October 27, 2021

AFL-CIO Technology Institute Director Amanda Ballantyne is the newest member of the Mobility21 University Transportation Center (UTC) Advisory Council.   The Advisory Council is comprised of national leaders that provide strategic guidance and counsel for the UTC.

October 26, 2021

Today, Mobility21 UTC released its latest “Research Recap” for Sean Qian’s project “Smart Right-of-Way Permitting System for the City of Pittsburgh: Coordination, Pricing and Enforcement.”  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 25, 2021

The CMU Autonomous Technologies for Livability And Sustainability Planning Grant for Engineering Research Centers recently announced their Year 2 award winners, including projects featuring several Mobility21 UTC researchers (listed in green):

• Pingbo Tang, Burcu Akinci, Yorie Nakahira – Self-diagnosing and predictive control coupling human-building systems with partial and noisy human being interaction logs in building automation systems
• Corey Harper, Jeremy Michalek, Ding Zhao, Gregg Lowry, Destenie Nock, Costas Samaras, Daniel Armanios – A digital twin virtual testbed for sustainable and equitable autonomous food delivery
• Matteo Pozzi, Jeremy Michalek – Equitable ridepool using autonomous electric vehicle fleets with community driven stops
• Soummya Kar, Mario Berges – Energy efficient community connected buildings

October 25, 2021

The Remaking Cities Institute in the CMU School of Architecture hosted Karina Ricks, Acting Associate Administrator for Research, Demonstration and Innovation with the Federal Transit Administration to lead a talk  focused on the connection between transportation mobility and social mobility, underscoring the importance of connecting communities to better opportunities through better access to transit and other forms of mobility.   She presented this as part of a larger social context in which innovation’s greatest value would come with a full reckoning of how to better measure access to mobility and its impact on people’s lives.

In a lively Q&A that followed the talk, Karina responded to questions about the future of more diverse leadership in transportation, the importance of respecting lived experience in shaping future transit and mobility options, with comments and questions from CMU students, faculty, and recent graduates, including former Traffic21 Women in Transportation Fellow Ngani Ndimbie. 

October 18, 2021

Today, the CMU US Ignite student Capstone Team (Brittany Pruitt, Dillon Cox, Mika Ansley, Gisselt Gomez, Roy Wang and Sophie Abo, advised by Mobility21 Program Manager, Lisa Kay Schweyer) presented their mid-term update to the client and advisors.  The class gave this presentation to provide updates and gather feedback from attendees.  The team will be completing their work by the end of the semester.

October 15, 2021

Mobility21 UTC researchers Dr. Rahul Mangharam and Dr. Johannes Betz of the University of Pennsylvania participated in Embedded Systems Week (ESWeek) 2021.  ESWEEK is piloting a new education track, where in, top researchers in the world teach 2-hour topical class on emerging/newer, but well established embedded systems concepts, tools and methods that are not readily available in textbooks in an exciting, engaging and hands-on way to students across the globe.  View their presentation here.

October 12, 2021

Today, Mobility21 UTC released its latest “Research Recap” for Venkat Viswanathan’s project “Platooning for Improved Safety and Efficiency of Semi-Trucks (PISES) II.”  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 12, 2021

CMU Heinz College Masters of Information Systems Management students Shiyi Liu, Jioaying Mu, Kihan Li, Yanwen Peng, Yilin Hua, Zhenyuan He, along with their advisor Stan Caldwell from Mobility21, presented midterm capstone project results.  Attending the presentation were clients from Daimler Trucks North America and Torc Robotics who provided feedback on student plans for an automated truck departure approval application.

October 8, 2021

Today’s Smart Mobility Connection session featured Mobility21 UTC Researcher Dr. Destenie Nock.   She discussed her project, “Transportation Implications from COVID-19: Food Delivery and Public Transport.” Watch her presentation here.

October 7, 2021

Mobility21 UTC researcher and Carnegie Mellon University Remaking Cities Institute Director Ray Gastil presented “Green Cities: Pittsburgh” in the Green Cities 2021 Series with the Consortium for Sustainable Urbanism.

October 1, 2021

Traffic21 Director Chris Hendrickson has been re-appointed to the Transportation Research Board‘s Executive Committee for 2022-2025.  The Executive Committee is the senior policy body of TRB.

October 1, 2021

Traffic21 researchers released their latest policy brief, “Driver Warning Technologies and Partial Vehicle Automation: Save Lives and Money,” authored by Stan Caldwell, Chris Hendrickson, Corey Harper and Costa Samaras.   The brief reviews empirical data on changes in crash frequency and severity with driver warning technologies and partial automation; provides estimates of benefits, costs and lives saved; and concludes with policy recommendations.