Skip to main content

University of Michigan wins Transportation Technology Tournament

A team from the University of Michigan has won the Transportation Technology Tournament for designing a solution to reduce congestion on two interstate highways in the Detroit area. The team presented their solution, Corridor Management in the I-75/I-696 Influence Area, to a panel of judges during a tournament which took place during the Institute of Transportation Engineers annual meeting in Austin, Texas. It focused on mitigating heavy, peak hour traffic volume on I-75 between Detroit and Troy, as
July 25, 2019 Read time: 2 mins
A team from the 5594 University of Michigan has won the Transportation Technology Tournament for designing a solution to reduce congestion on two interstate highways in the Detroit area.


The team presented their solution, Corridor Management in the I-75/I-696 Influence Area, to a panel of judges during a tournament which took place during the 5667 Institute of Transportation Engineers annual meeting in Austin, Texas.

It focused on mitigating heavy, peak hour traffic volume on I-75 between Detroit and Troy, as well as on the east and westbound I-696 in the Detroit suburbs. The proposal included a supply focused solution for managing the flow of vehicles and a demand focused solution for reducing car trips by using shuttles and car-pooling to the area’s major employers, such as 948 General Motors and 1958 Chrysler.  

The annual Transportation Technology Tournament stems from a partnership between the National Operations Center of Excellence (NOCoE) and the US Department of Transportation.

Patrick Son, NOCoE’s managing director said the students developed practical solutions to a problem that has “stalled Southeast Michigan for decades”.

“There is virtually no room to add capacity, yet the team came up with a suite of ideas that involved TSMO and Intelligent Transportation strategies to create a low cost, workable solution,” he added.

Aside from the University of Michigan, the other finalists were the Florida International University, the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and two teams from the University of South Florida.

UTC

Related Content

  • June 13, 2013
    Bus/toll lanes proposed for Tampa Hillsboro area
    Toll and transit authorities in Tampa, Florida, are to jointly propose a first bus/toll lanes (BTL) project for the region this autumn. Tampa Hillsborough Expressway Authority (THEA) in Florida is developing a bus/toll lane (BTL) project in partnership with Hillsborough Area Regional Transit (HART), the regional governments' bus service provider. BTLs are toll managed lanes added to existing expressways that are designed for express transit buses plus toll-paying vehicles in volumes capped by dynamic prici
  • March 3, 2017
    Freight poses growing problem for city authorities
    Wes Guckert considers possible solutions and countermeasures to the problems of increased freight deliveries in growing cities. In January 2016, the US Department of Transportation (USDoT) conducted a session on the SmartCity Challenge and Urban Freight and Logistics. This session was a follow-up to the USDoT report titled, Beyond Traffic 2045.
  • August 27, 2014
    NICTA injects Australian ICT into global transport design
    National ICT Australia (NICTA), Australia’s Information and Communications Technology Research Centre of Excellence is heading to the ITS World Congress in Detroit to unveil its latest innovations that are injecting smart ICT into the complex world of transport infrastructure. Members of NICTA’s infrastructure, transport and logistics team are leading 20 sessions at the Congress, showcasing how NICTA’s research is making transport networks safer, more efficient and more sustainable. The team will demonst
  • March 7, 2018
    Europe’s road safety record suffers as austerity bites hard, say traffic police chiefs
    Europe’s leading traffic police chiefs are struggling with the challenge of how best to manage the region’s road network in an era of austerity. Things are changing fast, and not for the better, reports Geoff Hadwick. Europe’s road safety record is under threat. Police budgets are being slashed, staff numbers are falling and a long-term trend towards ever-fewer road deaths has ground to a halt. The line on the graph has flat-lined. Does Europe’s road network face a far more dangerous future? Lower and