Transportation Trajectories
About Transportation Trajectories
Featuring Volpe Center experts, Transportation Trajectories is a dialogue on advancing transportation innovation for the public good. The transportation community is invited to join the conversation as Volpe Center staff describe their work and share their knowledge of the transportation enterprise.
The Volpe Center team represents a world class transportation resource with multi-disciplinary capabilities in all modes of transportation. The expertise of Volpe Center's staff spans a wide range of disciplines—staff include civil, electrical, mechanical aeronautical engineers, physical and social scientists, human factors experts, economists, planners, information technologists, and safety operation specialists to name a few.
Transportation Trajectories events are held at the Volpe Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts and are also accessible via webinar.
Next in the Series
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Automated Vehicles - Coming Soon to a Driveway Near You?
The transition to self-driving cars may present a number of challenges and opportunities for the developer, the regulator and the operator.
with
Gary Ritter
Director, Center for Advanced Transportation Technologies
at the Volpe Center
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
The Challenge of Transportation Planning for Megaregions
By 2050, 70% of U.S. population and economic growth is forecast to occur in 10-12 megaregions. Will our transportation network support global competition, avoid gridlock, and protect the environment? We plan transportation for states, urban areas, and modes, but who will plan for megaregions?
with
William M. Lyons
Principal Technical Advisor for Transportation Planning
at the Volpe Center
Recent Dialogues
March 22, 2012
Weaving silos into tapestry: Cross-modal safety through the U.S. DOT Safety Council
Stephen M. Popkin, Ph.D.,
Director of the Center of Human Factors Research and System Applications at the Volpe Center
February 28, 2012
Aiming High with Alternative Jet Fuels
"So, what will the future look like for alternative fuels in aviation? I think one of the big answers is there is no silver bullet – there is no one feedstock – there is no one fuel that is going to answer our question. For biofuels to be part of the transportation fuel solution we need to go as the old adage says, think globally and act locally."
Kristin C. Lewis, Ph.D.,
Environmental Biologist
Environmental and Energy Systems Technical Center at the Volpe Center
February 14, 2012
Cyber Security in Transportation: Hype or Armageddon?
"Cyber security is one of the most active topics in transportation today…virtually, all our transportation modes are becoming more and more dependent on information technologies, on networks, on GPS, and wireless communications……and while the attacks are getting more sophisticated, the knowledge required to mount those attacks has been reduced drastically….So, we need to develop a much better understanding of the information systems that we have in transportation, their interdependencies, and really understand how important they are in our operations."
Michael Dinning,
Director of the Transportation Logistics and Security Technical Center at the Volpe Center
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Global Initiatives for Green Aviation
"What is really driving this desire and need for green aviation?...not to diminish environmental issues like noise and local air quality…in terms of drivers, the key driver is fuel burn, the number two driver is fuel burn, the number three driver is fuel burn."
Gregg Fleming,
Director of the Center for Environmental and Energy Systems at the Volpe Center
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
The World's Most Extensive Real World Deployment of Connected Vehicle Safety
"The goals and the purpose of this research program is actually to develop safety applications that are used on highways for communicating between vehicles and between infrastructure as well… the idea is that the vehicles are emitting information to surrounding vehicles and surrounding infrastructure about themselves and that allows the infrastructure and other vehicles, wireless devices, drivers, operators, to see this information, process it and then it is utilized in these safety applications to actually improve crash safety on the highways."
Kevin Gay,
Senior Operations Research Analyst and Safety Pilot Program Team Member at the Volpe Center.
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Recent Developments in Positioning, Navigation and Timing
"As we have increased accuracy of the Global Positioning System, the applications have just exploded. I don't think anyone knows how many users of GPS there are around the world – I've heard a billion plus…. And the number of applications - we hear about new applications for GPS every single week. A lot of us think about the navigation function, and that is certainly very key for transportation, but GPS is probably used just as much for timing. So all of the communication networks, banking, finance, power grids are really taking advantage of the accurate GPS timing signal and those become the invisible applications that we often don't think about."
Karen Van Dyke,
Principal Technical Advisor on Global Positioning Systems at the Volpe Center and Director of Positioning, Navigation and Timing at the Research and Innovation Technology Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation
