February 10, 2023
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February 10, 2023

Today’s Smart Mobility Connection session featured Mobility21 UTC researcher Rahul Mangharam.  He discussed his new University of Pennsylvania course, “Tiny Machine Learning.”  Watch the recording here.

January 12, 2023
Posted in What's Happening

January 12, 2023

Mobility21 academic partner and UTC researcher Rahul Mangharam is offering a new hands-on first course in machine learning at the University of Pennsylvania, ESE3600 TinyML – Tiny Machine Learning.  Watch the course overview video here, or visit the course website for more information.

January 12, 2023
Posted in What's Happening

January 12, 2023

Mobility21 UTC academic partner University of Pennsylvania researchers and students participated in lectern and poster sessions throughout the 2023 TRB Annual Meeting in Washington, DC including:

Poster Sessions:

• • • Investigating the Recovery of For-Hire-Vehicle, Taxi, and AirTrain at Two New York City Airports During the COVID-19 Pandemic – Xiaoxia Dong, Erick Guerra, Megan Ryerson
    • Mobility Disparities in Access to Early Licensure for Teens: Toward a Definition of Driving Training Deserts – Megan Ryerson, Jasmine Siyu Wu, Xiaoxia Dong

Lectern Sessions:

• • • Is Automobile Congestion a Useful Measure of Transportation Performance? An Oxford-Style Debate – Megan Ryerson
    • Barriers and Facilitators to Participant Recruitment in Clinical Trials Involving Young Drivers and Their Parents – Thandwa Mdluli, Nicole Frager, Andrew Weiss, Catherine McDonald

January 6, 2023
Posted in What's Happening

January 5, 2023

University of Pennsylvania Mobility21 researcher Rahul Mangharam is kicking off 2023 as a new Board Member of The Autoware Foundation.  The foundation is a non-profit organization supporting open-source projects enabling self-driving mobility.

December 20, 2022
Posted in What's Happening

December 20, 2022

Earlier this month, 3 students from the Mobility21 academic partner University of Pennsylvania, were among the awardees at the WTS Philadelphia annual awards program.

• • • • Nata Kovalova, a Master of City Planning Candidate received the Sylvia Alston Scholarship Award
      • Bingchu Chen, Graduate Candidate at Master of City Planning/Master of Urban Spatial Analytics received the Circle of Continuity Award
      • Siyu (Jasmine) Wu, Master of City Planning Candidate received the Vision for Equity Award

“WTS Philadelphia annually offers scholarships to advance the careers of individuals in the transportation industry. We accept scholarship applications from individuals who identify as a woman or gender-minority and are high school, undergraduate, and graduate students interested in pursuing careers in transportation to attract, sustain, connect, and advance individuals’ careers in this demographic in the transportation industry. WTS develops and cultivates the next generation of a diverse and inclusive workforce, from students to professionals, and prepares these individuals to join and champion a more accessible and equitable transportation industry. Scholarships are competitive and based on applicant’s specific transportation goals, academic record, transportation-related activities, and other relevant skills.”

October 7, 2022
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October 7, 2022

Members of the Mobility21 academic partner University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Transportation Club hosted their first guest lecture of the Fall ‘22 semester, where city planner and Penn graduate Robert Ravelli spoke about the intersections of transportation and land use planning. 

June 2, 2022
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June 1, 2022

Mobility21 academic partner University of Pennsylvania researchers Dr. Rahul Mangharam, Dr. Helen Loeb, along with students Xiatao Sun and Zhijie Qiao submitted “Drive Right: Simulator for Safe Autonomous Driving” for the ITS World Congress 2022 video competition.  The 2022 video competition asks the question, “How do you envision disruptive technologies will transform transportation and outcomes for generations leading to greener communities and more resilient systems, increased access and equity, and safer, smarter roads for all?“

May 23, 2022
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May 23, 2022

Mobility21 UTC researchers Rahul Mangharam and Johannes Betz of the Mobility21 academic partner University of Pennsylvania hosted the 2nd Workshop on Opportunities and Challenges with Autonomous Racing, hosted by the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.  The main objective of this workshop was to attract the interest of the robotics community on research challenges specific to high-speed autonomous racing.  Watch all of the workshop sessions here.

March 23, 2022
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March 23, 2022

Mobility21 UTC researcher Megan Ryerson from the University of Pennsylvania joined an expert panel in the field of transportation for a Rail-Volution webinar, “Communicating to a Changing Rider Base.”  The webinar addressed changing ridership patterns and priorities for transit service delivery.

March 12, 2022
Posted in What's Happening

March 10-12, 2022

Mobility21 UTC’s Women in Transportation Fellows Hajra Shahab and Maggie Harger, along with members of the Carnegie Mellon University Transportation Club board, Ken Huang, Brian Hsu and Rajanikant Tenguria  traveled to meet with students from Mobility21’s academic partner, the University of Pennsylvania. The purpose of this visit was to learn about the academics, research activities and build connections with the students at Penn.

