November 29, 2022
Posted in What's Happening

November 29, 2022

Mobility21 UTC researcher Dr. Destenie Nock, alongside her Ph.D. student Shuchen Cong, have announced the launch of their new CMU spin-out company, Peoples Energy Analytics.  The company focuses on energy poverty and data analysis, with a mission of modernizing the way the energy industry supports their customers by using a combination of smart meter energy usage analysis, surveys, and engineering models to achieve this goal.

November 23, 2022
Posted in What's Happening

November 23, 2022

Mobility21 UTC researcher and Carnegie Mellon University Civil & Engineering Associate Professor Pingbo Tang is leading an effort to create sustainable smart cities through collaboration and research with his pilot software, Mega City 2070, which allows users to become immersed in a realistic 3D model of a city home to 50 million people in 2070.

November 16, 2021
Posted in What's Happening

Carnegie Mellon University’s Traffic21 and the Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy announce the dates for the 2022 executive education program, “Managing AI in Transportation.”  The virtual session will be held May 2 – 6, 2022.

The program was developed by the experts at Heinz College’s Traffic21 Institute to explore critical areas that are required for breaking down public and private organizational barriers and understanding how managing AI can benefit key stakeholders throughout the transportation industry.

“Since Traffic21’s founding more than 10 years ago, we have seen firsthand the various ways AI is impacting and improving transportation,” said Stan Caldwell, Executive Director of Traffic21.  “From asset management to automated vehicles, the use of AI is transforming transportation sector, and we are pleased to have the opportunity to share what we have learned with both public and private sector managers to leverage the power of this technology and mitigate its risk.”

Participants in the program will explore the impact of disruptive technology on transportation; AI in traffic control devices; AI in connected and autonomous vehicles; the role of AI in predictive analytics; AI in transportation asset management; the equitable application of AI for safe and efficient transportation; and how to develop and implement an enterprise AI strategy.

The first program cohort competed the course in May 2021.   One participant reflected, “As a company, we’re always looking for ways to use new technologies to make our business better.  Better understanding what AI can and can’t do, what it needs to succeed, and ways of thinking about problems using an AI ‘lens’ will all be long term beneficial.”

Learn more about the session and sign up here.

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ABOUT CMU HEINZ COLLEGE

The Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy is home to two internationally recognized gradu­ate-level institutions at CMU: The School of Information Systems and Management and the School of Public Pol­icy and Management. This unique colocation combined with its expertise in analytics set Heinz College apart in the areas of cybersecurity, healthcare, the future of work, smart cities, and arts & entertainment.

ABOUT TRAFFIC21

Traffic21 is a multi-disciplinary research institute of Carnegie Mellon University. Its goal is to design, test, deploy, and evaluate information and communications technology-based solutions to address the problems facing the transportation system of the Pittsburgh region and the nation. Housed within the institute is the US DOT funded, Mobility21 National University Transportation Center.

The Pittsburgh region serves as a “learning lab,” deploying solutions that can be applied around the nation and the globe. Traffic21 leverages Carnegie Mellon’s leadership in relevant areas such as intelligent transportation systems, smart infrastructure, cyber security, human factors, artificial intelligence, data analytics, and connected and automated vehicles.

May 28, 2021
Posted in What's Happening

The week of May 3, 2021, the first cohort of students attended the Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy’s new executive education program focusing on the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in the transportation industry. The inaugural cohort included representatives of government, non-profit, industry and association leaders.

The new program, “Managing AI in Transportation,” was developed by the experts at Heinz College’s Traffic21 Institute to explore critical areas that are required for breaking down public and private organizational barriers and understanding how managing AI can benefit key stakeholders throughout the transportation industry.

“We were excited to offer this new program to our already strong roster of executive education,” said David Ulicne, Senior Director of Heinz College Executive Education. “As the transportation industry continues to rapidly evolve, and the influence of AI in the field continues to grow, this new program will provide managers the opportunity to expand their knowledge and keep pace with the latest technological advancements.”

