2020 Events
| 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | Sponsored Conferences/Workshops |
FMRI Workshop at the 23rd IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Transportation SystemsSeptember 19, 2020 The FMRI is sponsoring a half-day workshop titled "Smart Initiatives to Improve Last-Mile and 50 Feet Logistics to Improve Freight Fluidity". The objective of is to address critical issues affecting planning, design, operation, and safety. It will also focus on identifying innovative strategies and technologies which are being developed to facilitate ‘last-mile’ delivery challenges. Presided by Dr. Evangelos Kaisar, FMRI Director, and Dr. Petros Ioannou, it will be conducted virtually on Saturday, September 19 in the 23rd IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems, originally scheduled to be held in Rhodes, Greece. |
Webinar: Industry Perceptions of Highly Automated Technologies for TrucksAugust 19, 2020, 1pm (EDT) Research surrounding vehicle automation is highly focused on making Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CAVs) operational. An area that has received less attention is marketing and adoption. It is essential to predict with reasonable accuracy how the freight transportation industry will react to CAVs. Policymakers and legislators need to know what to expect if they are to implement appropriate and timely legislation. Manufacturers need to know both what the transportation industry believes about CAVs and how companies plan to respond to the introduction of connected autonomous trucks (CATs). Autonomous vehicle technologies will have an immense impact on the entire field of transportation, and we must be prepared for the changes that they will bring. This presentation will discuss the industry perspectives of highly automated technology for trucks. Presented by Dr. Sabya Mishra, Associate Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Memphis. Before joining the University of Memphis, Dr. Sabya worked as a Research Assistant Professor at the National Center for Smart Growth Research and Education, University of Maryland College Park. RECORDED WEBINAR PRESENTATION SLIDES |
Webinar: Last-Mile Delivery InnovationsJuly 9, 2020, 2pm (EDT) The rapid growth of e-commerce and package deliveries across the globe is demanding new solutions to meet customers’ desire for more and faster deliveries. This webinar presents a survey of last mile innovations, focusing on the cost competitiveness of autonomous, air, and ground delivery vehicles. It also covers the analysis of their last mile CO2 emissions. The performance of autonomous vehicles are compared against conventional and electric delivery vans. The impact of delivery times, capacity, range, and time constraints are analyzed. The potential impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on last-mile delivery innovations will also be discussed. Presented by Dr. Miguel Figliozzi, Professor in the Civil and Environmental Department at Portland State University. Dr. Figliozzi is the director of the Transportation Technology and People (TTP) research group. He has published extensively in the area of vehicle technologies, urban deliveries, and routing-logistics. Recorded webinar Presentation slides |
Webinar: Supply Chain Disruptions - Lessons Learned From Previous Natural DisastersJune 25, 2020, 1pm (EDT) Natural and biological disasters occur at regular intervals throughout the world. Every event impacts the global supply chain at some extent, sometimes disrupting it significantly. The Covid-19 disruption is expressive, but it is not unprecedented. Supply chain disruptions have been studied after several natural and biological emergencies. Most recent disasters such as the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011 and H1N1 of 2009-2010 had significant impact on supply chain. The impacts of these recent disasters on supply chain has been analyzed, highlighting several global supply chain flaws such as dependence, visibility, and unreliability. Various strategies had been proposed in literature to reduce the blow of these disasters such as sourcing duplication, adding inventories, duplicating production lines. This webinar explores previously identified supply chain problems and proposed solutions. Presented by Dr. Sharad K. Maheshwari, which is a professor in the Department Business Administration at the Hampton University, and Associate Director (education) at FMRI. His main area of teaching and research interests are supply chain management, transportation management, distracted driving, quality management, project management and business education. RECORDED WEBINAR Presentation slides |
