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.

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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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NITC Dissertation Fellow - Erin Roark Murphy of University of Texas at Arlington

Erin Roark Murphy, University of Texas at Arlington

Erin Roark Murphy, LMSW, is a doctoral student in the School of Social Work at the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA). She is a NITC student scholar and has worked as a graduate research assistant on several NITC-funded projects, including "Evaluating Improved Transit Connections for Ladders of Opportunity" and "How Can Interdisciplinary Teams Leverage Emerging Technologies to Respond to Infrastructure Needs? A Mixed-Methods Evaluation of Civil Engineers, Urban Planning, and Social Workers’ Perspectives."

LinkedIn | Twitter | Website


Tell us about yourself?

I am in the third year of my PhD program at UTA in the School of Social Work. My personal research focuses on looking at homelessness...

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This page serves as a homebase for our coverage of the 2019 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 Tuesday, January 15 (7:30–10:30pm) nearby at Fado Irish Pub

  • NITC STUDENT AWARD AT CUTC BANQUET: We’ll be celebrating our 2018 NITC “Student of the Year,"  Travis Glick of Portland State University, at the annual CUTC Banquet. Travis is a NITC scholar and graduate research assistant, and will present work in three TRB sessions.

MULTI-UNIVERSITY COLLABORATIVE PROJECT HIGHLIGHTS:

    ...
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Orange bicycle

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.

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Automatic bicycle counter showing how many cyclists have passed today, and this year.
Principal Investigator:  Sirisha Kothuri, Portland State University
Learn more about this research by reading about the Pooled Fund research grant that started it, or the Project Overview page.

BIKE/PED COUNT SURVEY: CALL FOR INPUT

Researchers at Portland State University, University of Texas at Arlington, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Toole Design Group are conducting a scan to identify locations where bicycle counts are taking place around North America, and hope to enlist your help! If you collect bike count data (or oversee counts) in your jurisdiction, please consider taking our quick survey to tell us a little bit about your count locations and data.

The survey can be accessed here: tinyurl.com/BikeCounterScan

THE NEW PROJECT

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