Participants explored the impact of disruptive technology on transportation; AI in traffic control devices; AI in connected and autonomous vehicles; the role of AI in predictive analytics; AI in transportation asset management; the equitable application of AI for safe and efficient transportation; and how to develop and implement an enterprise AI strategy.

One participant reflected, “As a company, we’re always looking for ways to use new technologies to make our business better.  Better understanding what AI can and can’t do, what it needs to succeed, and ways of thinking about problems using an AI “lens” will all be long term beneficial.”

“Since Traffic21’s founding more than 10 years ago, we have seen firsthand the various ways AI is impacting and improving transportation,” said Stan Caldwell, Executive Director of Traffic21.  “From asset management  to automated vehicles, the use of AI is transforming transportation sector, and we are pleased to have the opportunity to share what we have learned with both public and private sector managers to leverage the power of this technology and mitigate its risk.”

Plans are already underway for the 2022 class.  Contact Mobility21 UTC Program Manager, Lisa Kay Schweyer to learn more.

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The bootcamp’s detailed agenda included:

Session 1: Overview of Technology and AI Impacts in Transportation Today

• Application examples
• Risks and benefits
• Policy implications

Session 2: AI in Traffic Control Devices

• History, current status, future trends in devices
• The role of AI in improving traffic control devices
• Traffic control device optimization with increased IOT connections

Session 3: AI in Connected/Autonomous Vehicles

• History, current status, future trends of AV
• Societal impact of AV (safety, environment)
• Technology/policy risks of CAVs

Session 4: AI and Predictive Analytics: How to Make Better Decisions with Transportation Data

• AI enablement for improved decisions
• Analytics use cases
• Data sharing to modify behavior patterns

Session 5: AI in Transportation Asset Management

• Use cases for AI in asset management
• Optimization best practices
• How to achieve desired cost efficiencies

Session 6: Equitably Applying AI for Safe and Efficient Transportation

• AI approaches to improve mobility and access
• Misuse and/or negative impact of AI to mobility
• Ethical issues of AI

Session 7: Developing and Implementing an Enterprise AI Strategy

• Enterprise AI strategy components
• Key stakeholders needed
• How to build AI capability and find talent

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ABOUT CMU HEINZ COLLEGE

The Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy is home to two internationally recognized gradu­ate-level institutions at CMU: The School of Information Systems and Management and the School of Public Pol­icy and Management. This unique colocation combined with its expertise in analytics set Heinz College apart in the areas of cybersecurity, healthcare, the future of work, smart cities, and arts & entertainment.

ABOUT TRAFFIC21

Traffic21 is a multi-disciplinary research institute of Carnegie Mellon University. Its goal is to design, test, deploy, and evaluate information and communications technology-based solutions to address the problems facing the transportation system of the Pittsburgh region and the nation. Housed within the institute is the US DOT funded, Mobility21 National University Transportation Center.

The Pittsburgh region serves as a “learning lab,” deploying solutions that can be applied around the nation and the globe. Traffic21 leverages Carnegie Mellon’s leadership in relevant areas such as intelligent transportation systems, smart infrastructure, cyber security, human factors, artificial intelligence, data analytics, and connected and automated vehicles.

March 26, 2020
Posted in What's Happening

March 25, 2020

Mobility21 Researchers Sean Qian and Stan Caldwell joined University of Pittsburgh Professor Alexandros Labrinidis on an Intelligent Transportation Systems panel for a joint Carnegie Mellon/University of Pittsburgh “Smart City and Technology” undergraduate mini-course.  The class is typically held on Saturdays, but the panelists recorded their session to comply with social distancing.

November 7, 2019
Posted in What's Happening

November 7, 2019

A talented group of national leaders attended the Carnegie Mellon University Traffic21 Institute and Mobility21 National University Transportation Center (UTC) Advisory Council meeting, held on CMU’s campus today.