Webinar: Adoption of highly automated vehicle technologies by individuals and organizationsJune 10, 2020, 2pm (CST) Highly automated vehicle technologies (automated driving systems and in-vehicle technologies) have a potential to revolutionize the daily travel modes, in terms of personal, public or shared mobility. This is due to their potential of technology-assisted driving, which minimizes errors caused by humans. In addition to safety, these vehicle technologies provide additional benefits in terms of ability to multitask during travel, flexibility in travel, reduced parking and running costs, travel time savings (due to the reduction in congestion), and accessibility to elder and non-license holder individuals. However, such benefits will have numerous barriers, such as accident liabilities, data safety concerns, the addition of new infrastructure, and increased emissions (possible consequent increase in vehicle miles traveled). This presentation will discuss methods to analyze decision maker perception and their implications in transportation planning processes. Presented by Dr. Sabya Mishra, the Faudree Associate Professor of Civil Engineering and the co-director of FedEx Institute of Technology’s SMARTCity research cluster at the University of Memphis. RECORDED WEBINAR Presentation slides |
Webinar: A Discussion on Transportation Post COVID-19May 28, 2020, 1pm (EDT) The transportation sector has been significantly affected by the pandemic with historic decreases in travel by air, motor vehicle, and public transport. At the same time, increases in walking and biking have caused many cities to close streets to motor vehicle traffic and open them up to pedestrians and bicyclists. As jurisdictions begin to reopen, transit systems, transportation network companies, micro-mobility providers and other system operators are being faced with significant challenges in reducing the transmission risk to operators and users and rebuilding ridership. In thinking about the longer-term implications, many questions arise, such as funding, the impacts in demand, options and employment, and the overall transportation scenario after this major disruption. This session will not provide answers, but will stimulate participants into thinking about how potential changes will impact our industry in a post-COVID-19 world. Presented by Jeffrey Paniati, Executive Director and CEO of the Institute of Transportation Engineers, this session will engage the participants in a discussion of the impacts of COVID-19 on the transportation sector and explore the short-term and long-term implications. RECORDED WEBINAR Presentation slides |
Webinar: Development of Guidelines for Implementation of Freight and Transit Signal Priorities in Urban CorridorsMay 6, 2020, 11am (EDT) The growth of freight movements in metropolitan areas can be seen as one of the near future's key concerns. Moreover, traffic congestion due to heavy freight movements affects both private and public vehicle operations. Therefore reducing congestion on multimodal corridors with high freight and transit volumes is of significant importance. Components of the intelligent transport system such as Freight Signal Priority (FSP) and Transit Signal Priority (TSP) can improve to alleviate these conditions. The primary objective of this project is to establish guidelines for the application of signal priorities by traffic agencies focusing on defined decision factors on the considered corridors. In addition, this analysis assesses the efficacy of FSP and TSP in enhancing freight and transit network efficiency. This research laid out recommendations for different scenarios. Finally, a detailed guideline framework is established based on the literature review and the experiments being performed. The developed guideline relates to corridors where freight delay plays a critical role in determining the performance of the corridors. Presented by FMRI Graduate Research Assistant Taraneh Ardalan, which graduated in Spring 2020 with a Master's degree from Florida Atlantic University. RECORDED WEBINAR Presentation slides |
7th Annual UTC Conference for the Southeastern Region
A conference to share your work with colleagues, sponsors, industry, and collaborators of University Transportation Centers in the Southeastern U.S. The conference is FREE and open to faculty, students, practitioners, and public agencies in the southeast region of the U.S. On this one-and-a-half-day event, we are going to disseminate research findings and information about activities at University Transportation Centers (UTCs), partner universities, and other entities in the region. The objective is to strengthen collaboration of the academic community, as well as the private and public sector agencies, and encourage collaboration on future projects. The conference will feature keynote speakers from state and federal agencies, various podium and poster presentations, state DOT panel, ITE student session, exhibits, and research demonstration. Student posters will be competing for scholarships, and selected abstracts will be invited for a full paper submission which will be included in a special issue of IEEE Transactions of Intelligent Transportation Systems. CONFERENCE WEBSITE |
