The latest Small Starts Grant projects, selected by NITC's executive committee, will explore equitable access to mobility options, communicating the applied value of GPS data to agencies, and transportation resiliency in natural disasters.

This annual NITC funding program is a unique opportunity to tackle small-scale ($20,000 or less in scope) research projects. In contrast to our larger, annual flagship program ($30–150K), Small Starts enables us to include researchers who:

• Bring a diverse, interdisciplinary perspective and may not have considered applying a transportation lens to their work before.
• Offer a new voice in the field, whether they’re untenured faculty or a researcher who has not received a NITC grant before.
• Seek to kick-start a larger project by first tackling an exploratory study smaller in scope.

THE NEW PROJECTS

The new projects represent a mix of topics and disciplines across our partner campuses, aimed at supporting and advancing mobility with a focus on creating equitable transportation options. These projects total $60,000 in funding for this round.

• Promoting Environmental Justice Populations’ Access to Opportunities within Suburban Boomtowns — Jandel Crutchfield, Courtney Cronley and Kate Hyun, University of Texas at Arlington
• Visual Exploration of Utah Trajectory Data and their Applications in Transportation — Nikola Markovic, University of Utah
• Urban Transportation System Flood Vulnerability Assessment with Special Reference to Low Income and Minority Neighborhoods — Courtney Crosson, University of Arizona

We will issue our next General RFP (projects requesting ($30,000 - $150,000)) in the Spring of 2019, and anticipate our next round of the Small Starts RFP (projects requesting $20,000 or less) again in the Fall of 2019. These funding opportunities are only open to faculty at one of the six NITC universities.

Questions? Contact us at asktrec@pdx.edu. To learn more about our research and ongoing programs, sign up for our newsletter.

The National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC), one of five U.S. Department of Transportation national university transportation centers, is a program of the Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) at Portland State University. The NITC program is a Portland State-led partnership with the University of Oregon, Oregon Institute of Technology, University of Utah and new partners University of Arizona and University of Texas at Arlington. We pursue our theme — improving mobility of people and goods to build strong communities — through research, education and technology transfer.