Mobility21 UTC Director, Raj Rajkumar and Traffic21 Director, Chris Hendrickson welcomed the group, and provided an overview of update of activities and plans at the centers.  The day continued with a discussion on technology transfer and plans for the upcoming National UTC Mobility Summit scheduled to be held in Washington, DC on April 2, 2020.

Throughout the meeting Advisory Council members shared their expertise and ideas on workforce demand, technology trends, research needs,  and new funding opportunities to advance the missions of Traffic21 and Mobility21.

# # #

The Mobility21 team is a tight collaboration among Carnegie Mellon University (Lead), the University of Pennsylvania, the Ohio State University and the Community College of Allegheny County, and brings to bear the reach and scale of all four institutions.

Tackling the multi-faceted nature of Traffic21 and Mobility21 objectives requires coordinated research, education, workforce development and technology transfer.  This work is supported by researchers spanning multiple disciplines such as engineering, computer science and robotics, public policy, urban design, information systems and data analytics.

The distinguished Advisory Council of national leaders provides strategic guidance and counsel.  Advisory Council members include:

• Raymond T. Betler, former President and CEO of Wabtec Corporation
• Rebecca M. Brewster, President and Chief Operating Officer of the American Transportation Research Institute
• Robin Chase, Co-founder Zipcar, Veniam, NUMo
• Ty Gourley, Vice President of the Hillman Family Foundations
• Charles L. Hammel III, President and owner, PITT OHIO Express
• Ashley Hand, Co-founder CityFi; formerly Transportation Technology Strategist Fellow for Los Angeles
• Katharine Kelleman, Chief Executive Officer at Port Authority of Allegheny County
• Jane Lappin, Director, Public Policy & Government Affairs, Toyota Research Institute
• Ken McLeod, Policy Director at The League of American Bicyclist
• James A. Misener, Senior Director, Technical Standards at Qualcomm
• Leslie Richards, Secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation
• David Roger, President of the Hillman Family Foundations
• Paul Skoutelas, President and Chief Executive Officer of The American Public Transportation Association
• Kirk Steudle, Senior Vice President of the Econolite Transportation Systems Group and subsidiary CAVita, and former Director of Michigan Department of Transportation

Learn more about the Advisory Council members here.

The next in person meeting of the Advisory Council will be in November 2020.

July 9, 2019
Posted in What's Happening

July 2019

Chris Hendrickson, Director of CMU’s Traffic21 Institute and Larry Rilett, Professor of Civil Engineering, at the Univ. of Nebraska share their know-how with other researchers in the article “What Papers Does the Journal of Transportation Engineering Want?” Read the article here: Journal of Transportation Engineering, Part A: Systems / Volume 145 Issue 9 – September 2019.

June 5, 2019
Posted in What's Happening

Lisa Kay Schweyer, Program Manager for the Mobility21 UTC, served as a judge for the International Association of Transportation Regulators (a non-profit educational organization comprised of government transportation professionals) for their 4th Annual Hack-A-Thon competition. The proposals being judged included solutions to problems and innovative multi-modal mobility service and safety enhancements to promote the guiding principles set forth by the city of Calgary.

May 8, 2019
Posted in What's Happening

May 8, 2019

Mobility21 Executive Director, Stan Caldwell, presented an overview of Mobility21 activities and research to the Young Presidents Forum (YPO). The YPO is a global organization where members meet with innovative and influential business leaders with the goal of inspiring business, personal and community impact.

May 7, 2019
Posted in What's Happening

May 7, 2019

Mobility21 Executive Director, Stan Caldwell, advised the The Heinz College Capstone project with Amtrak entitled “Improving Intercity Rail Data Analytics”.  Today, the capstone project team presented their project results, which included their examination of a variety of data sources to develop a data-driven model for identifying and marketing to new customers.

May 2, 2019
Posted in What's Happening

May 2, 2019

Mobility21 Program Manager, Lisa Kay Schweyer, Metro21 Executive Director, Karen Lightman, and City of Pittsburgh’s Department of Mobility and Infrastructure Assistant Director, Alex Pazuchanics, joined the Colorado Springs Regional Leaders to provide an overview of the public-private partnership between CMU and the City of Pittsburgh.

