Redefining Mobility Panel at SANDAG Board Retreat

I was honored to join a distinguished panel discussing "Redefining Mobility: Connected and Automated Vehicles," at the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) Board of Directors retreat, held in San Diego, CA January 29, 2015. Randy Iwasaki of the Contra Costa Transportation Authority chaired the session, with panelists Dr. Robert Bertini, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Paul Godsmark, Canadian Automated Vehicles Centre of Excellence, Toshiro Muramatsu, Nissan Motor Corporation and Dr. Bernard Soriano, California Department of Motor Vehicles.

Caliper Visits Cal Poly!

We are grateful to Paul Ricotta and David Gerstle of Caliper Corporation who visited Cal Poly today and spoke about TransCAD and their other products in the CE 527 Transportation Systems Planning class!

Randy Iwasaki Visits Cal Poly

We were very pleased that Randy Iwasaki, Executive Director of the Contra Costa Transportation Authority, Cal Poly alum, visited Cal Poly on Thursday January 22, 2015. Along with his colleague Jack Hall, he spoke to Dr. Bertini's CE 523 Transportation Systems Planning class, and also to the ITE Student Chapter meeting. We appreciated the opportunity to visit and discuss the future of transportation.

 

Cal Poly SLO @ TRB Annual Meeting 2015

Cal Poly San Luis Obispo was well-represented at the TRB Annual Meeting, including the presence of Krista Purser (CE undergrad, vice president of ITE student chapter) and CRP/CE students Elissa McDade and Nick Bleich. Faculty members Dr. Anurag Pande and Dr. Robert Bertini were also active participants.

TRB Annual Meeting is also "fun"

Despite being busy and tiring, the TRB Annual Meeting (this was my 22nd I believe) is also a place where it's possible to connect with friends, colleagues, classmates, and leaders in the transportation arena. I especially enjoyed seeing former students Meead Saberi and Wei Feng (photo courtesy of NUTC); Wei gave an excellent presentation on a paper based on his dissertation. Also Matthew Downey presented his poster on joint work evaluating a variable speed limit system in Oregon. I also got to visit the Lincoln Memorial and go for a spin on Capital Bikeshare on a sunny cold day. It's always wonderful to visit Washington, D.C., and TRB is a recharging/refreshing time every year!

TFTC Committee Receives Blue Ribbon Award

It was an honor to receive the Transportation Research Board Blue Ribbon Committee Award on behalf of the Committee on Traffic Flow Theory and Characteristics in the Community Building and Mentoring Category for "engaging young, diverse participants through innovative and inclusive outreach; and collaboration in research, education and training. Congratulations to all! 

TFTC Committee Appreciation and Awards at TRB Annual Meeting

As committee chair, one of the best things is the opportunity to present awards and certificates of appreciation. This year, we recognized Nikolas Geroliminis and his co-authors as recipient of the 2014 Greenshields Prize; and Etienne Hans and his co-authors as recipient of the Cunard Award for Best Operations Paper with First Young Author. I also took the opportunity to thank Ludovic Leclercq for his leadership in the area of Awards; to Tomer Toledo, Hani Mahmassani, Soyoung Ahn, and Nikolas Geroliminis for supporting the Paper Review activity for the past 6 years, and to Samer Hamdar for his leadership with our monthly newsletter and the Outreach and Diversity subcommittee. Thank you to all!

TFTC Committee @ TRB Annual Meeting

Since 2009 I have served as the chair of the National Academy of Sciences' Transportation Research Board standing committee on Traffic Flow Theory and Characteristics. With about 100 people in attendance, I chaired my final meeting on January 13, 2015 during the TRB Annual Meeting in Washington, DC. During my tenure as chair, we celebrated the 50th Anniversary of the committee's formation, and produced 3 Transportation Research Circulars, 2 journal special issues, increased state DOT involvement, improved diversity, launched several new subcommittees, encouraged and mentored young members and moved activities to a year round basis.

Since 2009, we also received and processed a total of  965 papers, sponsored 30 lectern sessions with 145 papers, 16 poster sessions with 406 papers, and published a total of 189 peer reviewed paper in the Transportation Research Record. We assigned 4086 paper reviews and received 3521 reviews back. Our friends email list grew to nearly 700 members and our review pool is now at 526 volunteers. I'm very grateful for my predecessors and mentors (especially Alex Skabardonis, Nathan Gartner and Hani Mahmassani) for their support and encouragement; former and current committee members and friends for all of their volunteer activities; and to Rich Cunard of TRB for his amazing support. I believe that our active subcommittees, the many products and activities throughout the year, our mentoring of young members, with reflection and respect for our predecessors will serve the committee well moving forward. Congratulations to Prof. Soyoung Ahn who is taking over as chair, and I look forward to continuing good work by the TFTC committee!