National Institute for Transportation and Communities

Darshan Chauhan, Portland State University

Darshan Chauhan is a graduate research assistant in civil engineering at Portland State University. He currently serves as the treasurer of STEP (Students in Transportation Engineering and Planning), PSU's transportation student group, and generously volunteers his time at a variety of transportation-related events via PSU's Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC). He will defend his masters thesis on network flow problems this year, and plans to continue on to earn his PhD. In the 2018/2019 academic year, Darshan earned a Walter H. Kramer Fellowship from Portland State University.

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Tell us about yourself?

I am a second-year Masters student in the civil engineering program with a transportation focus at PSU. I have been training with Prof. Unnikrishnan here to understand, model, and tackle uncertainties in different transportation networks. Before coming to Portland, I completed my Bachelor’s degree in civil engineering at BITS Pilani Hyderabad Campus, working as an undergraduate researcher in areas like fracture mechanics, optimization, and alternate cementitious materials through my junior and senior years. After completing my masters, I am continuing for my Ph.D. in transportation at PSU. Apart from school, I really enjoy...

• Download the Final Report (PDF)
• Download the Project Brief (PDF)
• Attend the July 24 Webinar

Research on older adults frequently explores the notion of “aging in place”—providing older adults the opportunity to continue to live in their own homes and communities. However one’s ability to stay or leave, particularly in old age, often depends on the built environment. An accessible neighborhood that prioritizes mobility affords the ability to meet basic needs like goods, services, and social activities.

This life-space mobility is...

The latest NITC report offers improved tools for pedestrian modeling.

Led by Kelly Clifton of Portland State University, researchers had previously created the the MoPeD pedestrian demand model as well as a pedestrian index of the environment (PIE) for forecasting pedestrian travel. The PIE index improved the sensitivity of walk trip models by incorporating contextual features of the built environment that affect walking behavior in the Portland, Oregon region. Read about Clifton's previous body of work on context-specific modeling.

Useful for academic researchers in transportation, Clifton's research provides a framework for incorporating pedestrian travel behavior forecasts into traditional four-step travel demand models.

Since the method was based on Portland, the next step was to adapt the tools for wider use. In this new report, Clifton and Jaime Orrego-Onate of...

For the second year in a row, we're opening up an exciting opportunity for undergraduate students interested in transportation: Spend a summer at Portland State University to learn more about the world of research in transportation through our Transportation Undergraduate Research Fellowship (TURF) program. This program is open to current undergraduate students from any university who are interested in learning more about transportation engineering or planning research. 

Hosted at PSU, selected students will be paired with a PSU faculty mentor (from either the College of Urban and Public Affairs or the Maseeh College of Engineering & Computer Science). The student will carry out research on a transportation project for ten weeks at 40 hours per week. TURF Fellows are provided a $7,500 stipend, but must find and fund their own lodging.

Decisions will be made by March 29, 2019. Contact us at asktrec@pdx.edu with any questions.

APPLY FOR TURF 2019 (by...