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Join us on Wednesday March 13th (postponed from March 6th due to weather) to network and listen to presentations on Red/Purple Line Simulation and Montgomery County Traffic Signal Priority. Click here for more details.
Sign up for the ITE Virtual Leadership Summit, to be held from February 19th to the 20th! itestudentleaders.org Early Bird Deadline is February 5th. Registration is $10 for students, $25 for professionals, and $50 for Read more…
WDCSITE’s DC Area Director Sogand Karbalaieali recently went on the Fun with Maryland STEM Festival Podcast to talk about careers in the transportation industry. Check out the podcast in the link below! Fun with the Read more…
Check out the new job opportunities posted on the Job Opportunities page! Montgomery County Department of Transportation is looking for a Capital Projects Manager. If you are interested in posting an opening at your firm, please reach out Read more…
This talk will wind its way from Plato’s Allegory of the Cave to navigating a path to an equitable and accessible autonomous vehicle (AV) transportation network. Safety is a priority, but it should not be the only one. In our enthusiasm to move our transportation system forward, we sometimes neglect the needs of particular populations and even the perspectives of the clear majority of road users. The presentation will discuss the transportation system we have now, the status of our AV-related legal rules and preparations, examples of equitable transportation service models, and the work ahead to ensure accessibility and equity in our future AV transportation network.
Sheryl Gross-Glaser is a writer at Driverless Revolution and a consultant specializing in the accessible and equitable mobility issues. She was the founding director of the National Center for Applied Transit Technology, a federally-funded technical assistance center that supports states and small urban and rural transit agencies to plan for and adopt emerging technologies and transportation services. Ms. Gross-Glaser is a specialist in the development of automated vehicles, shared-use services, and aspects of transportation access for people with disabilities and older adults. She has written and presented around the country about automated vehicles, with in-depth discussion of legislation, regulation, business models, and accessibility and equity.
Ms. Gross-Glaser previously performed technical assistance, outreach, website development, and newsletter editing for the National Center for Mobility Management (NCMM), the Transit Planning 4 All project, and the National Resource Center for Human Service Transportation Coordination. Ms. Gross-Glaser has served on national research, standards, and legal committees, including many that address automated vehicles. Her previous career was in criminal justice, first as a criminal public defender at the appellate level and then as a managing editor of criminal defense publications that examined issues ranging from the death penalty to drug courts to DNA evidence.
New transportation technologies and shared mobility systems have not only disrupted the market but also revolutionized the way mobility is perceived. In order to build more accessible and sustainable future, it is important to investigate how shared mobility is being used, and how socio-demographic and health factors affect users’ behaviors and usage likelihoods. Specifically, a few different modes that include bike-sharing, ride-sourcing, shared automated vehicles (SAVs), and peer-to-peer (P2P) carsharing were evaluated to gain more insights into the heterogeneity of their users. This work applied data-driven analysis to understand perception, adoption, usage, and concerns of emerging technologies and shared mobility. Additionally, the relationship between health and transportation was examined and it was determined how health-related variables impact transportation decisions on an individual level
Natalia Barbour (she/her) is an Assistant Professor of transport and energy at Delft University of Technology and Research Affiliate at MIT. Her research focuses on developing statistical and econometric models to study adoption and usage patterns of new transportation systems and study travel related behaviors and preferences. In the final years of her doctorate she received the outstanding student of the year award and best dissertation award from CTECH at Cornell University. In 2019 she was honored to join NYU’s cohort of Emerging Leaders in Transportation. She holds a doctorate in civil engineering from the University of South Florida and completed her postdoctoral training at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The reauthorization of the FAST Act expires in 2021. The FAST Act built upon the previous surface transportation legislation, MAP-21, which was passed in 2012, with minimal changes to the novel MAP-21 requirements for State DOTs and MPOs to begin to utilize quantitative performance measures in the Transportation Planning process. Existing legislation states that consistent performance measurement should help monitor system and agency performance and relate performance to the decision-making process over time. Thus, the next surface transportation authorization should build upon the MAP-21/FAST Act performance measure requirements while maintaining standards to collect and report uniform data. Updating performance measures can support the incoming administration’s focus on climate and energy and further leverage the progress made at the state and regional levels.
This presentation will show results of a 2018 study on how MPOs responded, if at all, to the changes in transportation planning requirements set forth in MAP-21 regarding performance measure development; the effect of Federal mandates; available and desired resources; and data utilization in the planning process. It will then review recent plans and bills from congress and executive branch leaders and present priorities and recommendations for the next federal surface transportation authorization. Lessons learned from this research can inform future efforts to develop and refine performance measures in the transportation planning process.
Alice is currently a Science and Technology Policy Fellow with the American Association for the Advancement of Science working with Social Scientists at NOAA to further the use of Social Data for portfolio analysis and program planning, management, and evaluation.
Prior to her AAAS Fellowship, Alice was a Senior Policy Analyst at the Eno Center for Transportation, an independent non-profit think tank in Washington DC. In that capacity, she managed projects and conducted research in various areas of multimodal transportation with a focus on research relating to vehicle automation, transportation technology platforms, and performance measurement. During her graduate studies at the Georgia Institute of Technology she led and supported projects on performance measure development, electronic travel diaries, active transportation safety, and pedestrian infrastructure asset management and accessibility for people with disabilities.
Alice has also worked with the Pritzker award winning Catalan Architecture firm RCR Arquitectes, as well as with the South Pole Telescope Group at the University of Chicago. She believes strongly in interdisciplinary learning and exchange, and in the importance of diversity in thought, experience, and background.
Alice completed her B.A. at Vassar College in Physics and Astronomy, and her Ph.D. at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Civil Engineering. She is an active member of both the Pedestrian Committee and the Transit Management and Performance Committee of the Transportation Research Board and was named one of Mass Transit’s 40 Under 40 for 2020.