collection: Capabilities and Experience

This list of publications reflects the U.S. DOT Volpe Center’s activities related to the topic of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), including our capabilities and experience.

Wake Vortex Bibliography

This annotated bibliography consists of abstracts of publications on aircraft wake vortices, and experimental and theoretical articles that consider the formation, structure, motion, and decay of vortices and their effect on penetrating aircraft.