Visit to U.S. DOT

I was very happy to be invited back to the U.S. DOT yesterday where I presented "Putting the Implementation Back in Innovation: Reflections on the Future of Transportation Research and Education," as part of the Transportation Innovation Series sponsored by the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Research and Technology. It was great to see old friends and colleagues and hear about all the progress being made within the former-RITA offices, including ITS, BTS and RD&T. I was also fascinated to see the amazing new developments just behind the DOT building on the waterfront, absolutely beautiful! A great (and beautiful sunny) day in DC!

Day in Corvallis

I was very pleased to participate in the Academy for Lifelong Learning (ALL) in connection with the Oregon State University Alumni Association on Friday April 11, 2014, where I presented a lecture on "Sustainable Transportation in the Netherlands," as part of ALL's World Cultures series focusing on the Netherlands. I also had the chance to present "Driverless Vehicles - Time to Panic or Rejoice?" with Oregon State University professor Haizhong Wang for his CE 491 Transportation Engineering course. All in all it was a beautiful day in Corvallis!

Visit to Florida International University

I was pleased to have the opportunity to visit the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Florida International University (FIU) in Miami on February 28, 2014. I delivered a lecture as part of their distinguished lecture series, "Can “Big” Data Serve as a Foundation for Measuring and Improving Public Transport Operations?" I enjoyed the interaction with faculty and students in the department, and also had a chance to visit the driving simulator lab and the Integrated Intelligent Transportation System Lab, directed by Prof. Mohammed Hadi. Thanks to all of the faculty, students and staff for their hospitality and for this terrific opportunity!

ITE Winter Workshop - Driverless Vehicles

Last week I had the pleasure of joining Prof. Haizhong Wang from OSU in presenting as session "Driverless Vehicles - Time to Panic or Rejoice?" at the ITE Oregon Winter Workshop. Haizhong's student prepared an excellent Prezi that we used to fuel the discussion and we were quite impressed with the highly interactive discussion that ensued. It appears that traffic and transportation engineers want to be "at the table" as these new vehicle technologies evolve!

TRB 2014 Highlights

Two occasions stood out from the 2014 TRB Annual Meeting: first the session we co-sponsored entitled What Are Transportation Operations and Why Should I Care, featuring a very distinguished panel of leaders in transportation who are passionate about the field of operations. It was a terrific session organized by Nikola Ivanov and I hope that we can continue this conversation. Second, NITC sponsored a reception and it was filled with present and past students and friends and colleagues from around the U.S. and abroad. It is great to have the opportunity to meet (at least) once a year!

Happy 50th Birthday to the TRB Committee on Traffic Flow Theory and Characteristics

Happy 50th Birthday AHB45 Committee on Traffic Flow Theory and Characteristics! Thanks to all of our volunteers, members, friends, paper reviewers, meeting participants, and Facebook friends! Special thanks to our past chairs Prof. Nathan Gartner and Prof. Hani Mahmassani as well as those chairs, members, friends, authors and supporters who came before. At the TRB Annual Meeting we held a celebratory workshop highlighting the past successes and future prospects of Traffic Simulation, where we also recognized the best Simulation paper for 2013; an inaugural workshop on Crowd Flow Dynamics, Modeling and Management; we held a celebratory podium session on 50 Years of Traffic Flow Theory: Achievements and Challenges, with four excellent presentations, the Greenshields Prize, the Highest Cited Paper Award, and birthday cake; we held our annual committee business meeting where we recognized new Emeritus Member Alex Skabardonis and past chair Nathan Gartner, founder of the Greenshields Prize; four other lectern sessions and five poster sessions. It has been my privilege to serve as chair of the committee since 2009, and I am proud of all of our accomplishments. We have a great circle of people who are wonderful friends and colleagues and I look forward to the next 50 years of collaboration and success!
 

