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I enjoyed the opportunity to participate in EV Roadmap 7, sponsored by Drive Oregon and held in Portland, Oregon from July 24-25, 2014. I moderated an excellent panel on "Electric Vehicles as The Testbed For Connected Cars and ITS," that included Prof. Matt Barth and Scott Belcher (pictured), and I also spoke in a panel on "Vehicle Automation," with my talk entitled, "Perspectives on Degrees of Vehicle Connectivity, Automation and Autonomous Vehicles." Overall a fascinating experience.
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We are very happy to be hosting Stefan Groer as a visiting scholar from TU Darmstadt, in Germany. This is a continuation of our longstanding partnership with the team led by Prof. Dr. Manfred Boltze, who is the Head of the Section for Traffic Planning and Transport Technology of Technische Universität Darmstadt. Stefan presented a seminar entitled, "The Role of Local Climate Action Plans in Transportation" which describes his ongoing PhD research. We are excited to have Stefan in Portland for two months (during the best Portland weather!) and we hope that our partnership with TU Darmstadt will continue into the future!
This is slightly belated but I was very happy back in April to serve as a member of Dr. Wei Feng's dissertation committee. His dissertation is entitled "Analyses of Bus Travel Time Reliability and Transit Signal Priority at the Stop-to-Stop Segment Level," and is an innovative piece of work using high resolution data from TriMet buses as well as the City of Portland's adaptive traffic signal system. I first met Wei in China in 2006, and ultimately recruited him to come to the U.S., so I was very happy and proud of his work here at PSU and I wish him will in his new position with the Chicago Transit Authority starting in September!
PSU students are arriving in Delft, the Netherlands for the 2014 edition of the Study Abroad:Sustainable Transportation in the Netherlands, in partnership with Prof. Peter Furth and Northeastern University. Initiated in 2011 by Peter Koonce, this is the fourth year that PSU students have participated in this adventure focusing on pedestrian, bicycle and public transport planning and design in the Netherlands. Follow our ten student blogs below as the course unfolds:
I appreciated the opportunity to serve on the M.S. thesis committee for Pam Johnson and the doctoral dissertation for Sirisha Kothuri this week - both successfully defended their thesis/dissertation, and I want to thank them for including me in this important step in their lives! Sirisha's dissertation is titled "Incorporating Pedestrian Considerations into Traffic Signal Timing," and Pam's thesis is titled "Bicycle Level of Service: Where are the Gaps in Bicycle Flow Measures?" Congratulations and best wishes to Pam and Sirisha!
Tom Kristeleit, a visiting MS student from the research group of Prof. Klaus Bogenberger, Universität der Bundeswehr München (University of the Federal Armed Forces in Munich Germany), presented his research on the state of the art in freeway ramp metering on Thursday June 5, 2014. We appreciated the opportunity to host Tom during his time in Portland, and we hope that this leads to further collaboration with Prof. Bogenberger's group!
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!
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!
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 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!
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."
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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.
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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.
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.
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!
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!
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.
