November 8, 2019
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November 7-8, 2019

The Traffic21 Institute celebrated its 10-Year Anniversary with a two-day Symposium at Carnegie Mellon University.  The symposium brought together expert panelists, keynote speakers and participants from industry, academia and government to discuss emerging transportation technology and deployment. Read the full recap >>>

November 1, 2019
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November 1, 2019

Mobility21 UTC Executive Director, Stan Caldwell, participated in the Girls of Steel Robotics Program at the CMU Robotics Institute. Caldwell worked with young women grades 4 to 8 who are interested in learning how to improve public transportation.  Their project is a part of the FIRST LEGO League City Shaper challenge.

October 29, 2019
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October 29, 2019

The US DOT’s Access and Mobility for All Summit, hosted by Secterary Chao featured Mobility21 UTC Faculty developed app, PedPal, in a technology showcase.  PedPal  assists mobility impaired pedestrians in crossing signalized intersections. UTC Faculty Steve Smith and Aaron Steinfeld were in attendance.  Both faculty are using their research to aid people with disabilities move around their cities easier.

October 29, 2019
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October 29, 2019

UTC Faculty and Director of the Mobility Data Analytics Center at CMU, Sean  Qian, was interviewed by WPXI this morning for an upcoming story on the Smart Mobility Challenge project with the Airport Corridor Transportation Association.  Stay tuned for the interview.

October 25, 2019
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October 25, 2019

CMU News featured the history, accomplishments and partnerships of Traffic21 and Surtrac technology in a new article. The article highlights quotes from Mayor Peduto, Traffic21’s Stan Caldwell, and Mobility21 faculty, Steve Smith. Read how it all started here.

October 23, 2019
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October 23, 2019

NOVA is the most-watched prime time science series on American television, reaching an average of five million viewers weekly and on 10/23/2019, it featured Mobility21’s Director, Raj Rajkumar. The episode has a look at self-driving cars taking to the streets, investigates how they work, and if they are safe. Watch the full episode here.

October 21, 2019
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October 21, 2019

Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Webinar Series featured “The Future of Autonomous Vehicles is Running Through Pittsburgh” led by Robert T. Monroe, Teaching Professor of Business Technologies. During this session, Monroe walks attendees through the perspectives and developments in the space. You can watch the full webinar here.

October 18, 2019
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October 18, 2019

The American Scientist article “Bargain-Hunting Robocars Could Spell the End for Downtown Parking” was authored by Mobility21 Researchers, Corey Harper and Costa Samaras. Read the full article on how  AVs can help diminish parking troubles here.

October 18, 2019
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October 18, 2019

In fall 2019, Metro21: Smart Cities Institute, Mobility21 partner, teamed up with the Policy Innovation Lab, a new initiative at CMU’s Heinz College to offer a new course. Co-taught by Professor Christopher Goranson and Metro21 Executive Director, Karen Lightman, students investigated smart city policy, including intelligent transportation systems, using technology to predict landslides and smart traffic signal implementation challenges across different municipalities around the world. The Policy Innovation Lab is based on the premise of user-centered research through human-centered design. The goal is to connect students with actual policy challenges and through an agile, design-driven framework to rapidly create solutions to those challenges.

October 15, 2019
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October 15, 2019

Mobility21 Program Manager, Lisa Kay Schweyer, moderated “Transit and Metropolitan Planning Organizations: Partners in Regional Decision Making” session at the  American Public Transportation Association’s TRANSform Conference in New York City.

September 30, 2019
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In June, the Mobility21 UTC welcomed Tessa Guengerich as part of the CMU Robotics Institute Summer Scholars (RISS) program. By the end of August, she was offered a job as a Robotics Engineer and began working for Carnegie Mellon University at the National Robotics Engineering Center.

During the spring, Tessa was an undergraduate student at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology.  She graduated with her bachelor’s in chemical engineering in May and arrived in Pittsburgh for the summer program hoping to learn more about machine learning, programming and the implementation of robots outside of academia. Tessa was a part of the 2018 RISS cohort and said she was excited to return to Pittsburgh. She was eager to learn more about things she wasn’t exposed to before (computational statistics and machine learning) and was also excited to be surrounded by other students from around the world.

