Volpe Journal Spring 97
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Commentary
It is my pleasure to welcome you to the inaugural issue of the Volpe Journal. The purpose of this publication is to provide readers with detailed accounts of significant Volpe Center projects and initiatives.
Since its inception more than 25 years ago, the Center has become increasingly recognized by government, industry, and academia as a focal point for the assimilation, generation, and interchange of knowledge and understanding concerning national and international transportation and logistics systems. Today it is widely valued as a unique national resource for solving complex transportation and logistics problems for both government and other organizations. Operating on a fee-for-service basis, somewhat unique to the government, the Volpe Center has never received a direct appropriation from the Congress.
With an extensive technical institutional memory, the Volpe Center staff represents a world-class transportation resource not replicated elsewhere. The Center's dedicated staff represents a wide array of disciplines, from engineering and physics to the social sciences. The Center continues to be out in front forging partnerships with industry, academia, and other local, state, and federal government agencies. In essence, the Volpe Center has become a recognized catalyst for transportation innovation.
My message for this inaugural edition of the Volpe Journal is twofold. First, in the face of the rapidly growing expansion of international travel, tourism, and trade, we must look at transportation from a global perspective. There are lessons to be learned from overseas and market opportunities too significant to be ignored.
Second, the information and communication technology revolution is occurring at a much more rapid pace than can be readily assimilated by the transportation community. And although information and communication technologies can significantly enhance the performance of transportation systems, they can also make this same system more vulnerable to loss through the deliberate compromise or sabotage of key automated elements or even the inadvertent failure of one or more of them.
For years many of us have been driven by our need to be prepared for the transportation challenges of the twenty-first century. Most of these challenges and scenarios are no longer futuristicthe twenty-first century is here. Together, we must solve the transportation problems of a new century and anticipate the global issues that will challenge us in 2025.
Dr. Richard R. John
Director, Volpe National Transportation Systems Center
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