Webinar: Innovative Techniques to Optimize, Enhance, and Facilitate Freight MovementMarch 4, 2020, 2-3:45 pm (CST) Tran-SET will conduct its next webinar on “Innovative Techniques to Optimize, Enhance, and Facilitate Freight Movement”. FMRI Professor and FMRI Associate Director Dr. Mihalis Golias will participate with the presentation "Methods and Tools for freight flow disaggregation". The objective of this project is to develop a geodatabase with all the relevant freight data and a methodology to estimate disaggregate freight flows to support transportation planning in the state of Tennessee. The webinar will be jointly hosted by Cooperative Mobility for Competitive Megaregions (a Tier 1 UTC). RECORDED WEBINAR Presentation Slides |
Freight Research at the Rensselaer Polytechnic InstituteFMRI & ITE FAU Student Chapter Lecture Series During the last two decades, Professor José Holguín-Veras and his team have conducted research on the development of freight demand models that bypass the need for expensive data collection efforts. These analytical formulations are designed to infer freight activity patterns based on readily available secondary data, such as traffic counts and freight trip generation estimates. Although there is a long tradition in passenger demand modeling of using matrix estimation” techniques, these passenger-inspired formulations are unable to capture the complexities of freight activity such as long delivery tours, empty trips, the multi-commodity nature of the activity, and the multi-class traffic that is generated. Thus, novel analytical models capable of representing the unique features of freight activity needed to be developed. In his lecture, Professor Holguín-Veras will provide an overview of the research conducted and will discuss the application of these techniques to the estimation of the Freight Demand Model for Bangladesh. Dr. José Holguín-Veras is the William H. Hart Professor and Director of the VREF Center of Excellence for Sustainable Urban Freight Systems at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. His work on disaster response has played an influential role in disaster response procedures, and has led to deeper insight into how best to respond to large disasters and catastrophic events. EVENT FLYER |
From Mobility to Accessibility: Transforming Urban Transportation and Land-Use PlanningFMRI & ITE FAU Student Chapter Lecture Series Dr. Louis Merlin is an Assistant Professor in the School of Urban and Regional Planning at Florida Atlantic University. With previous degrees in Mathematics and Operations Research, Dr. Merlin’s research specializes in the application of innovative quantitative methods to transportation and land use systems. In this presentation, Dr. Merlin contrast the concepts of accessibility and mobility, review basic accessibility measures, and demonstrates how an accessibility-based analysis may yield different recommendations than a mobility-based analysis through a specific case study in the San Antonio region. What is the goal of transportation planning? We don’t often stop to think about this larger question. Often we are motivated by improving specific performance measures that are accepted practice. It turns out that many, if not most of, the widely accepted performance measures in transportation planning practice are mobility based. That is, they are motivated by the goal of improving speeds and/or reducing delay for vehicles. The problem with this ubiquitous mobility orientation of our field is that the ultimate goal of transportation is not mobility buy accessibility. Following the derived theory of transportation demand, success in transportation is not measured by travel speed but rather by the ability to reach destinations. This concept is generally referred to as accessibility and is not equivalent to the concern of equal access by disabled persons. EVENT FLYER |
FMRI 3rd Annual Networking ReceptionJanuary 14, 2020, 6pm - 8pm FMRI will host a networking event with government representatives, industry partners, and academic institutions to collaborate and discuss the future of transportation. This event is open to professionals in the field, everyone participating in the Transportation Research Board 99th Annual Meeting, and anyone interested or involded in the transportation field. EVENT FLYER |
FMRI Workshop in the 99th TRB Annual MeetingJanuary 12, 2020, 1:30 pm - 4:30 pm FMRI's director Dr. Evangelos Kaisar is presiding a workshop on the 99th TRB Annual Meeting, along with Mr. Charles Edwards, from the North Carolina Department of Transportation. The workshop will identify innovative strategies to facilitate “last 50 feet” delivery challenges and evaluate operational changes or technology applications which support the timely flow of freight. WORKSHOP AGENDA FMRI AT TRB 2020 |