May 27, 2023
Posted in What's Happening

May 27, 2023

Students from the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn-Autoware Team, led by Mobility21 UTC researcher Rahul Mangharam, were crowned Autonomous Karting Series 2023 Champions for their wins in both categories of racing – reactive and open category for motion planning.  They competed against teams from UC San Diego, Purdue, UC Berkeley, and several other universities.  Watch the race here.

January 16, 2023
Posted in What's Happening

January 16, 2023

Mobility21 UTC Women in Transportation Fellow for 2021-2023, Maggie Harger attended the Transportation Research Board’s 102nd Annual Meeting in Washington, DC.  The meeting offered her the opportunity to learn about the latest developments in transportation research, policy, and innovative practices from across the world.

Maggie reports some highlights of the event included remarks from U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer M. Granholm on the state of transportation policy in America, specifically the new joint office between the US Department of Transportation and the US Department of Energy.  Additionally, she was also able to view poster presentations from researchers in the field and attend lecterns on topics ranging from concrete modeling to autonomous vehicle policy.

Maggie and other students from CMU were able to meet fellow students involved in transportation at the University of Pennsylvania, as well as several CMU alumni who are now professionals in the field.

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
Posted in What's Happening

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. 

September 30, 2022
Posted in What's Happening

September 30, 2022

University of Pennsylvania masters student Jasmine Siyu Wu received “The Ed McClure Award for Best Masters Student Paper” for her paper, “Understanding Inequities in Access to Teen Driver Education.”  Jasmine’s advisor is Mobility21 UTC research Professor Megan Ryerson.   Read more here.

January 14, 2022
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January 14, 2022

Students from 3 of the academic partners of Mobility21, Carnegie Mellon University, University of Pennsylvania and The Ohio State University  attended the Transportation Research Board’s 101st Annual Conference in Washington, DC.  The conference offers an opportunity to learn about the latest developments in transportation research, policy, and innovative practices from across the world. Highlights of the event included remarks from keynote speaker, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg on the state of transportation policy in America, emerging challenges, poster presentations on a variety of topics including transportation demand modeling, automated vehicles, emerging technologies and lectern sessions on maintaining equity across transportation systems. The students also met for a networking dinner where they shared experiences working and learning about the field of transportation.

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.

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.

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.

January 27, 2021
Posted in What's Happening

January 27, 2021

Students Emily Kennedy and Seunglee David Park of the University of Pennsylvania, a Mobility21 UTC academic partner, published an op-ed in the Philadelphia Inquirer which discusses a new way for Philadelphia transportation leaders to measure the impact of system changes on racial equity.  Both are students in the Master of City Planning  in Transportation course led by Dr. Megan Ryerson.  Read their article here.

January 6, 2021
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January 6, 2021

Camille Boggan was honored tonight as Mobility21 University Transportation Center’s “Student of the Year” at the Council of University Transportation Center’s annual awards banquet.

Annually, the United States Department of Transportation honors the most outstanding student from each participating University Transportation Center for his/her achievements and promise for future contributions to the transportation field. Students of the year are selected based on their accomplishments in such areas as technical merit and research, academic performance, professionalism, and leadership.  Read about all the Students of the Year in the annual booklet.

Carnegie Mellon University’s Traffic21 Institute houses Mobility21, the National University Transportation Center for Improving Mobility. Students from CMU, University of Pennsylvania, The Ohio State University, or Community College of Allegheny County were eligible for the Mobility21 UTC nomination.

Meet our winner:

Mobility21, the National University Transportation Center for Improving Mobility Student of the Year.

Camille Boggan is a current city planning graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania’s Weitzman School of Design. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Miami University (Ohio) in 2019 with a bachelor’s degree in Sociology. Camille has worked as a graduate research assistant in Dr. Megan Ryerson’s Smart Mobility Lab, supporting research efforts on transportation safety and wayfinding. In 2020 she interned with the City of Philadelphia’s Office of Transportation and has served on the transit steering committee of 5^th Square, Philadelphia’s urban activist PAC, since 2019.

In 2019 Camille was part of the winning team of ITS America’s Emerging Leaders Program Global Challenge. Her team developed a transportation pricing model for Philadelphia to reduce congestion and direct funds to public transportation services. She was also recently awarded a graduate scholarship from the WTS Philadelphia chapter.

