Rep. Roberts is the Chairman of the Georgia House of Representative’s Transportation Committee, and Sen. Gooch is Chairman of the Georgia Senate’s Transportation Committee. Together, they are currently co-chairing the Joint Study Committee on Critical Transportation Infrastructure Funding. The committee, which was created by HR 1573 as a joint study committee, consists of 16 members. It has been charged to study the conditions, needs, issues and problems of identifying funding sources to provide transportation infrastructure sufficient to maintain and improve Georgia’s economic competitiveness and quality of life. Rep. Roberts is also a member of numerous House committees, including: Appropriations, Agriculture & Consumer Affairs,Game, Fish & Parks, and Rules.
Sen. Gooch is a member of the Senate Committees on Appropriation, MARTOC, and Natural Resources and the Environment, and he is Vice Chairman of the Economic Development Committee and Ex-Officio of the Rules Committee.
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Lisa Aultman-Hall, Ph.D., is a Professor of the School of Engineering and Transportation Research Center at the University of Vermont. She joined UVM as founding director of the UVM Transportation Research Center in August 2006. She had previously served as the director of the Connecticut Transportation Institute, while an Associate Professor of Civil Engineering at the University of Connecticut. Dr. Aultman-Hall teaches transportation planning and traffic safety. She studied at McMaster University and Queen’s University in Canada. She served as an Assistant Professor at the University of Kentucky. She has been funded by NSF, three UTCs from the US DOT and several state DOTs.
Recent research results include studies of tailpipe emissions, traffic safety (bicyclists, young drivers, old drivers), freight transportation planning, and transportation network robustness. Dr. Aultman-Hall’s current research Interests include the following:
Travel Behavior, especially second-by-second driving style, route choice and idling
Rural Travel Behavior, including accessibility, efficiency and EV adoption potential
Long Distance and Overnight Travel
Travel Survey Design
Bicycle Transportation
Traffic Safety
Spatial Analysis using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Global Positioning Systems (GPS) for Transportation
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On Sunday, November 2, 2014, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution published an article discussing the upcoming vote by Clayton County citizens on whether to allow the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) to expand into their county. The proposed plan would include eight new bus routes, with the first six routes in place by early 2016, and the other two within the next four years. Rail routes would be negotiated in the next few years with Norfolk Southern.
Included within the article were opinion pieces by Dr. Catherine Ross, director of the Center for Quality Growth and Regional Development and deputy director of NCTSPM. She said that “joining MARTA could be a catalyst for development and redevelopment in Clayton County; it’ll make people want to live there, move businesses there, shop and work there. That’s economic development.”
Join us for a seminar by Eric A. Morris, Assistant Professor of City and Regional Planning at Clemson University.
Eric’s primary focus is transportation, particularly how transportation contributes to our quality of life. His current research focuses on transportation and happiness; transportation, time use, and activity patterns; and transportation and access to employment, shopping, food, and medical care. He has a strong interest in transportation equity and disadvantaged populations. He also conducts research in the field of transportation history, and is currently co-authoring a book on the development and financing of the freeway system. Other interests include transportation and land use, transportation finance and economics, transportation policy, and transportation and the environment. He wrote a column on transportation for the New York Times for several years, and now is a regular contributor to the Freakonomics website. He was also the Associate Editor of Access magazine. Before returning to academia he worked as a travel writer, a sports writer, and a television writer and producer.
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Join the Women’s Transportation Seminar (WTS) at GT to hear from four of Atlanta’s top transportation leaders on their careers and keys to success!
WTS will host four of the top female transportation leaders in Atlanta for a panel to discuss their experiences ad insights from working in the transportation industry. Panelists will offer perspectives from a variety of roles in transit agencies, county and city governments, and engineering and planning consulting firms. All are welcome to attend, and free lunch will be provided.
