Transportation and Road Weather

DATE: 
Friday, April 18, 2014, 12:00pm to 1:00pm PDT
SPEAKERS: 
Rhonda Young, University of Wyoming

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Transportation and Road Weather

Where: Room 204 of the Distance Learning Center Wing of the Urban Center at PSU
Speaker: Rhonda Young, University of Wyoming
Topic: Transportation and Road Weather

Summary: Weather has a tremendous impact on the transportation system and is one of the largest contributors to non-recurring delay and increased crashes.  Road weather is the a multidisciplinary area involving transportation engineers and meteorologists who are working to mitigate the negative effects of weather on the operation and maintenance practices of transportation systems.  The talk covers the broad types of issues being studied in this field and looks at ways in which technology is playing a large part in the proposed solutions.  The issue of weather as a complicating factor in the use of connected and autonomous vehicle technologies  is also discussed.

Bio: Rhonda Young is an associate professor in the Department of Civil and Architectural Engineering at the University of Wyoming since 2002 and teaches graduate and undergraduate classes in Traffic Operations, Transportation Planning, Transportation Design and Traffic Safety.  She completed her master and PhD degrees in Civil Engineering at the University of Washington and undergraduate degree from Oregon State University.  Prior to joining the academic field, she worked as a consultant for 10 years in the transportation profession.  Her research at Wyoming has a rural focus and includes projects in the planning, safety, and intelligent transportation areas.  She is a registered professional engineer in the states of Washington and Wyoming.