Connected Vehicle Applications: Lessons Learned and Future Research & Deployment Roundtable

The USDOT Connected Vehicle (CV) Pilot Program sought to test vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) applications to improve tranportation systems, mobility, and safety with real-world deployments in New York City, Tampa, and Wyoming.

This roundtable discussion will focus on these recently completed connected vehicle pilots and the lessons learned. Our panelists will feature practitioners, decision-makers, and researchers involved in CV deployments and leading the way for their wide-scale adoption.

This roundtable caps off C2SMART’s State of the Field: Connected Vehicle Applictions series, and there will be a synthesis of prior presentations and a discussion on future directions and applications for research, testing, and deployment.

We look forward to your participation!

Panelists:

Sisinnio Concas serves as Program Director at the Center for Urban Transportation Research (CUTR) and Research Associate Professor the University of South Florida (USF) College of Engineering. Dr. Concas has over 20 years of experience as a transportation economist conducting economic impact and benefit-cost analyses for public transportation, airport and roadway projects. Dr. Concas leads CUTR’s Autonomous & Connected Mobility Evaluation (ACME) Program. ACME focuses on producing quick-response solutions to better inform practitioners and policy maker in selecting and prioritizing cost-feasible innovative transportation alternatives. He has performed numerous research projects for the U.S. Federal Transit Administration, Federal Highway Administration, the Florida Department of Transportation, state and local transportation authorities. Dr. Concas leads the Performance Measurement Evaluation and Support of the Tampa CV Pilot Deployment.

Dr. Mohamad Talas is the Deputy Director of ITS System Engineering, New York City Department of Transportation. He brings long standing career experience in traffic engineering and continue with over 27 years in Traffic Engineering and Operation experience in New York City Department of Transportation. He currently serves as the Director for the NYC Department of Transportation ITS project Management, Research and Development where he supervises the Intelligent Transportation System projects and initiatives in New York City. These projects include the development and implementation of the New York City Traffic Computerization System at the Traffic Management Center modernizing and operating over 12,000 signals and the currently deployed Active Traffic Management System in in Manhattan(Midtown In Motion) and NYC Connected Vehicle Pilot Deployment. He has earned his PhD in Transportation Planning and Engineering at NYU -Poly University, Master degrees in Transportation, Planning and Engineering and a Masters in Electrical Engineering from Fairleigh Dickinson University.

Billy Chupp is a data analyst and engineer at the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Volpe Transportation Systems Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Mr. Chupp supports a wide range of projects at the Volpe Center including cloud database and analysis system development and management for DOT’s Chief Data Officer, artificial intelligence and machine learning development initiatives for DOT’s ITS Joint Program Office, and air quality modeling and data analysis projects for the Federal Highway Administration. Mr. Chupp most recently served as the technical lead on Volpe’s independent safety evaluation effort for the three connected vehicle pilot programs in New York City, Tampa, and Wyoming, and continues to support the ITS JPO on data documentation and strategy efforts within the connected vehicle space and beyond.

Dr. Karl Wunderlich holds a joint appointment at Noblis in Washington, DC., serving as both is the Director of the Surface Transportation Division and the Director of the Noblis Autonomous Systems Research Center. He is a key contributor to both research and development projects and technology deployment programs sponsored by the US Department of Transportation (USDOT) and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). Dr. Wunderlich is an expert in the use of simulation techniques to evaluate the potential impact of emerging technologies to improve traveler mobility or system productivity – including vehicle connectivity, autonomy, and blockchain. He is a published author and patent-holder in orchestrated autonomy, which leverages blockchain to create efficient and collision-free path planning among heterogenous, unfamiliar, and autonomous machines. Dr. Wunderlich holds a Ph.D. in Operations Research from the University of Michigan.

Dr. Kaan Ozbay is a Professor at New York University’s Tandon School of Engineering, and Director of C2SMART Center, a Tier 1 USDOT University Transportation Center. Dr. Ozbay served as Principal Investigator (PI) of the NYU/C2SMART team as part of the NYCDOT-led New York City Connected Vehicle Pilot, under USDOT’s Connected Vehicle Pilot Program. He joined NYU’s Department of Civil and Urban Engineering and Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP) in August 2013, and is also Global Network Professor of Civil and Urban Engineering, NYU Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) and Global Network Professor of Engineering and Computer Science, NYU Shanghai (NYUSH).

Moderated by:

Jingqin (Jannie) Gao completed her Ph.D. in Transportation Planning and Engineering at NYU Tandon, where she works with C2SMART Director Kaan Ozbay. She studied Science and Technology of Optical Information and received her B.S. from Tongji University in China and her M.S in Transportation Planning and Engineering from New York University. Her research interests lie in offline and real-time simulation modeling, big data and machine learning approach for transportation, and transportation economics. She also worked for the New York City Department of Transportation on modeling and data analysis to support the agency’s internal planning, technical review processes and coordinated with external agencies on regional projects since 2012. Jingqin is the former president of NYU’s joint Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) and The Intelligent Transportation Society of America (ITS) Student Chapter during 2018-2019, through which she organized various company visits, tech talks, women in transportation events and the 2019 ITE Northeastern District Traffic Bowl.