Educating, recruiting and training new workers is critical to managing our country’s infrastructure safely and efficiently. We strive to help develop a transportation workforce capable of designing and maintaining the complex transportation systems of tomorrow. Help us congratulate our 2021 UTC Student of the Year!

To learn more about the University Transportation Centers’ Student of the Year awards please click here.

December 10, 2020
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December 10, 2020

Students Camille Brogan, Gabriela Marie Newell, and Emily May Kennedy from the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of Pennsylvania, a Mobility21 UTC academic partner, have all received awards from the Philadelphia Chapter of Women in Transportation.

June 25, 2020
Posted in What's Happening

June 25, 2020

ITS America has named University of Pennsylvania, a Mobility21 UTC academic partner, as the winner of the America’s region of the Emerging Leaders Program Global Challenge with their inclusive mobility plan for Philadelphia.

“Move, Philadelphia! is an inclusive mobility model for the city that includes multiple strategies to limit private vehicle use within the city using the latest technologies and direct diverted funds to the city’s flailing public transit system. Read the team’s submission here.

The Global Challenge, initially developed for the 2020 ITS World Congress in Los Angeles, was designed to help develop future ITS and emerging technology leaders among university and college students worldwide. Each ITS World Congress regions (Americas, Europe, and Asia-Pacific) is running parallel competitions to select winning teams – one team in each region. Teams were recruited to design an inclusive mobility model for an urban environment in their area. Europe and Asia-Pacific will select regional winners later this summer.

The UPenn team writes that Philadelphia has long had an equity problem. It is the poorest large city in the country but has experienced recent growth, which has resulted in increased congestion. Philadelphia is the third most congested city in the United States, but transportation issues affecting communities of color and low-income people are widespread. The city’s transit agency, Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA), is at risk, and the team proposes solutions that will create additional revenues as well as make access to transit more equitable. 

From the UPenn team’s abstract: “Introducing innovative curbside management tools can help Philadelphia regulate its limited roadway space and keep traffic flowing. Increasing fees for car usage, such as rideshare fees and parking permits, will more accurately price the cost of driving, discourage car use in our most congested areas, and create additional revenues for SEPTA. Furthermore, an overhaul in SEPTA’s fare structure and collection will increase financial accessibility of transit and make it a more attractive mode to all Philadelphians.”

Members of the UPenn team, below, are all in the Master of City Planning program:

• Camille Boggan, from Cincinnati, OH, studied Sustainable Transportation & Infrastructure Planning;
• Emily Kennedy, from Tallahassee, FL, studied Sustainable Transportation & Infrastructure Planning;
• David Seunglee Park, from Washington, DC., studied Sustainable Transportation & Infrastructure Planning;
• Kate Sutton, from Lafayette, IN, studied Transportation and Spatial Data Science; and
• Professors & UTC researchers Erick Guerra and Megan Ryerson

ITS America managed the competition in the Americas with support from a team of volunteers. Teams from 13 universities in the United States and Canada submitted papers.

A team of 15 subject matter experts representing the public, private, and academic sectors reviewed the papers and recommended three to advance to the regional finals. In addition to UPenn, the others were from the University of South Florida and Virginia Tech. ITS America held the regional final, virtually, on June 8. Each team made presentations and answered questions from five judges including representatives from ITS America, U.S. Department of Transportation, HNTB Corporation, Los Angeles Department of Transportation, and University of Florida.”

December 10, 2019
Posted in What's Happening

December 8, 2019

Mobility21 UTC researcher Rahul Mangharam and his student team won the Best Demonstration honorable mention award at #neurips2019 for their F1/10 demo!  “They  illustrated a platform for distributed #RL, sim to real transfer, and self supervised online learning of a vision based obstacle avoidance/racing policy. Plus, they wrapped this all in the intuitive #OpenAI Gym API to turn the Racecar hardware into its own reinforcement learning environment. Look out for github.com/f1tenth for more updates on the paper and code.”

October 16, 2019
Posted in What's Happening

October 16, 2019

Leslie Roche, Planning Manager at AECOM, and Ryan Judge, Senior Long Range Planner at SEPTA, walk Erick Guerra’s Introduction to Transportation Planning class through a role-playing exercise to identify key factors in selecting a locally preferred alternative for SEPTA’s proposed rail extension to King of Prussia, PA.