Student Spotlight: Monica Landgrave-Serrano, University of Arizona

Post date: Fri, 10/12/2018 - 4:25pm
Event Date:
Content Type: News Item

Monica Landgrave-Serrano, University of Arizona

Monica Landgrave-Serrano is a planning masters student at the University of Arizona. She is a NITC student scholar, a TRB Minority Student Fellow, and is currently working as a planning intern with the City of Tucson and also as a graduate research assistant on the NITC-funded project "Access to Opportunities: Redefining Planning Methods and Measures for Disadvantaged Populations." She is the president of UA's Graduate Planning Society, and is helping to build connections with UA transportation students in civil engineering.

LinkedIn

Tell us about yourself:

My name is Monica Landgrave-Serrano and I was born in Tucson, but it was until I started graduate school last year at the University of Arizona that I moved to Tucson full-time. I lived in Mexico before, but I also had the opportunity to study in Spain, France,...

Read more
Tags
Student Spotlight
university of arizona
People talking and looking at materials in a workshop

Celebrating our 10th annual Transportation & Communities with Deep Dive Workshops

Post date: Thu, 09/20/2018 - 8:39am
Event Date:
Content Type: News Item

We held our annual flagship professional development event, Transportation & Communities, on September 13 and 14. In honor of the event's ten-year anniversary, we changed up the format: Rather than a typical conference with one-hour sessions and a keynote gathering, we offered a selection of intensive half-day workshops. See photos from the event.

The workshops gave practitioners a chance to take a deep dive into new skills in order to walk away with new tools or frameworks that could be applied to their work. We offered a review of congestion mitigation strategies, universal access and equity in pedestrian planning, and discussion on how smart technology could be implemented in suburban communities. Several workshops were based on findings from new research by the National Institute for Transportation & Communities (NITC), the six-university consortium which sponsored the event. The NITC...

Read more
Tags
Transportation and Communities
portland state university
university of oregon
oregon institute of technology
University of Utah
university of arizona
university of texas at arlington
The Portland Streetcar

Smart City PDX Pilot: NITC Researchers Take Connected Vehicle Technology for a Test Run on Portland Streetcar

Post date: Thu, 08/23/2018 - 12:21pm
Event Date:
Content Type: News Item
Principal Investigators: Kristin Tufte, Portland State University; Larry Head, University of Arizona
Project Overview: NITC Connected Vehicle Platform / Connected Streetcar Project (pending name change)

Learn more about this and other "Smart Cities" technology by registering for this September 14 workshop.

Connected Vehicle (CV) technology is coming to Portland, Oregon. We're excited to announce the first step in what could be a long-term game changer for the city: during the winter of 2018, researchers from Portland State University and University of Arizona will work with the City of Portland to deploy a test concept of CV tech on the Portland Streetcar.

Primarily funded by the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC), the Connected Streetcar Project is one of the Portland Bureau of Transportation’s (PBOT) 2018 Smart Cities pilot projects, and also part of the city’s ...

Read more
Tags
university of arizona
portland state university
connected vehicles
transit
smart cities
city of Portland
Left: Bicycles on a trail; Right: Young woman buying transit pass

2018 RFP for Two Pooled Fund Projects: Exploring Data Fusion Techniques for Bicycle Volumes & Equity in “Cashless” Transit Fares

Post date: Thu, 08/23/2018 - 11:31am
Event Date:
Content Type: News Item

The National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC) is soliciting proposals for our two 2018 Pooled Fund projects:

RFP now open; proposals due Oct 1, 2018

This project will address the need of cities and municipalities to combine bicycle data from different sources (such as manual counts, automatic counts, and crowd-sourced data from apps such as Strava) to assess an accurate accounting of bicycle traffic on a network. Current work on data fusion techniques is limited and additional research is needed to fully understand the choice of weighting techniques, inclusion of spatial vs. temporal variation in the weighting scheme and exploring other...

Read more
Tags
portland state university
university of oregon
oregon institute of technology
University of Utah
university of arizona
university of texas at arlington
rfp
pooled fund
bicycling
data
Stock image of bicycles

NITC Invites Proposals for 2018 "Small Starts" Funding

Post date: Wed, 07/18/2018 - 2:34pm
Event Date:
Content Type: News Item

The National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC) program has released its 2018 Small Starts request for proposals (RFP). Faculty at NITC's partner universities* are invited to submit abstracts by September 17, 2018.

The Small Starts grant assists researchers (based at NITC partner universities) who are interested in transportation but have not had an opportunity to undertake a small project ($20,000 or less). Read about the Small Starts projects that were funded in 2017. Projects must be consistent with NITC's theme of improving the 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

Key Dates

  • RFP Opens: July 18, 2018
  • Proposals due: September 17, 2018
  • Award Selection: Sept-Oct 2018
  • Projects begin & funds become available: December...
Read more
Tags
portland state university
university of oregon
oregon institute of technology
University of Utah
university of arizona
university of texas at arlington
rfp
small smarts
Image of a street with cars

NITC Funds $926K in the Newest Slate of Research on Mobility for Strong Communities

Post date: Wed, 06/20/2018 - 3:44pm
Event Date:
Content Type: News Item

The National Institute for Transportation & Communities (NITC) research consortium, led by Portland State University, has awarded $926,000 in total funding for eleven research projects spanning five universities.

