As part of its Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math outreach and the Cambridge Science Festival, Volpe staff recently welcomed some three dozen students, parents, and community members to learn about the work that goes on at our campus. Six transportation experts discussed their innovative, multimodal research, and then guests had the opportunity for a hands-on transportation experience in our train, airplane, and vehicle simulators.

Changing Transportation—Locally and Globally

The open house began with a presentation from Kam Chin, chief of Volpe’s Situational Awareness and Logistics Division, which develops and installs maritime vessel tracking systems around the world. Chin shared a world map showing the more than 82,000 ships that were operating around the globe. Each ship reports its location as frequently as every two seconds—about 200 million reports daily—aiding 75 nations in completing search-and-rescue missions and identifying vessels that may be engaging in illegal activity.

From the high seas to cities, engineer Jonathan Koopmann highlighted the growing interaction between connected and automated vehicles, intelligent infrastructure, and urban planning that forms the foundation for “smart cities.” Koopmann spoke about the Smart City Challenge, an opportunity for one city to use $40 million to define what it means to be a smart city and integrate innovative technologies into its transportation network.

“A smart city can be anything,” Koopmann said. “We look at the future and we see electric vehicles becoming more common. So maybe in a smart city, as you drive, your vehicle is charging. Or perhaps while you’re driving down a road, streetlights turn on, but after you depart they turn off to save energy.”

Social scientist Hannah Rakoff followed with a discussion of planning and infrastructure advancements abroad. Over the last nine months, Rakoff has worked with the Millennium Challenge Corporation to diagnose opportunities to alleviate poverty by building a better transportation network in Abidjan, the economic capital of Côte d’Ivoire. By improving asset management and institutional coordination, coupled with targeted infrastructure investments, the project aims to remove barriers to growth in the private sector.

Environmental biologist Dr. Kristin Lewis then spoke to another public-private partnership, one that is identifying alternative jet fuels that will allow the aviation sector to grow while meeting the International Civil Aviation Organization’s goal of achieving carbon-neutral growth by 2020.

“The aviation sector can improve its performance through equipment improvements and operations—ways we space planes, flight paths, type of descent we use—and all of that is currently happening,” Dr. Lewis said. “These low-carbon alternative fuels are a piece of closing the CO2 gap.”

From alternative fuels to alternative teaching styles, Aislynn Rodeghiero talked about the “technical firehose,” which turns on full blast when people are asked to digest too much information at once. Because people do not all learn in the same way, Rodeghiero stressed the importance of rethinking conventional education methods to reach wider audiences.

Dr. Donald Fisher, a principal technical advisor in human factors, wrapped the presentations with his talk, “The Last Two Seconds of Your Life.” Dr. Fisher said that two seconds of distracted driving is all it takes for your risk of an accident to triple. And when drivers text, they have a 23 percent higher chance of getting into an accident, he said. Dr. Fisher noted that the risk also applies to pedestrians, who may not be driving and texting, but who could easily be struck in a crosswalk by someone who was.

Grabbing the Wheel, Throttle, and Yoke

Volpe staff use our car, freight train, and commercial aircraft flight deck simulators for human factors experiments that investigate, among other things, how operators deal with adverse or irregular situations.

After the presentations, our guests got to take a spin in the simulators themselves. In the car simulator, participants got to experience what it’s like when a vehicle’s brakes stop working.

For more information about other upcoming public events at Volpe, keep an eye on the Volpe Events page. You can also follow us on Twitter at @VolpeUSDOT.