ITS in Academics

ITS University Workshop #5
November 8-9, 2017 | Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center in McLean, Virginia

Day 1 Presentation | November 8, 2017

Overview of CTPS

Presenter: Scott Peterson
Presenter’s Org: Capital Area Transportation Study, Boston

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Slide 1: Overview of CTPS

• CTPS Central Transportation Planning Staff, the support staff to the Boston Region Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO).
• We cover 101 municipalities in Eastern Massachusetts
• 1,405 square miles
• 3,200,000 million people
• 1,900,000 million jobs
• 3.8 billion dollar worth of investments over 25 years
• 60 full-time staff and 10 temps
• Planners, modelers, engineers, and support services
• Most analysis done in-house, little reliance on consultants
• Support MPO and client agencies

Slide 2: ITS Integration

• Develop UPWP projects and study ideas that incorporate ITS technology
  • Roadway
  • Transit
• Utilize ITS data
  • Congested Management Process (CMP)
  • Model estimation, calibration, & validation
  • Needs Assessment for Long Range Plan (LRTP)

Slide 3: Implications of Technology on Planning

• UPWP and Client project work
  • Roadway
  • Transit
• Data utilization for model development
  • Vehicle probe data for speeds
  • Vehicle probe data origin and destinations
  • Toll gantry fare/vehicle residence
  • Transit counts
  • Understand entry and exit points of the system
• Planning Process
  • CV & AV technologies understanding what they are and do
  • Assumptions on utilization and impact

Slide 4: Strengths of Young Professionals

• Appreciation of new technologies
• New degree opportunities (Data Science) allow more majors to be tapped into
• Traffic engineering still producing many skilled graduates
• Most students are going for a Masters, which helps with experience when we hire them
• Lots of students are having co-ops, allowing them to get experience

Slide 5: Challenges

• MPOs have trouble competing for the best qualified students because of salaries
• Our MPO requires full-time applicants to have at least a green card or be willing to work knowing we can’t sponsor them - this limits the # of candidates
• Recent graduates have very good technical knowledge but lack the understanding of big picture and how their skills would be used in the planning process
• Appreciation for understanding the limitations of big data linked with a strong statistical background

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