Skip to main content

US joint university team wins ITE’s transportation challenge

A joint team from the Universities of Texas, Wyoming and Kansas has won the first Transportation Technology Tournament organised by the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE). The winning project set out to address what it called “non-recurrent congestion challenges” in Washington, DC, such as increased traffic on days when the Washington Nationals baseball team played at home. The team worked with the District Department of Transportation (DoT) to develop real-time traveller information systems to
August 28, 2018 Read time: 2 mins
A joint team from the Universities of Texas, Wyoming and Kansas has won the first Transportation Technology Tournament. The event was hosted at the 5667 Institute of Transportation Engineers’ (ITE) annual meeting and exhibit in downtown Minneapolis.

The winning project set out to address what it called “non-recurrent congestion challenges” in Washington, DC, such as increased traffic on days when the Washington Nationals baseball team played at home. The team worked with the 2134 District Department of Transportation (DoT) to develop real-time traveller information systems to give drivers more accurate travel times and alternative routes.

In second place, the judges chose Cal Poly – San Luis Obispo, California Polytechnic State University, for its work on pedestrian safety with the City of Detroit and the 1687 Michigan DoT.

North Dakota State University was also a finalist for working with the City of Moorhead, Minnesota, in providing train information near highway rail grade crossings.

Florida International University was also shortlisted for working on pedestrian safety in collaboration with the City of Gainesville, Florida.

The winner was announced at ITE’s Annual Meeting and Exhibit in Minneapolis. The tournament was organised by the National Operations Center of Excellence (NOCoE) and the US DoT. The four finalists were chosen from nine participating teams working with a local or state DoT to implement ITS technologies and transportation systems management and operations (TSMO) strategies.

The teams pitched their solutions to five judges which included Egan Smith, managing director, ITS joint program officer, US DoT and Arlene Kocher, division administrator, 831 Federal Highway Administration, US DoT.

After the presentations, the judges put forward questions to each team, which prompted them to elaborate on their innovations, consider alternative strategies and provide answers around procurement and the cost of their products.

All participants will now take part in local and regional meetings and discuss their proposals. In addition, the NOCoE intends to facilitate an additional discussion around the solutions with state and local agencies, industry leaders and potential deployers of ITS and TSMO solutions.

UTC

Related Content

  • April 5, 2024
    US motorists urged not to be eclipsed by totality
    Total eclipse of the sun will cross 15 states, leading to predictions of traffic problems
  • March 31, 2016
    OCTA seeks proposals from three teams for I-405 freeway project
    The Orange County Transportation Authority, California, is seeking proposals from a shortlist of firms for the design and construction of the I-405 Improvement Project, an important step toward building a better freeway that is intended to improve travel times for those driving the corridor between Costa Mesa and the Los Angeles County line. The OCTA Board of Directors has unanimously approved the criteria for selecting a firm to design and build the freeway improvements and approved issuing the final re
  • June 14, 2017
    Deriving data to tackle tribal road crashes
    David Crawford looks at a new initiative to deal with high crash and fatality rates on America’s tribal roads. According to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, on average two members of the country’s indigenous communities - American Indians or Alaskan Natives (AI/AN) - die every day in motor vehicle crashes. This represents a far higher percentage than that of the country’s general population. Historically, the US states with the worst records are Wyoming, South Dakota, Montana, North Dakot
  • June 14, 2012
    US to stage two-day summit on traffic incident management
    The US Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) will host a two-day summit on 26-27 June on advancing the culture of traffic incident management (TIM) throughout the country. US Department of Transportation (USDoT) Secretary Raymond LaHood and Federal Highway Administrator Victor Mendez will welcome the group and provide opening remarks demonstrating the commitment of FHWA and USDoT senior executives in support of safe, quick traffic incident responses on the nation's roadways. Those attending this summit incl