Carnegie Mellon’s RISS Program is an eleven-week summer (June 1 to mid-August) undergraduate research program that immerses a diverse cohort of scholars in cutting-edge robotics projects that drive innovation and have real-world impact. Launched in 2006, RISS is among the best and most comprehensive robotics research programs for undergraduates in the world.

As she explains, “On the Mat Sinking project with RISS mentor Isaac Isukapati, Project Scientist, at CMU’s NREC: National Robotics Engineering Center, I’m learning a lot about computational statistics and algorithms, and I’m coding in C++ for the first time. I’ve faced a bit of a learning curve, but it’s a challenge I’ve been able to face thus far. The overall project is to write a scheduling program for robotic arms performing specific tasks — for example, given X robotic arms and Y objects, what’s the best course of action for the robotic arms to move those objects safely and efficiently? My contribution to the project is to write a statistical simulator to test the performance of the scheduler with a specific set of parameters, to see where the scheduler performs well and where it fails.”

By the end of the summer RISS experience, she had been encouraged to apply for a job at the National Robotics Engineering Center. She was hired on as a full-time Robotics Engineer and is now continuing her work on the Mat Sinking Project.

Before beginning her summer RISS program Tessa was unsure what her next steps would be. She says she is thrilled to be in Pittsburgh. She loves the people in Pittsburgh, noting everyone is super friendly. Tessa said everyone at her new job has been supportive and helping her get acclimated.

September 16, 2019
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September 16, 2019

Mobility21 UTC Faculty, Sean Qian, is developing a cyber-physical-social system that lets cities leverage the platform of ride-hailing companies in order to provide benefits for everyone in the transportation system. Qian will partner with the University of Pittsburgh and the City of Pittsburgh on this research, which is being funded by the National Science Foundation. Learn more here.

September 1, 2019
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September 1, 2019

Mobility21 UTC Researcher, Sean Qian, is leading an interdisciplinary team from Carnegie Mellon University as they attempt to address rural transportation in Southwestern Pennsylvania’s Greene County.  The team includes Traffic21 Director, Chris Hendrickson, UTC Researcher, Costa Samaras and Metro21: Smart Cities Institute Director Karen Lightman.

Working in collaboration with Greene County and Waynesburg University, the team from Carnegie Mellon University will test an innovative rural county mobility platform, with the ultimate goal that it can be replicated in other rural counties.

Sean Qian says this project has “the potential to advance the fundamental knowledge of how energy-efficient, affordable mobility services can work in rural America.”

August 28, 2019
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August 28, 2019

Mobilty21 UTC researchers Sean Qian and Stan Caldwell visited Butler County to meet with Commissioners Leslie Osche, Kim Geyer and county transportation officials to discuss transportation research and technology and explore potential collaboration.

August 15, 2019
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August 15, 2019

Mobility21 Executive Director, Stan Caldwell, led a class entitled “Smart Transportation: Issues of Equity” for the The Public Policy and International Affairs Program (PPIA) students during Summer 2019. The classes featured UTC researchers who presented on different topics of intelligent transportation systems (ITS).  The class was able to develop hands on experience of ITS concepts by applying them to a group project with the Port Authority of Allegheny County.

July 29, 2019
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July 29, 2019

The Pittsburgh Technology Council initiative, Tech 50, is an awards program that honors and recognizes the top-fifty member companies of the Pittsburgh Technology Council, across technology-focused industries – and Mobility21 is having an impact. Rapid Flow Technologies, a spin-off of CMU, utilizing Surtrac technology that was funded by Mobility21 is nominee for Start-up of the Year. Additionally, Mark DeSantis, CEO of RoadBotics has been nominated has CEO of the Year. RoadBotics spun-out of CMU with technology that predicts potholes and other flaws in infrastructure though smartphones and artificial intelligence.