Multitude Final Conference December 2013

I had the pleasure and privilege of participating in the final conference of the EU COST Action MULTITUDE (Methods and tools for supporting the Use caLibration and validaTIon of Traffic simUlation moDEls), December 4-6, 2013 in Naples, Italy. This event brought together an international group of traffic/transportation academics and practitioners with the aim of improving the quality of simulation tools, and the ways in which we manage uncertainty in transportation engineering. I presented a keynote lecture on "The Management of Uncertainty in the Transportation Engineering Practice: Decision Maker View," participated in a panel on the "Management of Uncertainty in the Transport Decision Making" and also joined Mark Brackstone in a presentation on "Traffic Simulation Guidelines."

Visitor from Lyon

We were very pleased to welcome Florian Marczak from LICIT/ENTPE/IFSTTAR/University of Lyon to visit the ITS Lab during November, 2013. He presented a special seminar, "An analytical derivation of the capacity at weaving sections consistent with empirical observations and micro-simulated results," which was very well-attended. We appreciate the opportunity to continue our collaboration and look forward to another visit!

Keynote Speech at 2013 Beijing International Transport InformationService Conference

I was honored to be invited to present a keynote speech, "U.S. Perspectives on Traffic Information: Past, Present and Future," at the 2013 Beijing International Transport Information Service Conference. It was interesting to learn about the public and private perspectives in China, and also to visit the traffic management center for the city.

Visit to Beijing Jiaotong University

I appreciated the opportunity to visit the Beijing Jiaotong University on November 13, 2013 and present a lecture, "Discoveries in D.C. and Delft: Reflections on the Future of Transportation Research and Education." Professor Baohua Mao and his colleagues and students were warm and hospitable hosts, providing for a great chance to continue developing our collaborative relationship between the two universities.

KATU Story on Traffic Science

I appreciated and enjoyed the opportunity to be a part of a great story on the science of traffic produced by KATU, "Portland's slowdowns help advance science of transportation." You can read the whole story or go to the short video.

University of Minnesota Warren Lecture

I was very happy to have the opportunity to visit the University of Minnesota Department of Civil Engineering to deliver the Warren Lecture on November 8, 2013. My talk was entitled “Big” Data as a Foundation for Measuring and Improving Public Transport Operations. It was great to visit with students and colleagues from the Department of Civil Engineering, the Center for Transportation Studies (CTS), the Humphrey School of Public Affairs, and visit the Minnesota Traffic Observatory (MTO). I look forward to my next visit!

ITS Professional Capacity Building Workshop September 26-27, 2013

I was very pleased to participate in the Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) Professional Capacity Building (PCB) University Partners Workshop in Washington, D.C. on September 26-27, 2013. Along with colleagues from across the U.S., we learned about ITS material developed for incorporation into undergraduate and graduate courses and explored how to better incorporate additional ITS concepts into the university environment. The PCB program is under the leadership of Mac Lister at U.S. DOT / RITA and he is doing a great job bringing all of these elements together.

Study Abroad in the Netherlands Summer 2014

2013 Portland Performance Report

We are pleased to announce the publication of our traditional Portland Performance Report for 2013 (using 2012 data). Thanks to Deanna George and Matthew Downey for their hard work!

Delft Reunion

A total of ten (out of 20) alumni, as well as course originator Peter Koonce, of the Delft summer course met for a reunion on October 10, 2013. It was great to see everyone and hear about how the experience was transformative. The course will happen again from June 28-July 11, 2014! Let's continue the tradition!

PSU Students in Action

Today Katie Bell successfully defended her master's thesis, "Identification and Characterization of PM2.5 and VOC Hot Spots on an Urban Arterial Corridor Integrating Probe Vehicle, Traffic and Land Use Data." Also our student group STEP held their opening social event to welcome new transportation students! It looks like a great group and a terrific start to a new academic year!

ODOT Intermodal Leadership Forum

I was honored to have the opportunity to be a pre-session speaker, along with Galen McGill, at the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) 2013 Intermodal Leadership Forum. Galen talked about the many exciting ITS projects underway in Oregon, and I presented a "Vision for a Connected Transportation Future for All Users." There was some great discussion and conversation about the future of transportation.

TR News

The latest issue of TR News reminded me of the new attendees session held every year on Sunday - highly recommended!