Panel members will include Rukiya Eaddy, Chief of Staff for MARTA, Faye DiMassimo, Director of the Cobb County DOT, Heather Alhadeff, President of Center Forward, and Margie Pozin, Transportation Group Leader for STV.
Click here for a campus map with directions to the Mason building.
Imagine sharing the highway with cars driven by computers rather than people.
Google is rather famously experimenting with such self-driving vehicles. And a Georgia General Assembly study committee is weighing the issues around allowing these driverless cars on the state’s roads.
The School of Civil and Environmental Engineering’s Michael Hunter has served as an expert witness for the committee and outlined some of the issues in an Atlanta Journal-Constitution guest column Oct. 7.
Read Hunter’s perspective below, and read what other guest writers had to say on the AJC’s site:
Like many of you, I am excited about the prospects for self-driving or driverless cars. It seems every day, there is another story about their tremendous potential. I look forward to when I will be able get in my car, tell it to take me to Georgia Tech, and spend the rest of the trip searching the Internet, watching “Game of Thrones,” checking Facebook, taking a nap or maybe even getting some work done. Maybe I will even be able to send my car off to get my groceries and pick up the dry cleaning without me.
I don’t know if this future is 5 or 25 years away, but it certainly seems to be coming.
Skeptics often question if people will be willing to ride in a vehicle that drives itself. I personally doubt this will be a significant issue, particularly for millennials. However, I do believe there are other hurdles in the acceptance of this technology that are not receiving nearly as much attention, but may be more important.
For example, how will human drivers of other vehicles interact with driverless vehicles? The user of a driverless vehicle has made the choice to get into the vehicle. However, if driverless cars are allowed by local laws, other drivers on the road are not being given a choice about interacting with them. I am much more concerned about how these other drivers may alter their behavior when interacting with driverless vehicles, than I am with people being willing to use driverless vehicles.
In this regard, we are about to enter a grand experiment. Today, whether changing lanes, merging into or exiting a freeway, or pulling out of a driveway, drivers are constantly interacting with other drivers. It is fair to say that when engaging in these driving maneuvers, at times, some people can be aggressive. So, what happens when a set of vehicles always gives way when the other vehicle is sufficiently aggressive? Will driverless vehicles enable a form of “bully driving” among the rest of us?
For instance, when traffic is heavy and I need to merge onto I-285, while I am still on the ramp, I pick a target vehicle that I will attempt to merge in front of. If there are driverless cars on the roadway, why would I not pick a driverless car every time? I know if I am sufficiently aggressive, the driverless vehicle’s safety programming will cause it to give way and let me in front. What happens when the three cars behind me on the ramp also take advantage of the same behavior? Suddenly the driverless car — and all the vehicles behind it — are brought to a stop while everyone cuts in front of them.
Would this happen? I don’t know about this exact scenario, but I also don’t believe we should assume drivers will treat driverless cars the same as cars with an actual person driving.
The above is only one of many potential driver behavior issues we will face as driverless cars go from a novelty to an everyday experience. Will driverless cars result in the “hassle” of driving being greatly reduced and unintentionally incentivize significantly more travel by auto? Will pedestrians and cyclists alter their behavior when interacting with driverless cars? Should driverless cars strictly follow traffic law — for example, driving 55 mph on the interstate?
Will infrastructure maintenance costs increase? Will potential congestion improvements on freeways result in congestion increases on surface streets? How does the availability of driverless vehicles transform our transit systems? Will entirely new demands not even being considered today materialize? How will the vehicle ownership model change? Who will pay for any added infrastructure costs related to driverless vehicles?
We could fill pages with questions about the potential pros and cons related to driverless cars. I believe that, while the timeline remains highly uncertain, they are likely an innovation that is unstoppable. I also believe the benefits will be many.
Overall, this technology represents a great opportunity for individuals and society. However, we must not become blind enthusiasts; we have to recognize the potential downsides. If we are proactive today in planning and building our infrastructure and creating legislation with driverless vehicles in mind, we may be able to avoid many of the potential downsides while realizing the many benefits.