July 5, 2019
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July 2019

Mobility21 funded research Scalable Urban Traffic Control (Surtrac) was featured in the July edition of Ethical Corporation Magazine. The article describes how cities like Pittsburgh are using the technology to improve vehicle flow, reduce engine idling and cut carbon emissions. Read the full article (starting on page 13).  

June 17, 2019
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June 17, 2019

Mobility21’s Executive Director, Stan Caldwell, presented a workshop entitled “Pittsburgh’s Evolution as a Smart Transportation Testbed” at the Pennsylvania Society of Professional Engineers Bootcamp West. The bootcamps are designed for licensed engineers to gain a broad range of knowledge and make connections with experienced professionals.

June 5, 2019
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June 5, 2019

Maryn Weimer, Director of Mobility & Senior Associate Director of the Ohio State University’s Center for Automotive Research participated in meetings with Congressional offices with representative leaders from TRC, COTA, the Columbus Partnership, and DriveOhio.  The group met with Senator Brown, and Representatives Stivers, Beatty, Balderson, and Jordan.  The purpose of the meetings was discuss various mobility projects and programs.

June 4, 2019
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June 4-7, 2019

ITS America held their annual meeting in Washington D.C. entitled “Intelligent Mobility: Safer. Greener. Smarter.” Mobility21 Executive Director, Stan Caldwell, was there representing Mobility21 UTC research efforts. UTC spin-off, Rapid Flow Technologies, was an exhibitor, to showcase their Surtrac technology.

June 3, 2019
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June 3, 2019

Mobility21 UTC researcher, Steve Smith participated in a panel at the Traffic Safety and the 5.9 GHz Band Conference in Washington D.C. along with the U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology, Diana Furchtgott-Roth. The purpose of the panel was to provide examples of  Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) Communications deployment.  Professor Smith highlighted research deployed in Pittsburgh connecting blind pedestrians to smart traffic signals.

June 1, 2019
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June 1, 2019

Bob Koch from the Community College of Alleghey County visited the Western Area Career and Technology Center to discuss the career opportunities available in the transportation industry with their students.  The class, led by Koch, also discussed the impact these new technologies could have on the economy, and how do they see it impacting those living in a rural environment.

May 30, 2019
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May 30, 2019

Venkat Viswanathan, Assistant Professor at Carnegie Mellon University and UTC funded faculty received a 2019 Young Investigator Award from the Office of Naval Research to research how to improve battery safety in low temperatures. Learn more about the award recipients here.

May 29, 2019
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May 29, 2019

Mobility21 Executive Director Stan Caldwell and UTC Researcher, Christoph Mertz led Comcast’s Heartland Regional Team on a tour of CMU’s NavLab. The Comcast leadership was interested in learning more about the research, development and deployment of Mobility21-led research in the region.

May 19, 2019
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May 21, 2019

Stan Caldwell, Mobility21’s Executive Director, sat down with Ken Dunlap, Managing Partner of Catalyst-Go, a company that specializes in the autonomous technologies industries, to discuss urban mobility in their latest podcast.

The podcast entitled ““Key Lessons in Urban Mobility” explores a wide variety of topics, including how Pittsburgh has transitioned from an industrial city to one that competes with Silicon Valley for companies and talent.

Ken and Stan discuss the role of Traffic21 and Mobility21 in the transformation of Pittsburgh including the model of using seed funding from partners to develop, research and deploy technology in the city. Stan discusses how the formula has led to successful university-government partnerships and how these partnerships are helping the mobility of the greater Pittsburgh region and subsequently nation-wide.

The podcast then shifts gears to discuss the whole picture of Mobility21 and how the transportation center and the future of transportation is not simply about automation but rather using new urban mobility technologies to ensure that all, not just some, communities benefit. Stan describes the difference between Pennsylvania’s approach to automation and policy compared to states like California – and how Pennsylvania’s might be a better recipe for success.

Listen to the podcast to hear Stan share the lessons he and his Mobility21 colleagues have learned and are learning while research, developing and deploying technology in mobility:  https://www.catalyst-go.com/thinkingthroughautonomy/2019/5/24/stan-caldwell-lessons-in-urban-mobility.