Marisa Lee Successfully Defends Thesis

Marisa Lee, candidate for a Master of City and Regional Planning, successfully defended her thesis today, "Bicycle Tourism Plan for Economic Development: a Template for Rural Agricultural Towns and a Case Study for the City Of Winters." I was pleased to join committee chair Prof. Michael Boswell and also Prof. Jerusha Greenwood on this occasion.

Cal Poly Annual Report

The 2014 Cal Poly Annual Report features a section highlighting the 60 new faculty hired at this campus this year--"A Whole New Class at the Head of the Classroom." It is inspiring to be a part of such an impressive and energetic group!

Keynote Presentation at Arizona ITE/IMSA Spring Conference

I was honored to have the opportunity to present the Keynote Presentation at the ITE/IMSA Arizona Spring Conference at the Black Canyon Conference Center in Phoenix, Arizona on February 25, 2015. The title of the presentation was "The Future of Transportation is Now: Are We Ready?" and I enjoyed the opportunity to discuss the challenges and opportunities we are facing in our field. With more than 500 participants, it was a lively event, and it included a great turnout of students from the University of Arizona along with their professor Dr. Yao-Jan Wu. Special thanks to Jenny Grote for her kind invitation!

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Andrew Fremier From MTC Visits Cal Poly

We were very pleased to have Mr. Andrew Fremier, Deputy Executive Director of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), and Cal Poly CE alum, visit campus this past week. He was kind enough to speak to CE 321 Fundamentals of Transportation Engineering and CE 523 Transportation Systems Planning and meet with ITE students in the new Transportation Engineering Student Project Area (TESPA) on February 19-20. Thank you for your visit!

New CEENVE Newsletter

The latest issue of the Cal Poly SLO CEENVE Newsletter features an article on the transportation program. Exciting times! A shorter version was also featured in the CENG Spring 2015 Newsletter.

Cal Poly SLO ITE Student Chapter Makes Strong Showing at Student Leadership Summit

The Cal Poly SLO ITE Student Chapter made a strong showing at the ITE Student Leadership Summit, hosted by Sacramento State University from February 13-14, 2015. Cal Poly students hosted the first summit in San Luis Obispo in 2014, and it was announced that the third event will occur at Cal Poly Pomona in 2016. This is an "of/by/for" student event and is supported by the ITE Western District. More than 20 Cal Poly SLO students participated actively in the 3 day event. Activities included a public service announcement (PSA) competition involving the design of a complete street, speed interviews, a career fair, presentation from CTC Executive Director Will Kempton, and an inspiring talk from the Sac State dean of engineering. I was also very honored to be asked to speak to the group on the topic of "Transforming Transportation Through Connectivity," where I introduced the new challenges dealing with connected and automated vehicles and other new technologies. I also enjoyed serving on the transportation industry panel and serving as one of the PSA competition judges. Special thanks to the Cal Poly SLO students for representing our university so well, and to the Sac State student team for organizing such a wonderful event.

Cal Poly Students and Faculty Join Secretary of Transportation's Online Chat

On Monday, February 2, 2015 Cal Poly San Luis Obispo transportation engineering and planning students and faculty joined Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx and Google's Eric Schmidt for an online town hall meeting and unveiling of the new U.S. DOT's new “Beyond Traffic"vision document. This Virtual Fireside Chat on the Future of Transportation in America was thought-provoking and provided a great venue to discuss transportation planning and finance in the U.S.

Dr. Meead Saberi, Monash University Australia, Visits Cal Poly

Dr. Meead Saberi, Assistant Professor from Monash University in Melbourne Australia (and graduate of PSU and Northwestern, as well as member of TRB Committee on Traffic Flow Theory and Characteristics) visited Cal Poly on Monday February 2, 2015. He gave a presentation on Transportation Visualization to the CE 523 Transportation Systems Planning course followed by a visualization exercise. He even got to visit the Madonna Inn! We hope to welcome Dr. Saberi back to San Luis Obispo again soon!

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!

Beth Osborne Presents Guest Lecture

It was wonderful to welcome Beth Osborne, former Assistant Secretary for Transportation Policy at the U.S. Department of Transportation and currently with Transportation for America, as a guest lecturer for CE 528 Transportation Economics and Analysis. Students (and I) thoroughly enjoyed the lively discussion about the TIGER program and the past, present and future of transportation policy, planning and engineering.

Prof. Amelia Regan from UC Irvine visits Cal Poly

We were very pleased to welcome Dr. Amelia Regan, Professor of Computer Science and Transportation Systems Engineering from UC Irvine to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo today! Amelia presented "Transformational Technologies on the Transportation Horizon" to students in CE 528 Transportation Economics and Analysis. I was honored that Amelia was my second visitor! We had a great presentation and discussion of ways that big data, communications and cloud computing will impact the future of various modes of transportation.

Alex Bigazzi Successfully Defends Dissertation

Congratulations to Alex Bigazzi who successfully defended his doctoral dissertation "Effects of the Urban Transportation System on Bicyclists Uptake of Traffic-Related Air Pollution," at Portland State University on October 1, 2014. I was pleased to have the opportunity to work with Dr. Bigazzi when he was an undergraduate and master's student and have enjoyed remaining on his dissertation committee and tracking his work these past few years. Prof. Miguel Figliozzi chaired the committee, and other committee members included Prof. James Pankow and Prof. Jennifer Dill. Alex's work is significant in that it relates bicyclists' "uptake" of pollutants as a function of the level of exertion, street/facility type and other variables. I hope that this leads to more research regarding the impacts of air pollution on travelers and on our communities. One interesting finding was related to spikes in VOCs near point source emitters.

Eugene Jud Receives ITE Western District Outstanding Educator Award

ITE International Director Jenny Grote visited the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering today to formally present the 2014 ITE Western District Outstanding Educator Award to our own Eugene Jud. We were pleased that (l-r) Prof. Dan Jansen, CEE Department Chair and Kaylinn Roseman, 2013-2014 ITE Student Chapter President, joined Eugene and Jenny for the ceremony. We all congratulate Eugene for this honor and thank him for his dedicated service to Cal Poly and to our students!

Victor Knoop from TU Delft Visits Cal Poly

We were very pleased to welcome Dr. Victor Knoop, Assistant Professor from the Department of Transport and Planning at the Delft University of Technology to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo today! Victor presented his research on lane changing to students in CE 528 Transportation Economics and Analysis. I was honored that Victor was my first visitor! We had a great presentation and discussion of lane changing in today's traffic management strategies as well as we transition to further automation and connectivity in transportation.

Peter DeFazio Transportation Hall of Fame Award

It was a great honor to receive the Peter DeFazio Transportation Hall of Fame Award on September 15, 2014 from the Oregon Transportation Research and Education Consortium (OTREC). Past recipients included: Dick Feeney, Stefano Viggiano, Gail Achterman, Andy Cotugno and Bruce Starr. The award is shared with students, predecessors, colleagues, supporters, agency colleagues and many others. I know that OTREC will continue to be at the forefront of innovative and collaborative multimodal transportation research and education!