Michael Hunter is an associate professor at Georgia Tech’s School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, with a focus on transportation operations and design.
A Georgia House of Representatives committee is studying what hurdles the state would face if it allowed driverless cars on roadways. Associate Professor Michael Hunter was a key witness at a hearing last week, outlining some of the engineering and traffic problems that will have to be solved if lawmakers decide to allow the autonomous vehicles.
Thorny legal and engineering issues lie ahead before self-driving cars can be let loose on Georgia highways, members of a legislative study committee heard during testimony Thursday.
Transportation planners and traffic enforcement agencies will face at least several decades of highways forced to serve “mixed fleets,” fully autonomous vehicles and completely driver-controlled cars on the roads at the same time, said Mike Hunter, a professor at Georgia Tech’s School of Civil and Environmental Engineering.
“Until you guys are ready to tell people they can’t drive their [driver-controlled] cars, the system is going to be based on people,” Hunter told a study committee formed by the state House of Representatives to examine the challenges involved in legalizing self-driving vehicles.
Hunter outlined a series of scenarios likely to occur with mixed fleets that would prevent self-driving vehicles from fulfilling one of their chief goals: reducing traffic congestion by letting cars cluster closer together.
“How close will you let a driverless car get to a non-driverless car?” he asked. “If you allow the same following distance that’s allowed today, you won’t increase [traffic] capacity and reduce congestion.”
Likewise, Hunter warned of driverless cars causing “rolling roadblocks” by driving the speed limit – as they’re programmed to do – on Atlanta’s Perimeter Highway.
One of Google’s self-driving cars. GT’s Dr. Michael Hunter told Georgia’s lawmakers last week that they will have to confront a number of tricky issues if they decide to allow such vehicles on the state’s roadways. (Photo coursety of Mariordo via Wikimedia Commons)
The Georgia Department of Transportation and the Georgia Transportation Institute will host a transportation research poster session on Tuesday, September 23, 2014.
All researchers in the Georgia Transportation Institute (Georgia Institute of Technology, University of Georgia, Georgia State University, Georgia Southern University, Southern Polytechnic State University, Mercer University, and Albany State University) are invited to display active and recently completed GDOT-sponsored research projects.
Please RSVP no later than Tuesday, September 10 if you plan to display your work. RSVPs can be sent to audrey.leous@coa.gatech.edu.
Please be sure to include your project title, RP #, and an abstract. Posters should b elimited to 3.5′ x 4′, and easels will be provided. Researchers may bring one or two students per poster.
Pictures from the 2013 Poster Session
Date and time:
Tuesday, September 23, 2014 – 11:00 to 13:00
Location of Event:
One Georgia Center (600 West Peachtree St NW, Atlanta, GA 30308), Rooms 402-404
Four researchers from Georgia Tech’s School of Civil and Environmental Engineering have received this year’s Charley V. Wootan Award from the Transportation Research Board (TRB), recognizing their work on evidence-based transportation asset management. The research team will also be honored with a Certificate of Award, to be presented at the Thomas B. Deen Distinguished Lecute.
The Wootan Award honors the best paper in transportation policy and organization submitted to the TRB each year.
The winning paper proposes a framework for collecting evidence to docume
nt how well transportation asset management interventions accomplish their intended purposes. Ph.D. students Margaret-Avis Akofio-Sowah and Janille Smith-Colin, in their third and fifth years of study, respectively, worked on the research with Jamie Montague Fischer, who finished her doctorate this month, as well as Professor Adjo Amekudzi Kennedy. In compiling the paper, students worked closely with a panel of asset management practicioners to identify key themes and areas of focus.
The project, supported by the Georgia Department of Transportation, will ultimately lead to the development of an evidence-based database for managing transportation infrastructure. The team has already put in a follow-up paper for the 2015 TRB meeting in January that outlines the design of that database and how it could be used.
