MTI hosted Bachrodt Elementary's second grade class at San Jose State University (SJSU) for a day of transit safety activities and university exploration. The students traveled to SJSU using public transit, where they received a tour of the university campus, Spartan Recreation and Aquatics Center, and the library. In between tours the students partook in a hand-on, STEM activity that taught them the principles of the scientific process.

Initiated by Metro’s Women and Girls Governing Council and endorsed by Metro CEO Phil Washington, the “Understanding How Women Travel” study was launched.  Over the course of nine months, a comprehensive and creative approach was taken to better understand women’s mobility in LA county; framed by core social justice principles and methods, both traditional and non – traditional data collection methods were used to effectively capture “hard – to – reach” populations and embody the project’s intersectional approach to gender.  This innovative study and its findings, have laid the foundation for bridging the gender equity gap for our current and future female riders. 

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Put together by one of our Mineta Summer Transprotation Institute alumna and her Robotics class/ team, Leland High School puts on a career talk about careers in STEM, featuring Dr. Buford Furman MTI Research Associate and SJSU professor.

Hands-free texting is a popular way around a hefty fine in 48 states and often viewed as safe behind the wheel. However, MTI research found that while participants perceived an increased level of safety while using hands-free interfaces, response times and drift did not significantly differ from those manually texting. In conversation with Dr. Francesca Favaro, the webinar discussed how this seemingly convenient solution to texting and driving bans might do little to limit distracted driving.

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MTI was proud to co-sponsor the CUTC 2020 Awards Banquet, which celebrates one of the most important benefits of federal investment in university transportation research-- the outstanding students and faculty who contribute to transportation research and education through this important program! Approximately 300 distinguished transportation leaders, representing academia, the transportation industry, and government were in attendance. 

Mineta Transportation Institute researchers convened a workshop on "Surface Transportation Supply Chain Security," bringing together subject matter experts from international, federal and state governments and the private sector, and academic researchers. The goal of the conference was to understand the current state of the practice in surface transportation supply chain security, and to consider areas of needed research to address new and developing challenges. Areas of focus included risk estimation, geopolitical aspects, and modal relations. The keynote speaker was Professor Joseph Szyliowicz of the University of Denver, with presentations on geopolitical challenges by Capt. Manual Raras, USCG (Ret.), security planning by Cdr. Romulus Matthews, USCG, and maritime management cybersecurity by LCdr. Robert Cole, USCG. Power outage and the supply chain was presented by Col. Mitch Medigovich, USNG (Ret.), deputy director of the California Office of Emergency Services. Challenges of cargo security and port management was presented by Kevin Krick of Matson Lines. Cybersecurity and future challenges for supply chain security was presented by Ash Padwal of Allied Telesis. Jan Benini, retired from the US Department of Transportation, provided the dinner speech on the work of the Asia Pacific International Cooperation Group in supply chain security. Gzim Ocakoglu, European Union representative to the United States, discussed the strategies employed by European nations to achieve supply chain security. Discussants for the workshop included Daniel Goodrich, Senior Transportation Security Scientist at MTI; Herby Lissade, Deputy Director, Caltrans; Cdr. Greg Callaghan, USCG; and Professor Len Lira, USA (Ret.). Professor Frannie Edwards, deputy director of the National Transportation Security Center, was the facilitator for the event. The outcome of the workshop was the creation of a blueprint for future research in surface transportation supply chain security.

With new bike infrastructure rolling out in cities across the U.S., how is bike infrastructure evaluated by both cyclists and experts? Enter the popular and widely used "Level of Traffic Stress" (LTS), but how does this method measure up against popular bike review apps like Ride Report? Join us in a conversation with MTI researchers, Dr. Kevin Fang, Dr. Daniel Rodriguez, and Chester Harvey to discuss the validity of LTS when compared to results from Ride Report and their findings from "Evaluating Alternative Measures of Bicycling Level of Traffic Stress Using Crowdsourced Route Satisfaction Data.”

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Thirty years ago the San Andreas Fault ruptured near Loma Prieta Peak, creating the largest urban earthquake in over 80 years. The M 6.9 earthquake took 63 lives and injured another 3,757. Many of those due to the destroyed urban infrastructure, such as the Cypress structure on I-880 in Oakland, and the collapse of homes in San Francisco's Marina District. These catastrophes provided civil engineers and public policy leaders with a multitude of lessons to apply in the event of another "Killer Quake."
MTI and San Jose State University's (SJSU) College of Engineerin welcomed Dr. Anne Wein, US Geological Survey, Operations Research Analyst, who delivered the pivotal keynote address. Dr. Frances Edwards, MTI's Deputy Director of the National Transportation Security Center, chaired the discussion with Dr. Steven Vukazich of SJSU's Material and Civil Engineering Departments and Ash Padwal Chief Risk Officer of Allied Telesis leading panels on changes over the last 30 years that have enhanced seismic safety, as well as future developments needed to improve the Bay Area's earthquake resilience.