May 1, 2019
Posted in What's Happening

May 1, 2019

The Mid-Atlantic Section of the Institute of Transportation Engineers (MASITE) hosted their Western Area Luncheon Seminar Series entitled “The Black and Yellow Brick Road: Transportation Research & New Mobility in Pittsburgh” in Pittsburgh. There were more than 60 people in attendance for the event where Lisa Kay Schweyer, Mobility21 Program Manager and Allante’ Whitmore, Mobility21 Diversity Fellow were the keynote speakers.

May 1, 2019
Posted in What's Happening

May 1, 2019

Mobility21 welcomed Colorado Springs Chamber & Economic Development Corporation and their regional leaders to the City of Pittsburgh. The regional leader Leaders in Science & Technology visited Carnegie Mellon University’s NavLab where Traffic21 Executive Director, Stan Caldwell, led a discussion about how our Smart Cities Institutes manage relationships between external partners and researchers.

April 15, 2019
Posted in What's Happening

April 15, 2019

Erick Guerra, UTC Faculty and Assistant Professor in City and Regional Planning in the School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania, was an advisor for The Vision Zero Toolbox in Philadelphia project. The project aims to help decision-makers at the local level prioritize initiatives and projects which will achieve the greatest traffic safety benefit and ensure the success of Vision Zero Philadelphia.

April 9, 2019
Posted in What's Happening

April 9, 2019

Bob Koch, UTC Faculty and Community College of Allegheny County Professor of Automotive Engineering, hosted students from the Butler County Area Vocational-Technical High School automotive program.  Bob engaged the students in discussions about career opportunities for automotive technicians and included technician training with Intelligent Transportation, Connected Vehicles, EV and PHEV’s, Data Analytics and Cyber Security and how they relate to transportation industry.

April 8, 2019
Posted in What's Happening

April 8, 2019

CMU’s Traffic21 and Robotics Institute Summer Scholars Program have partnered to provide talented undergraduate students mentored robotics research experiences with top scientists creating innovative solutions for transportation at Carnegie Mellon University.

Stephanie Milani, the recipient of the 2017 Women in Transportation Award funded by Traffic21, is joining the CMU Machine Learning Ph.D. program in fall 2019.

The Traffic21 scholarship enabled Stephanie to learn about computer vision and deep learning while working with Dr. Christoph Mertz. Stephanie explained how important this was in her trajectory and growth, “Before RISS, I was unfamiliar with robotics research. Through the various programs and events, RISS provides a great, overarching view of the interdisciplinary nature of robotics research, but simultaneously allows scholars to dive deeply into an area through their summer research.”

Investing in early research experiences creates an enormous impact and opportunity for new solutions and approaches that will make our communities smarter and more livable.

Congratulations Stephanie!

April 5, 2019
Posted in What's Happening

April 5, 2019

Industry, government and campus partners attended The Ohio State Center for Automotive Research (CAR) semiannual External Advisory Board meeting. The meeting opened with a state of the center presentation by CAR Director, Giorgio Rizzoni who shared research and facility updates with the audience.  In addition, faculty and researchers from across Ohio State presented on their work related to safety and cybersecurity, showing just how far reaching this topic is and the variety of work being done in this space all across campus. Learn more here.

April 5, 2019
Posted in What's Happening

April 5, 2019

A delegation from Italy traveled to Pennsylvania to learn more about policy, mobility technology and the modernization of train/rail travel. The organization that came to CMU was “Ditecfer” District for Rail Technologies, High Speed, Safety and Security based in Pistoia, Italy. Tuscany is the leading cluster for innovative rail technologies in Italy. This organization considers the U.S. as their top priority for international collaboration and because both countries have significant railway supply chains based on SMEs and important integrations that can be built in the railway sector, they have identified Pittsburgh as a prime opportunity. Executive Director, Stan Caldwell, presented the RD&D from Mobility21.

