Fwd: SMART event -- noon, June 11: GPS, Travel Behavior & New Mobility - Dr. Lisa Aultman-Hall, Director of UVM UTC

[Anthony Townsend]

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Katya Seligman" <katy...@isr.umich.edu>

Date: June 4, 2007 3:10:06 PM EDT

To: "Katya Seligman" <katy...@isr.umich.edu>

Subject: SMART event -- noon, June 11:  GPS, Travel Behavior & New Mobility - Dr. Lisa Aultman-Hall, Director of UVM UTC

   Travel Behavior Data Needs for New Mobility:

Is GPS the Ultimate Solution?

 

Monday June 11, 12:00pm., 335 West Hall

 

 

Special Guest Speaker: Lisa Aultman-Hall, Director, UVM Transportation Center

 

Please join SMART in welcoming Dr. Lisa Aultman-Hall to Michigan to present and discuss some of her recent work related to New Mobility. Given the hour, feel free to bring a brown bag lunch. Thanks to the National Science Foundation HSD program for making this event possible. See “About SMART” below for more information on SMART’s activities.

 

This presentation will outline the exciting recent uses of GPS data in transportation research with a focus on an obvious GPS travel data need: route behavior.   Traveler route choice behavior is the cornerstone of understanding individual travel needs and decisions.  It is an integral part of a newer transportation modeling approach called activity analysis.  Yet we lack data to describe the route decision making undertaken by travelers.  This lack of data limits our ability to improve traffic simulation models and regional travel demand planning models.  In its place, we assume travelers seek to minimize time, a simplification of complex travel decisions.  Actual segment-by-segment travel routes are difficult to collect with paper or phone surveys.  While vehicle-mounted and person-mounted Global Positioning Systems (GPS) receivers seem to be a logical means to collect data, very few GPS travel route datasets have been successfully collected and analyzed.  Dr. Aultman-Hall’s presentation will illustrate some of the reasons why, and will summarize the findings of several recent research projects which address the methodological issues related to GPS use for travel route data:

• Spatial data typology and conversion;
• Map-matching GPS data to underlying road networks; and
• Obtaining comprehensive travel time data for the network to facilitate comparison of alternative routes.

 

The presentation will conclude with interesting research results related to on-road second-by-second emissions and driving behavior, but at the same time question whether such detailed analyses answer core transportation policy needs and how planned research at the UVM Transportation Center will address this larger question.

 

About Lisa Aultman-Hall:

 

 

Dr. Lisa Aultman-Hall joined the University of Vermont as founding Director of the National University Transportation Center in August 2006.  Dr. Aultman-Hall is a Professor in the School of Engineering.  She had previously served as the Director of the Connecticut Transportation Institute, while an Associate Professor of Civil Engineering at the University of Connecticut.   She teaches transportation planning and traffic safety.  Her research interests include tailpipe emissions, traffic safety (bicyclists, young drivers, old drivers), freight transportation planning, transportation network robustness, and travel behavior, especially route choice.  Dr. Aultman-Hall’s work is currently funded by the National Science Foundation, the Connecticut Department of Transportation and the New England University Transportation Center. 

 

 

About S.M.A.R.T.:

 

SMART, (Sustainable Mobility and Accessibility Research and Transformation) is a new transportation and accessibility initiative at the Centre for Advancing Research and Solutions for Society (CARRS) at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. CARSS was established in January, 2003 to extend and strengthen the intellectual and methodological foundations of social and behavioral science, and the degree to which that science is applied to addressing society's most pressing problems and abiding dilemmas.

 

SMART takes a unique systemic approach to understanding, modelling and transforming the future of physical and digital access to goods, services and destinations in urban settings world-wide. It brings together the issues, the players, the theoretical approaches, and the practical applications required to tackle urban transportation’s growing complexity, sophistication, impacts, and opportunities.

 

SMART is both timely and relevant as the global challenge of mobility becomes rapidly more vexing and complex. The accelerating pace of population growth, globalization, urbanization, and demographic shifts is leading increasingly to transportation systems that contribute significantly to climate change, environmental degradation, loss of biodiversity, diminishing resources, and challenges to energy security, as well as social inequality. Yet the vital role of mobility and accessibility to meeting our daily personal and business needs cannot be denied. SMART’s innovative, integrative, applied approach carves a unique niche as a go-to place for whole systems solution-building that works to address the mobility and accessibility challenges of the 21^st century.

 

Born at the Centre for the Study of Complex Systems, SMART brings together the Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise, the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, the Ross School of Business, the School of Natural Resources & Environment, the Ford School of Public Policy, UMTRI, the Ford Motor Company, and Literature Science & the Arts, along with a range of other academic and industry participants

 

For more information on this event, contact Susan Zielinski, Managing Director, SMART: sus...@isr.umich.edu

For more information about CARSS and SMART: www.isr.umich.edu/carss