During their visit, the students had the opportunity to participate in an exclusive behind the scenes tour of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority’s (SEPTA) regional rail network and office headquarters in downtown Philadelphia. [SEPTA is the regional transit agency for the City of Philadelphia, serving five counties in the Greater Philadelphia area and connecting to transit systems in Delaware and New Jersey. It’s services include regional rail, buses, trolleys, subway and a high-speed line to western suburbs.]

One of the highlights  was touring the SEPTA command center, where employees were planning transportation logistics related to President Biden’s upcoming visit to Philadelphia.

Additionally, students were given a tour of the Stuart Weitzman School of Design and the Fisher Fine Arts Library at Penn.

Of the trip, Ken Huang said, “I really enjoyed meeting students at Penn who were equally interested in public transportation as I am. I also learned a lot from our tour of the SEPTA system and control center. This was a great opportunity to better understand how a large transit agency keeps its daily operations safe and smooth, something that I’ve always thought about as I ride with my local transit agency.”

Rajanikant Tenguria added, “The trip perfectly combined practical learning and the much needed spring break. It was helpful to understand the intricacies of the SEPTA network directly from the headquarters. It was a great bonding and networking event within CMU and Penn’s Transportation Clubs as we were able to share knowledge and learn from each other.”

Finally, Brian Hsu stated, “Touring SEPTA’s system and their control center showed us the impact technology has on public transit operations now and provided us insight into how technology can be leveraged for transit operations in the future. It was great to network with students at the University of Pennsylvania who share similar interests in transportation.”

Overall, the students look forward to future networking opportunities, and plan to keep in touch with those who they met at the University of Pennsylvania.

* This visit was conceived in January 2022 when students had the opportunity to meet at the 101st Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting. *

October 1, 2021
Posted in What's Happening

October 1, 2021

Faculty and students from the Mobility21 academic partner University of Pennsylvania’s F1Tenth team presented their work at the Fall 2021 GRASP Seminar.  Their talk explores how to get involved in very exciting research on safe autonomous systems.  Watch the full presentation here.

June 5, 2021
Posted in What's Happening

June 5, 2021

Mobility21 academic partners at the University of Pennsylvania’s F1Tenth Team organized a Virtual Autonomous Racing Competition at Trinity College, Dublin. This was a student run event where participants submitted their racecar software agents to race against autonomous driving algorithms developed by others.

June 1, 2021
Posted in What's Happening

June 1, 2021

Members of The University of Pennsylvania’s F1Tenth autonomous racing team have teamed up with Riders.AI to conduct a series of virtual autonomous racing events.  Riders.AI has developed a professional virtual racing cloud-based platform to organize international competitions.

May 31, 2021
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May 31, 2021

Mobility21 UTC researcher Rahul Mangraham from the University of Pennsylvania organized the “Opportunities and Challenges with Autonomous Racing” workshop which had over 175 participants and invited speakers from MIT, Stanford, ETHz, GTech, Caltech and others who are balancing safety and performance at the limits of perception, planning and control of autonomous racing machines.  Learn more details about the event here.

April 15, 2021
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April 15, 2021

Members of the Mobility21 academic partners at the University of Pennsylvania’s F1Tenth team have partnered with the LG Silicon Valley Lab  to develop a F1Tenth vehicle and race track for autonomous racing in the LG SVL Simulator, which is the leading AV simulator.  Watch the simulation here.

March 15, 2021
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March 15, 2021

Mobility21 UTC  Academic Partner and University of Pennsylvania Associate Professor of City and Regional Planning Erick Guerra contributed the project report on “How do low-income commuters get to work in US and Mexican cities? A comparative empirical assessment” to Urban Studies. The study was co-authored with doctoral fellow Shengxiao Li.

February 18, 2021
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February 18, 2021

“The National Science Foundation (NSF), in partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, has awarded 52 teams of civic and academic partners $50,000 to support refinement of their civic concepts for ready-to-implement, research-based pilot projects addressing ‘Communities and Mobility’ or ‘Resilience to Natural Disaster’.”

Two Mobility21 UTC researchers were included in these awards; Megan Ryerson of the University of Pennsylvania will be leading the project, “Data-driven and Community Engaged Planning Tools For Addressing Spatial Mismatch” and  Lee Branstetter of Carnegie Mellon University will be leading “City of Bridges: Using New Transportation Options to Drive Low-Income Mothers to Greater Success in Pittsburgh.”

February 1, 2021
Posted in What's Happening

February 1, 2021

Mobility21 UTC researcher, Megan Ryerson of the Stuart Weitzman School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania, along with Cheryl Hickey of the School of Engineering and Applied Science are the 2020 Green Purchasing Award recipients. Ryerson collaborated with Purchasing Services on the spring 2020 Advanced Transportation Seminar in which students explored best practices to minimize travel-related emissions.