April 1, 2019
Posted in What's Happening

Mobility21 UTC Researcher & CMU Associate Research Professor Aaron Steinfeld  helped contribute to the new whitepaper on “Driverless Cars and Accessibility” published by ITS America, which examines the opportunities around fully automated vehicles: when they begin to be deployed in significant numbers, they will offer the potential to usher in enormous positive changes.  The white paper can be downloaded now: http://www.itsa.org/s/ITSAmerica_Driverless-Cars-Accessiblity-Mobility_April2019.pdf.

March 25, 2019
Posted in What's Happening

March 25, 2019

Mobility21 Executive Director, Stan Caldwell, in collaboration with UTC Faculty Steve Quick, hosted the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) Driverless Studio from Chicago. The team traveled to Pittsburgh to learn more about how the City and CMU are using design to strategically implement new technologies and designs around autonomous vehicles.

March 19, 2019
Posted in What's Happening

March 19, 2019

The UTC Faculty meetings give researchers the opportunity to highlight their Mobility21 projects progress. This month featured CMU Researcher, Fei Fang with her work “Incentivizing Participation in Peer-to-Peer Ride-Sharing Platform”. Fang highlighted her recent work on scheduling and pricing ridesharing.

March 6, 2019
Posted in What's Happening

March 6, 2019

Mobility21 Elsie Hillman Scholar, Teresa Leatherow, organized the Sustainability and Transportation:  Building the Systems of Tomorrow event as her final deliverable for her research with Mobility21. The event featured panelists from the City of Pittsburgh and the University of Pittsburgh who discussed challenges, progress and the future of sustainable transportation.

March 1, 2019
Posted in What's Happening

March 1, 2019

Bosch hosted a “Curbside Management Ideation Event” at Carnegie Mellon University.  Over 25 students signed up to participate.

The event kicked off at 8:30 am with “Welcome’s and Introductions” by Sylvia Vogt from Carnegie Bosch Institute and Oliver Steinig, VP Business Development and Corporate Strategy Americas at Robert Bosc.  Karina Ricks, Director of Mobility and Infrastructure from the City of Pittsburgh then shared with the participants the importance of curbside management and Pittsburgh’s specific challenges:

• Geographically challenged roadway network with congested, narrow avenues
• Congestion compounded by transit stops, parallel parking, and commuter traffic
• Competition amongst various modes and users for curb space
• Lack of universal value for curb access and allocation
• Lack of real time curbside utilization rates

The students were assigned to one of four teams.  And after the teams received their instructions on how to conceptualize solutions to Pittsburgh mobility challenges by leveraging Bosch strengths in Video as Sensor, the students quickly got started. An observation from the VP Business Development and Corporate Strategy Americas at Bosch, Oliver Steinig was how diligently the students worked, even choosing to eat lunch with their teams to continue working on their curbside management ideas.

At the end of the day, the students’ hard work paid off. Each team presented solutions that combined Bosch sensors, sensible technology and pragmatic policy changes.

Mobility21 and Metro21 helped promote the event and engage students and were on hand for the day’s activities.

The Curbside Ideation event is an example of how industry, government, and academia can come together to create real solutions to real world problems.

February 23, 2019
Posted in What's Happening

February 23, 2019

Mobility21 Executive Director, Stan Caldwell, was a guest lecturer in Heinz College course on Food Insecurity and discussed the mobility challenges getting people to food or getting food to people in poor rural communities.  The course is led by both Carnegie Mellon University and Waynesburg University.

February 22, 2019
Posted in What's Happening

February 22, 2019

Today’s Smart Mobility Connection featured Chris Hendrickson, Director of Traffic21.  Based upon the National Academy of Science, Engineering and Medicine’s study ‘Renewing the National Commitment to the Interstate Highway System: A Foundation for the Future’ Hendrickson led us through a look back at the impacts and innovations of the Interstate Highway System, including engineering, financing and planning challenges.  Read the study here.  Watch the seminar here.