Blog

Now that I’ve had a chance to catch my breath after the whirlwind of the Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting (TRBAM), I’ve been reflecting on my impressions of the meeting as a first timer.

I was part of the decidedly smaller group of people who participated in the Transportation Research Board (TRB) Annual Meeting in Washington, DC earlier this month. While only about one-third of a typical year’s 15,000 attendees were present, it was nonetheless a worthwhile and educational experience.

Tuesday morning at the TRB Annual Meeting, I attended a session entitled "Adoption of Emerging Mobility Services and Other Disruptive Technologies: An International Perspective". The presentations included discussion on technologies in use in cities in Latin America and Africa to organize the informal transportation options to reduce inefficiencies and some of the regulatory challenges.

At the TRB Annual Meeting, three of the four presentations in the Wednesday morning session entitled “Transportation Equity Analysis” discussed the challenges of reaching socioeconomically disadvantaged populations in light of recent suburbanization of poverty.

Tuesday afternoon here at the TRB Annual Meeting, I found myself in the subcommittee meeting on Health and Transportation. As much of my work prior to joining EBP was in the field of Health Economics, I am eager to become familiar with research at the intersection of health and transportation.

On Monday, January 13th at the TRB Annual Meeting, I attended a session entitled "Greener in More Ways: Economically Sustainable Funding and Financing Opportunities." In truth, this session seemed to have two main topics: funding for sustainability and sustainable funding. Through five very different presentations, this session highlighted some of the tensions faced by transportation professionals as they balance both financial and environmental goals.

It’s been a busy period of travel for me, starting with a scenario planning conference in Connecticut and moving onto a resilience conference in Washington, DC. During November 13th-15th, 2019, I took part in TRB’s 2nd International Conference on Resilience to Natural Hazards and Extreme Weather Events . Overall, the conference focused on best practices for adapting transportation networks to better withstand natural disasters.

Last week I attended the TRB Transportation Planning Applications Conference in Portland, OR. To those familiar with the TRB Annual Meeting, TRBAppcon (as it’s called) is a smaller and less formal event with a greater emphasis on showcasing practical techniques and approaches to transportation planning.

This week I am in beautiful Portland, Oregon attending the Transportation Research Board’s Transportation Planning Applications Conference, which showcases practice-ready transportation planning applications. At the corner of research and practice, the conference is a great opportunity for participants to share innovative methods of policy analysis and technical transportation planning. I am particularly excited to join workshops, panel discussions, and lightning talks on topics like freight data, multimodal performance measures, and data visualization.