October 30, 2020

Today’s Smart Mobility Connection session featured Mobility21 UTC Researcher and the Ohio State University Professor Mark McCord.  Professor McCord discussed his project, “Time-of-Day Traffic Volumes Using Video Imagery Obtained from Transit Buses in Regular Operations,” which is co-authored by Rabi Mishalani, and Benjamin Coifman.  Watch his presentation here.

October 29, 2020

Today, Lisa Kay Schweyer, Program Manager for the Mobility21 UTC, participated in the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership’s final Downtown Advisory Group meeting.  The advisory group has been helping provide feedback and guidance for the development of the Downtown Pittsburgh Mobility Plan, which is expected to be adopted by early 2021: https://downtownpittsburgh.com/mobilityplan/.

October 28, 2020

Educational organizations, libraries, and community centers across Pennsylvania are beginning to leverage The Robot Doctor resources created by Mobility21 deployment partner RobotWits LLC & public television station WQED.  The Robot Doctor materials comprise student and educator videos, challenge questions and discussion prompts that aim to motivate high school students to engage more deeply in math. Downloadable, streamable, and available for offline learning, student videos can be accessed at www.robotwits.com/education.  Find the TV schedule and listing for the Robot Doctor on your local PBS here.  Learn more or join the community of users and partners by contacting  Maxim Likhachev or Rachel Burcin.

October 26, 2020

Stan Caldwell was one of a select group of industry stakeholders recruited to provide feedback on the NCHRP Report 17-91 Assessing the Impacts of Automated Driving Systems (ADS) on the Future of Transportation Safety through a series of three virtual summit sessions. 

October 22, 2020

Pennsylvania Department of Transportation Secretary Yassmin Gramian is the newest member of the Mobility21 UTC Advisory Council.  The Advisory Council is comprised of national leaders that provide  strategic guidance and counsel for the UTC.

October 21, 2020

Stan Caldwell presented findings form his automated vehicle policy white paper “Are We There Yet? Deployment of Connected and Automated Vehicles in the U.S.” co-authored by Chris Hendrickson at an UIC Urban Forum Panel Discussion.  Caldwell was joined by Austin Lannes Brown Executive Director of the Policy Center for Energy, Environment and the Economy at UC Davis and moderated by P.S. Sriraj Director, Urban Transportation Center, University of Illinois at Chicago.   A recording of the webinar can be found at this link.  https://urbanforum.uic.edu/forum-white-papers/white-paper-presentation-webinar/

October 21, 2020

Mobility21 UTC researcher Rahul Mangharam and his team, which includes Kuk Jang, Yash Pant and Alena Rodionova, wrote a paper on Learning-to-Fly RL, which won the Best in Session Award at the Digital Avionics Conference.  Their work on Designing Safe Autonomous Systems includes autonomous air traffic control for future drone urban air mobility networks of 1000-5000 drones over urban areas. One key issue is that unlike commercial airlines, these drones do not fly along pre-set routes but follow what is called “free flight” and can choose their travel route. This introduces a critical problem of collisions between drones and needs to be handled via collision avoidance systems between the drones. Watch the full video here.

October 20, 2020

Mobility21 UTC researcher Dr. Maxine Eskenazi taught a course on “Getting Around: Using Transportation Apps” to a group of OSHER Lifelong Learning students.  The two-session course included: using UBER and LYFT; presentations of the Tiramisu app, the Transit app, the Port Authority website, the pathVu app and the GetGoing phone intelligent agent.

October 20, 2020

Mobility21 Program Manager Lisa Kay Schweyer presented on the role of research in transportation at the T.I.R.E.S (Transportation, Information, Resources, Education and Services) of Western PA virtual event where over 60 transportation specialists from Southwestern PA were in attendance.

October 14, 2020

Today, Mobility21 UTC released its latest “Research Recap” for the project “Utilizing School Bus Meals to Deliver Meals to Families in Need.”  The recaps are one-page overviews of the UTC funded research that describe the research project’s purpose, approach, key findings, conclusions, contact information for the research team and a link to the final research report.

October 13, 2020

Luyu Liu, doctoral student at Mobility21 UTC academic partner the Ohio State University, recently conducted a study with Professor Harvey Miller to determine the value of real-time apps for public transportation.  “The app may tell you the bus will be five minutes late, but drivers can make up time after you start walking, and you end up missing the bus,” says Liu.  Read the full article here.

October 9, 2020

Today’s Smart Mobility Connection session featured Mobility21 UTC Researcher Jon Peha, Professor at Carnegie Mellon University, in the Dept. of Engineering & Public Policy and the Dept. of Electrical & Computer Engineering.  Professor Peha discussed “Spectrum Policies for Connected Vehicles.”   Watch his presentation here.