The General Research grant is NITC's flagship grant. Annually, we fund general research through a competitive, peer-reviewed RFP process for projects ($30,000 - $150,000) consistent with our theme of improving the mobility of people and goods to build strong communities.

Four of these new projects involve multi-university collaboration, and seven are advancing the transportation knowledge base by building upon an existing body of research. The new group of projects will help lead the deployment of innovative new technologies and practices to improve the safety and performance of transportation systems:

Led by Liming Wang of Portland State University with co-investigator Yao-Jan Wu of the University of Arizona
This multi-university collaboration expands upon previous research by Liming Wang, Incorporate Emerging...
Read more
Tags
General Research
university of oregon
oregon institute of technology
portland state university
University of Utah
university of arizona
university of texas at arlington

NITC Invites Submissions for 2018 General Research RFP

Post date: Mon, 02/05/2018 - 4:25pm
Event Date:
Content Type: News Item

The National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC) program has released its 2018 general research request for proposals. Faculty at NITC's partner universities* are invited to submit abstracts by April 2, 2018.

Through funding provided by the U.S. DOT, we will award at least $1 million under our general research grant in 2018 for 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

Research projects must focus on transportation, with additional consideration given to projects that emphasize equity and diversity in their research and partnerships. We’re seeking projects that demonstrate a strong potential to move transportation research into practice, shape national and international conversations, and respond to the needs of practitioners and policymakers. 

Priority is given to projects that are collaborative, multidisciplinary, multi-campus, and support the development of untenured-tenure-track transportation faculty. 

Key Dates

  • Abstracts due: April 2,...
Read more
Tags
rfp
portland state
university of arizona
university of oregon
university of texas at arlington
University of Utah
oregon institute of technology

2017 NITC Dissertation Fellow: Alexander Lee, University of Arizona

Post date: Wed, 01/17/2018 - 3:11pm
Event Date:
Content Type: News Item

Every year NITC offers Doctoral Dissertation Research Fellowships which cover expenses for the recipient while working on a dissertation consistent with NITC's theme of improving the mobility of people and goods to build strong communities. 

Alexander Lee, a Graduate Research Assistant in Systems and Industrial Engineering at University of Arizona, is our 2017 NITC dissertation fellow has been funded to investigate his study on Using Time-Series Analysis to Precisely Identify and Rank Road Hotspots.

Over the past decades, many ranking methods have been proposed for "road hotspots". However, results vary from method to method, and one of the issues behind ranking is the element of subjectivity. One approach to resolve these issues is the use of combined models. One of the combined models is the Enhanced Empirical Bayesian (EB) method that incorporates the use of the similarity measure based on the Proportion Discordance Ratio (PDR). This model is developed to assess and objectively quantify similarity among road segments based on crash patterns, each of which contains a unique combination of selected crash-related features.

... Read more
Tags
university of arizona

Jobs, Housing, and Transit: Patterns in Neighborhood Development

Post date: Fri, 12/15/2017 - 1:00pm
Event Date:
Content Type: News Item
Principal Investigator: Arthur C. Nelson, University of Arizona
Learn more about this research on the Project Overview page.

Update

We originally published this story in December 2017 about a new study in progress. The data clearinghouse created by the researchers is now live and can be accessed here. Researchers have also provided a guide to using the data (PDF). The research team has made this resource publicly available to allow transportation researchers to use it as they see fit: micro-level analysis, in-depth longitudinal studies, or anything in between. We anticipate the publication of the full final report by the end of 2018.

Register for the Workshop

Robert Hibberd and Arthur C. Nelson will give an interactive...

Read more
Tags
university of arizona
Affordable housing
bus rapid transit
transit oriented development

NITC Announces Funding for Six New "Small Starts" Projects

Post date: Mon, 11/13/2017 - 9:43am
Event Date:
Content Type: News Item

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

Small Starts grants assist researchers who are interested in transportation but have not yet had an opportunity to undertake a small project—$15,000 in funding or less—that supports NITC's theme of safe, healthy and sustainable transportation choices to foster livable communities.

The latest projects selected by NITC's executive committee support that theme in exploring livable streets, multimodal safety and transportation efficiency.

The six newly funded projects are:

  • Is There a "Buy Local" Case for Lower Travel Speeds? Testing Differences in Driver Recognition of Local Versus National Retail at Different Travel Speeds—Jonathan Bean and Arlie Adkins, University of Arizona (Full Proposal)
  • How Will Autonomous Vehicles Change Local Government Budgeting and Finance? A Case Study of Solid Waste, Drop-off/Pick-up Zones, and Parking—Benjamin Clark, University of Oregon (...
Read more
Tags
university of arizona
university of oregon
university of texas at arlington
University of Utah
portland state university

Pages