California is in the midst of several ambitious shifts in its transportation infrastructure, funding, and vehicle fleet composition. Governor Jerry Brown set a target of reaching 5 million zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs) by 2030. Such a rapid increase of electric cars would mean fewer drivers paying fuel taxes, the state’s largest source of transportation revenue. But, in 2017 the passage of SB1 added annual road improvement fees, some of which vary with the value of the vehicles. Researchers compared the revenue lost to the state because electric vehicles with revenue gained by the new fees and found surprising results. The switch to electric vehicles will not necessarily reduce the state’s future revenue for transportation programs. 

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6th International Conference on Women’s Issues in Transportation

“Insights, Inclusion, and Impact:
Framing the Future for Women in Transportation”

Tuesday September 10-13, 2019

Beckman Center
100 Academy Way
Irvine, California 92617
949-721-2200

Organized by
Transportation Research Board

The 2019 WIiT conference, sixth in a series that began in 1978, will focus on women's issues related to all aspects of travel and transportation. The 2014 conference, under the theme Bridging the Gap, explored and addressed the gender differences in access to transportation and mobility, responsiveness of transport systems to needs and preferences of women, transportation safety, personal security, and participation of women in decision-making and wealth creation in the transportation sector. The 2019 conference will pick up similar themes, this time guided by an evaluative framework of three lenses: insights, inclusion and impact.

TC Sessions: Mobility presented a day of programming with the best founders, investors and technologists who are hell-bent on inventing a future Henry Ford could have never imagined.TechCrunch’s editors challenged the assumptions and break through the hype to help attendees understand the current state of the mobility revolution and define who will be in the driver’s seat when the future is realized.

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A Mineta Transportation Institute (MTI) report explores the “rules of the road” around the use of emerging “personal transportation devices.” Also known as “micromobility,” the number and use of these devices has exploded in recent years, highlighted by the arrival of electric scooters in cities over the past couple of years. The report explores to the degree states, cities, and college campuses are or are not regulating these new devices. This webinar with the authors reviews their findings and discussed recommendations from their recent report.

Speakers
Brianne Eby, Policy Analyst, Eno Center for Transportation

Kevin Fang, Assistant Professor, Sonoma State University

Kevin is an Assistant Professor of Geography, Environment, and Planning at Sonoma State University and a Research Associate at the Mineta Transportation Center. His research centers on sustainable transportation alternatives, including recent work on skateboarding for transportation and cycling, and current work on emerging “micromobility” modes of travel. In particular, Kevin is interested in the characteristics and behavior of alternative modes and their users, as well as to the degree land use enables or precludes their use.

Asha Weinstein Agrawal, Professor, San Jose State University

Asha Weinstein Agrawal works at San José State University, where she is Director of the Mineta Transportation Institute’s National Transportation Finance Center and MTI’s Education Director, as well as a Professor of Urban and Regional Planning. Her research agenda is guided by a commitment to the principles of sustainability and equity: what planning and policy tools can communities adopt to encourage environmentally-friendly travel and improve accessibility for people struggling with poverty or other disadvantages? She has explored this question most deeply through two substantive areas – transportation finance policy and the travel behavior of pedestrians, cyclists, and transit riders. (More info, including publications, is here.)

Over 75% of US seniors currently live in suburban and rural areas, living patterns that have only intensified over the past 40 years, in spite of occasional press reports to the contrary. Over 90% of those seniors are active drivers well into their 80’s; they have fashioned their lives around the flexibility and access offered by a car even as their transit use has dropped precipitously--travel patterns all but dictated by the places in which they live. Yet seniors walk for an increasing percent of all trips as they age. Sandra Rosenbloom argues that we have to keep older drivers in their cars as long as safely possible and retrofit the suburban communities in which older people are aging-in-place to provide meaningful transportation and housing options to those who can’t or don’t continue to drive.

With recent changes made to California's high-speed rail plan and concerns over future projects, USHSR brought leading professionals, industry leaders, and government officials to Los Angeles for the West Coast Rails Conference. 

Location: The conference takes place at MTA Headquarters - One Gateway Plaza, Los Angeles, CA, 90012.

MPAs and MSTMs joined us as James Griffith, MPA of the Governor's Office of Emergency Services taught a Grant Writing Workshop for the MPA program. Admission was free for MPA and MSTM students at San Jose State University. Attendees who completed the day received a certificate of attendance for 4 contact hours of instruction for their training record provided by the Mineta Tranportation Institute, where James is a Research Assistant. 

Transportation for a Smart, Sustainable, and Equitable Future.

Research Associates with the Mineta Transportation Institute presented at this annual conference at the Washington Convention Center. The meeting program covered all transportation modes, with more than 5,000 presentations in nearly 800 sessions and workshops, addressing topics of interest to policy makers, administrators, practitioners, researchers, and representatives of government, industry, and academic institutions. A number of sessions and workshops focused on the spotlight theme for the 2019 meeting: Transportation for a Smart, Sustainable, and Equitable Future.

SJSU students, faculty, and San José Department of Parks, Recreation and Neighborhood Services (PRNS) gathered to illustrate how data collected from the assessent of VivaCalleSJ 2018 is being used to provide new insights into the evaluation content and process. The data demonstrated how City and University collaboration helped build community and social capital in San José as well as enhanced student learning.