Read the full story here…

February 1, 2021
Posted in What's Happening

February 1, 2021

Mobility21 UTC researcher Meg Ryerson of the University of Pennsylvania, along with Mobility21 UTC US DOT Student of the Year Camille Boggan, are working to continue to make transportation more equitable to all in the future.

“There’s so much you’re going to miss if you’re not collecting the right data. And sometimes to do that, you have to actually ask or observe travelers themselves,” says Boggan.

Read the full article here.

December 21, 2020
Posted in What's Happening

December 21, 2020

The University of Pennsylvania’s F1Tenth Team is now a Premier Member of The Autoware Foundation  to translate development from 1/10th scale autonomous racecars to full scale autonomous vehicles. Autoware is a leading open-source autonomous driving meta-operating system that makes it easy and efficient to convert drive-by-wire vehicles into autonomous cars. Through this partnership, Autoware is focusing on racing scenarios to further its goal of autonomous vehicles for everyone.

September 29, 2020
Posted in What's Happening

September 29, 2020

Mobility21 UTC Researcher and University of Pennsylvania Professor Rahul Mangharam released a new video today on “F1Tenth Autonomous Racing and How It Can Help with Machine Learning Research for Perception, Planning and Control.”  Watch his talk here.

July 21, 2020
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July 20, 2020

Megan Ryerson, Associate Professor of City and Regional Planning and Electric and Systems Engineering and UTC researcher at the Mobility21 academic partner University of Pennsylvania, sits down with Penn Today to discuss her take on offsetting carbon emissions, one ton at a time.  “I’ve spent my career telling people to fly less. If you told me in the fall how few planes would be in the sky right now, I would have been shocked,” says Megan Ryerson.  Read the full article here.

July 3, 2020
Posted in What's Happening

July 3, 2020

Megan Ryerson, Associate Professor of City and Regional Planning and Electric and Systems Engineering at the Mobility21 academic partner University of Pennsylvania, provided her input on how to navigate post-COVID19 with Politico magazine with her suggestion, “Replace Short Flights with Buses.”

“You’re traveling to a neighboring city, either to visit or to catch a connecting flight. You’re cruising along using the Wi-Fi in a clean seat at least 6 feet from your fellow passengers. You’re relaxed; since departures leave your hometown airport every hour, choosing when to travel was easy. Then, over the loudspeaker you hear a voice: “This is your captain speaking. The bus will be pulling up to the airport momentarily. Terminal A, first stop.”

Now that the coronavirus pandemic has dramatically disrupted air travel, it’s possible to imagine this strange new reality: The future of short-distance air travel may very well be the bus.

With business travel evaporating for the time being, and Americans worried about getting on crowded planes for anything but urgently necessary travel, the aviation industry is reeling. As of April 30, demand for flights from and within the United States had plummeted 95 percent from the year before; it has since held steady at the lowest levels seen since the mid-1950s. Airlines are recording unprecedented losses.

As airlines prepare for their future, they will be looking to cut unprofitable and expensive routes—specifically, those routes under 500 miles that rely on gas-guzzling regional jets. Shorter regional air routes are already so unpopular that airlines won’t serve them without expensive subsidies or direct incentives from a growing number of secondary airports. The economics of short-haul flights will get even worse if airlines choose not to fill their planes, as some are doing.

But Americans still need ways to get from city to city besides driving. Frequently run, comfortable coach bus lines could fill the void. Buses offer higher scheduling flexibility and lower capital costs; a half-filled bus represents much less of a loss than a half-filled plane. Furthermore, increased regional bus use would reduce the number of flights coming into airports—and thus reduce the number of people mingling within airports’ walls, a new and likely enduring safety priority. And while conventional buses might provide a slight fuel consumption savings compared with regional aircrafts, hybrid and electric buses are at least four times more fuel-efficient than regional jets.

To make this shift, airlines need to see themselves—or be required to see themselves as a condition of relief funding—as mobility companies and not only providers of air service. In the same way that cities and the federal government already provide incentives to airlines to fly, future Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act funding could provide incentives to airlines or startup bus companies to get regional coaches on the road. Now is the time to make a dramatic, long-lasting change in the way we travel: Airlines are being forced to be more flexible, passengers are looking for the safest alternatives, and planners and policymakers should be looking for solutions that meet our mobility, safety and environmental goals going forward.”  Read the full article here.

January 9, 2020
Posted in What's Happening

January 9, 2020

Rahul Mangharam, the Penn Academic Director for the Mobility21 UTC  was the featured banquet speaker today at the Comsnets 2020 conference in Bangalore, India.  He spoke about his UTC research project, Designing Safe Autonomous Systems:  A Driver’s License Test for Driverless Vehicles.

April 14, 2019
Posted in What's Happening

April 14, 2019

The UPenn UTC Team including Rahul Mangharam, Matt Kelly, Yash Pant and Houssam Abbas attended the Cyber-Physical Systems and Internet-of-Things Week Conference in Canada to present their research.