In 2016, Volpe will take action on six emerging issues: advanced automation and emerging technologies; breakthroughs in safety; data analytics, visualization, and real-time decision making; transportation energy and sustainability; transportation system resiliency; and on-demand...
News
Realizing Self-Driving Vehicles
January 7, 2016
Eventually, self-driving vehicles will reshape the way we live in, and move through, our communities and cities. In his talk at Volpe, Director of Google's Self-Driving Car Program Chris Urmson shared stories and lessons, along with Google’s vision for how these vehicles will...
Inside TRB’s New Policy Research on the Transportation Sharing Economy
January 7, 2016
TRB Executive Director Neil Pedersen discussed a new study that addresses a number of policy issues associated with technology-enabled transportation services, such as car-sharing and bike-sharing microtransit services, and transportation network companies, such as Uber and Lyft.
Innovation: It’s More Than a Buzzword
January 6, 2016
Earth-shattering innovations rarely happen in a vacuum. From Sputnik to Apollo 11, the Model T to self-driving cars, every transportation technology that challenged us to rethink mobility rose out of entire teams of engineers and designers who bucked convention. Ken Gabriel,...
Re-Programming Mobility 2030: Scenarios of Digital Transformation in Metropolitan America
January 6, 2016
Anthony Townsend, senior research scientist at New York University’s Rudin Center, discussed the signals of our increasingly programmable world and examined mobility in an age of programmability, indentifying four broad scenarios for America’s transportation future.
Industry Disruption: How Connectivity Is Redefining Personal Mobility
December 15, 2015
In his talk for Volpe's speaker series Beyond Traffic 2045: Reimagining Transportation, Harry Lightsey, executive director of the Global Connected Customer Experience for General Motors, identified four foundational changes happening in the auto industry that are connecting...
Shaping Rail’s Future in the Northeast
December 15, 2015
The Northeast Corridor (NEC) is one of the most heavily traveled rail corridors in the world. But the NEC operates on outdated infrastructure with capacity constraints. To address this, the Federal Railroad Administration has released the NEC FUTURE Tier 1 Draft Environmental...
Making the Case for New Maritime Training Vessels
December 14, 2015
MARAD maintains a fleet of U.S. Government-owned vessels to train merchant marine officer candidates and support other federal agencies in humanitarian assistance and disaster relief efforts. Based on a Volpe analysis, MARAD concluded that three of these ships will no longer be...
Reducing Light-Duty Vehicle Energy Use and GHG Emissions
December 11, 2015
John Heywood, who spoke as part of Volpe’s Beyond Traffic 2045: Reimagining Transportation series, identifies three themes for transportation professionals working on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Small Business Innovation Research Program Makes Crossing the Street Safer
December 9, 2015
With the growing numbers of pedestrian fatalities in mind, the Federal Highway Administration, through U.S. DOT's Small Business Innovation Research program, awarded a contract to develop a traffic signal interface app for smartphones called SmartCross.