TRB

We've collected posters and presentations of NITC research at TRB. Explore the links below to see what NITC researchers brought to D.C. this year—the below projects have a connection to NITC funding, but are not necessarily representative of the full body of work that researchers at these institutions brought to the annual meeting.

Check out our TRB 2020 photo album here!


Portland State University

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The Portland Streetcar and Portland MAX are visible, along with a green Bike Signal and a pedestrian walk button.

Photo by Cait McCusker

The National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC) program has released its 2020 general research request for proposals. Faculty at NITC's partner universities* are invited to submit abstracts by March 23, 2020.


Through funding provided by the U.S. DOT, we will award up to $1,000,000 to research projects that support NITC’s theme: improving mobility of people and goods to build strong communities. Our theme includes a few key topics:

Increasing access to opportunities.

Well-connected regions and communities can improve social equity by providing access to jobs, services, recreation, and social opportunities. Research should examine barriers to access, including the connections between transportation, land use, and housing. It should look at how to overcome these barriers and improve accessibility, affordability, and equity in our communities.

Improving multi-modal planning and shared use of infrastructure.

Improved mobility requires a range of options for moving people and goods. As concepts of mobility evolve, research is needed to understand how people and firms make mode choices so that we can design better multi-modal systems. Research should examine how...

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Jenny Liu presents a poster at TRB 2019

This page serves as a homebase for our coverage of the 2020 Transportation Research Board (TRB) annual conference. Check back here for ongoing updates, as well as our Twitter and Facebook.

  • NITC GUIDE TO TRB (PDF): Our printable schedule of where all of our NITC researchers will be presenting at lectures, poster sessions, and workshops.

  • NITC RECEPTION AT TRB: Join us for transportation bingo and networking on Monday, January 13 (8:00 –10:30 PM) nearby at Fadó Irish Pub.

  • NITC STUDENT AWARD AT CUTC BANQUET: We’ll be celebrating our 2019 NITC “Student of the Year,"  Samuel Jensen of the University of Arizona, at the annual CUTC Banquet.

NITC AT TRB 2020 HIGHLIGHTS

Below is a small sampling of the expertise NITC is bringing to TRB 2020. For the ...

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A bus on the street
Photo by Andrei Stanescu/iStock

Our National Institute for Transportation & Communities (NITC) research program has awarded grant funding for a new series of Small Starts projects.

The latest Small Starts Grant projects, evaluated by the NITC Advisory Board and selected by NITC's Executive Committee, will explore mobility impacts of construction workzones, transportation equity and barriers for low-income travelers, and the widespread impacts of emerging technologies like e-scooters and ride hailing.

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

  • Offer a new voice in the field, whether they’re untenured faculty or a researcher who has not received a NITC grant before

  • Want to kick-start a larger project by first tackling an exploratory study smaller in scope

THE...

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An older woman helps an older man out of a car into a wheelchair
Photo by kali9
Vivian J. Miller, University of Texas at Arlington

Older adults who live in nursing homes are at an increased risk for depression and anxiety, and research has shown that social...

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A view of the ballroom with attendees eating lunch during the Summit keynote

The 11th annual Transportation and Communities Summit 2019, held at Portland State University (PSU) on September 19–20, drew attendees from 14 states across the U.S. Over 250 people joined us for the Summit day, and nearly 60 took part in the deep-dive workshop day. We hope the event offered new opportunities for collaboration and synergy between researchers, practitioners, and community members.

Peter DeFazio, the U.S. Representative for Oregon's 4th congressional district, kicked off the day with a video welcome message for the summit attendees, followed on the main stage by TREC director and urban planning faculty Jennifer Dill. 

At lunchtime Ben Wellington, the data...

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NITC Student Spotlight: Farah Naz, University of Texas at Arlington

Farah Naz is a doctoral student at the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA). She earned an M.S. in Transportation Engineering from Northeastern University in Boston Massachusetts where she conducted transit related research. She worked with the Oregon Department of Transportation in the Rail and Public Transit division where she assisted in developing the Transit Network Analysis (TNA) software tool in collaboration with Oregon State University. She is currently the Vice President of the ITE student Chapter at UTA. On September 19th she will be presenting in two sessions at the 11th annual Transportation & Communities Summit in Portland, Oregon.

LinkedIn


Tell us about yourself?

I am a doctoral student and work as a teaching and research assistant at the University of Texas at Arlington. I have worked on numerous research projects focused on shared mobility, social media data-based performance measures, cost optimization modeling, and travel characteristics of transportation disadvantaged population in collaboration with social workers, environmental engineers, computer scientists and industrial engineers. This year I am planning to showcase my research findings at numerous national and international conferences.

...

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People on e-scooters

The National Institute for Transportation & Communities (NITC) research consortium, led by Portland State University, has awarded $1.035 million in total funding for ten research projects spanning five universities. This year we focused funding on micromobility, traffic, meeting the transportation needs of underserved populations and people with disabilities, and the intersection of transportation and housing.

Led by Reid Ewing of the University of Utah, Nicole Iroz-Elardo and Arlie Adkins of the University of Arizona
 
Led by Yao-Jan Wu of the University of Arizona, Xianfeng Yang of the University of Utah and Sirisha Kothuri of Portland State University
This multi-university collaboration builds upon previous research led by Yao-Jan Wu in multi-modal traffic monitoring, as well as...
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Researchers at TRB
Principal Investigator: Noelle Fields, University of Texas, Arlington
Learn more about this research by viewing the Executive Summary and the full Final Report on the Project Overview page, or watching a recording of the February 2018 webinar.

The latest NITC report explores strengthening collaboration between disciplines, to build a transportation system that better serves everyone.

Transportation planners and engineers often struggle to serve at-risk communities and environmental justice (EJ) populations. EJ populations can include older adults, people with low income, low socioeconomic status, racial and ethnic minorities, and individuals with disabilities—all groups who are at an increased risk for transportation disadvantage. Evidence of these struggles manifest as unequal transportation system outcomes related to access and opportunity.

... Read more
Pedestrians cross near a light rail amid mixed-use development

The National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC) program has released its 2019 general research request for proposals. Faculty at NITC's partner universities* are invited to submit abstracts by March 29, 2019.


Through funding provided by the U.S. DOT, we will award up to $1,000,000 to research projects that support NITC’s theme: improving mobility of people and goods to build strong communities. Our theme includes a few key topics:

  • Increasing access to opportunities
  • Improving multi-modal planning and shared use of infrastructure
  • Advancing innovation and smart cities
  • Developing data, models, and tools

2019 RESEARCH PRIORITIES

The NITC Advisory Board has provided input into several research priorities that relate to multimodal transportation data and the transportation-land use-housing connection. NITC is prioritizing the funding of proposals that directly addresses research questions related to:

Developing Data, Models and Tools. Agencies are confronting a plethora of new mobility options along with new data sources to support transportation research, planning, and analysis. Several priority research areas have been identified to increase understanding: 

  • Collection of multimodal data...
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