"Straight from the Source" at the Volpe Center

I had a great time visiting the Volpe Center, and giving a presentation as part of their "Straight from the Source" seminar series. On September 18, 2013 I gave a talk entitled "Discoveries in D.C. and Delft: Reflections on the Future of Transportation Research and Education." I really appreciated the very kind welcome and opportunity to interact with Volpe staff and leadership. I remain a big fan and supporter of Volpe's important work in transportation! Here is a link to an article posted on the Volpe website along with a link to the video summary of the presentation.

Drive Oregon Event: Connected Cars

I was very excited to have the chance to engage with Drive Oregon to discuss: Connected Cars, The Future of Transportation on September 4, 2013. We had a great discussion about how we can work together to change the future of transportation!

CICTP2013 Shenzhen China

I was grateful for the opportunity to participate in the 13th COTA International Conference of Transportation Professionals (CICTP 2013) from August 13-16, 2013, in Shenzhen, China. The 2013 conference was jointly organized by Tsinghua University, Shenzhen University, Tsinghua-Daimler Center for Sustainable Transportation, Unihz Technologies Corporation, Shenzhen and Chinese Overseas Transportation Association (COTA), and I want to thank the organizers for their invitation and hospitality during the trip. I delivered a keynote lecture entitled "Retrospect and Prospect," a plenary lecture entitled "U.S. Perspectives on a Safe and Sustainable Future Connected Transportation System," and also presented "Perspectives on Federal Agency Leadership" as part of the Government Forum.

Meeting the MURPs in Shenzhen

Thanks to the efforts of Jeremy Dalton and Pam Phan, I had the opportunity to give a joint lecture on "Sustainable Transportation in Portland" with Peter Koonce at the China Academy of Urban Planning & Design (CAUPD) in Shenzhen. Current PSU Master of Urban and Regional Planning (MURP) students Pam Phan and JP McNeil are interning at CAUPD as part of the PSU China Innovations in Urbanization program. I also had the chance to present the same lecture at the Shenzhen Institute of Urban Planning and Design (UPDIS) where Jeremy Dalton and Szilvia Hosser-Cox are interning. It was great to see some familiar faces, make new friends and learn more about Shenzhen's amazing developments. We really appreciate the hospitality of our hosts!

Connected Vehicle Workshop Focused on Energy Savings

On August 7, 2013, I presented "State of Connected Vehicles" as part of an OTREC Connected Vehicles Workshop focusing on the energy savings potential of intelligent transportation systems. We had a terrific discussion, and I hope it will lead to future collaborations!

Workshop on Performance Assessment of Transportation Networks in Guangzhou, China

I was very pleased to present "U.S. Perspectives on a Safe and Sustainable Future Connected Transportation System" at the Workshop on Performance Assessment of Transportation Networks on August 12, 2013, hosted by the Research Center of Intelligent Transportation Systems, Sun Yat-Sen University, in Guangzhou, China. The university is relatively new, and located in the Guangzhou Higher Education Mega Center, which is a fascinating (though mostly empty at this time due to summer holidays) university park containing ten universities and about 120,000 students. The trip included a brief stop in Hong Kong on the way. My sincere gratitude to the hosts and organizers.

Students from German University of the Federal Armed Forces Visit Portland

We were very pleased to host Prof. Klaus Bogenberger and 14 of his students from the German University of the Federal Armed Forces Munich in Portland from August 4-7, 2013. Prof. Bogenberger delivered a lecture on the Quality of Traffic and Traveler Information, and we introduced the students to some of Oregon's natural beauty, and Portland's transport innovations (also Voodoo doughnuts), including a multimodal TriMet trip covering bus, MAX, WES, streetcar and aerial tram. Dr. Chris Monsere and John MacArthur also participated in the visit.

TRB Traffic Signal Systems Committee Workshop

I appreciated the opportunity to participate in the TRB Traffic Signal Systems Committee summer workshop "You Get What You Measure," held in Portland on July 22, 2013. We had an excellent discussion of some of the things we are doing in the Portland region to improve the multimodal transportation system using real time and archived data from multiple sources. It was a great discussion! Thanks to Tom Urbanik and Peter Koonce for the opportunity.