New Paper on Bus Route Forecasting Published

Our paper "Real-time bus route state forecasting using particle filter and mesoscopic modeling" was just published in Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies, Volume 61, December 2015, Pages 121-140. You can download it free until January 2016. Special thanks to my friends and collaborators at ENTPE: Etienne Hans, Nicolas Chiabaut and Ludovic Leclrecq for a great experience developing this paper!

IPAM Workshop: Decision Support for Traffic

The Institute for Pure and Applied and Mathematics (IPAM) at UCLA kindly hosted a long program in New Directions in Mathematical Approaches for Traffic Flow Management. I was pleased to be a member of the organizing committee (with Alexandre Bayen, Serge Hoogendoorn and Laura Wynter) of Workshop IV: Decision Support for Traffic, held at UCLA November 16-20, 2015. On November 17, 2015 I chaired the afternoon session and also gave a presentation, "Multimodal Transportation System Simulation Manual (TSSM) Framework: From Theory to Practice." It was great to have this opportunity and my thanks to IPAM and my co-organizers for their support.

Dr. David Lovell Visits Cal Poly

We were honored to have Dr. David Lovell, University of Maryland visit Cal Poly from November 11-15, 2015. Dr. Lovell presented to the ITE student chapter, discussing his research aimed at improving air transportation systems. He also spoke about air traffic operations management to the CE 321 Fundamentals of Transportation Engineering class. His primary mission was to participate in the Engineers Without Borders (EWB) West Coast Regional Conference hosted by the Cal Poly EWB student chapter.

Ray LaHood Book Signing

I had the pleasure of attending former Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood's book signing for his memoir, Seeking Bipartisanship: My Life in Politics, held at Bloomberg in Washington, D.C. on November 4, 2015. Having served under Secretary LaHood at the U.S. DOT from 2009-2011, I was happy to see the former Secretary as well as many wonderful members of the DOT team. Having read the book on my trip back west the following evening, I was particularly struck by the section describing LaHood's work in Congress on civility. I knew that he had spoken about the importance of civility in politics but did not know about the broader initiatives he had led. I admire Ray LaHood immensely - he is a true leader, who treats people well in all environments and situations. The civility portion of the book particularly resonated with me, having also strived to improve communication, collaboration and integrity in my work. It was an honor to serve under Ray LaHood and work with the amazing DOT team, and reading this memoir further cemented my respect, admiration and appreciation for this great leader.

Cal Poly Chi Epsilon Civil and Environmental Engineering Honor Society Participates in Pacific District Conference

I was asked to accompany the Cal Poly Chi Epsilon Civil and Environmental Engineering Honor Society to the Pacific District Conference held at San Jose State University November 6-8, 2015. Five Cal Poly students, including Carley Burford, Jason Hsia, Carley Thomas, Elizabeth Coffey and Jonathon Centofranchi participated, and through their efforts earned third place (out of 14 universities) in the Pacific District Cup Competition! My congratulations to the team for a job well done! As a former president of the Cal Poly Chi Epsilon chapter (c. 1987) I was especially proud!

9th University Transportation Center (UTC) Spotlight Conference on Connected and Automated Vehicles November 4-5, 2015, in Washington, D.C.

I was honored to be invited to serve on the organizing committee for the 9th University Transportation Center (UTC) Spotlight Conference on Connected and Automated Vehicles November 4-5, 2015, in Washington, D.C. Held at the National Academy of Sciences, the meeting was sponsored by the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology, U.S. Department of Transportation (OST-R) and organized by the Transportation Research Board (TRB), under the leadership of Dr. Melissa Tooley, I chaired the plenary session and breakout session on Modal Applications of connected and automated vehicles, along with John Maddox of the University of Michigan. We had a great session with speakers from Carnegie Mellon, Texas Transportation Institute, NREL and Zipcar. Conference proceedings will be published later. Special thanks to TRB and OST-R staff Rich Cunard, Freda Morgan, Robin Kline and Thomas Bolle for their support.