April 7, 2020

Today, METRO Magazine hosted “Talking transit through COVID-19 & beyond” webinar.  Katherine Kelleman, CEO of Pittsburgh’s Port Authority of Allegheny County and Mobility21 UTC Advisory Council member spoke as part of the panel to “…discuss what the future may look like once the country gets the situation under control and it is safe to work, live, and play again.”  Mobility21 UTC Program Manager, Lisa Kay Schweyer also attended this session to learn more about how transit operators are responding and potential research opportunities.  Learn more about this webinar here.

March 30, 2020

“There are constantly new studies and reports coming out about autonomous and connected vehicles and how they interact with other vehicles, traffic lights, and even the roads they are driving on via underground cables, but it is equally important to understand how these vehicles interact with the pedestrians they come in contact with.  Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Transportation, Carnegie Mellon Mobility21 National University Transportation Center, a team of faculty and students led by Emeritus Professor, Umit Ozguner at Ohio State’s Center for Automotive Research have developed a new dataset that can help researchers better understand vehicle-pedestrian interaction in crowded areas.”  Read more here.

March 25, 2020

Lisa Kay Schweyer, Program Manager for Mobility21 UTC, participated in the FTA Mobility On Demand Webinar to learn more about the initiative and possible future research initiatives. “The MOD Program undertook several projects to provide detailed analysis, supporting various parts of the decision-making and planning processes for local practitioners considering integrated MOD deployments. Topics will cover MOD and transportation operations; business models of mobility providers; planning for and implementing integrated mobility services; relevant standards and gaps in standards necessary to enable MOD; innovations in paratransit, off-peak service, and micromobility infrastructure; a concept of operations for a MOD Mobility Marketplace; and selected findings from the independent evaluation of some of FTA’s MOD Sandbox pilots.”

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.

March 25, 2020

Stan Caldwell participated in the Quarterly Meeting of the Smart Belt Coalition. The Smart Belt is multi-state connected and automated vehicle test bed including the Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania Departments of Transportation, Pennsylvania and Ohio Turnpike Commissions, Carnegie Mellon University, the Pennsylvania State University, Kettering University, the University of Michigan, the Ohio State University, the American Center for Mobility and the Transportation Research Center Inc.

March 23, 2020

The Traffic21 Smart Transportation Podcast features and shares information from thought leaders and highlights the smart transportation work happening at Carnegie Mellon University and in the community.

Listen to the latest episode of the podcast, as we sit with Jason Dailey the director of Public Works for Cranberry Township in Butler County. With his well-rounded background in operations administration and local government, Mr. Dailey oversees the department responsible for managing traffic, streets, fleet, facilities, grounds maintenance. We discuss how Traffic21 researchers have dramatically improved the traffic congestion issue in Cranberry Township through collaborative research.

Listen to this episode here.

The Traffic21 Smart Transportation Podcast is hosted and produced by Mobility21 UTC Diversity Fellow Allanté Whitmore.

March 18, 2020

Mobility21 UTC Program Manager Lisa Kay Schweyer met with UTC faculty during her semi-annual visit with  Mobility21 academic partner, the University of Pennsylvania.  This year’s visit was held via webinar where she visited and received updates from Rahul Mangharam, Megan Ryerson, Erick Guerra and Helen Loeb.

March 9, 2020

Miguel Dickson, Head of Data & AI provided an overview for UTC researchers about RoadBotics and their recent decision to share data (GPS tagged images with pavement ratings).  He asked for feedback on the data researchers would like, what data formats they prefer, and what kind of tools researchers would like RoadBotics to provide to make searching and downloading the data easy.  RoadBotics is a company that spun out of the Traffic21 and Mobility21 University Transportation Center.