pacific nw transportation consortium region 10 Pactrans

Each year the Washington Section of the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) and Northwest Section of International Municipal Signal Association (IMSA) cohost a joint meeting and vendor exhibition. This year it was held on Monday, February 8 at the Doubletree Hotel on International Boulevard in SeaTac, WA.

The meeting is the premier trade show in the Pacific Northwest for traffic and transportation related products. In addition, it has excellent technical programs focusing on most relevant issues and industry trends. This joint meeting has become one of the best learning and networking platforms for meeting attendees including those from local agencies and engineering firms in Washington, Oregon, Alaska, Canada, Idaho and Montana.

This year our very own director, Dr. Yinhai Wang had the privilege of being the keynote during the lunch hour. Dr. Wang spoke about smart cities at the highest level, touching on all of the different sectors that are currently engaged in smart city initiatives. He spoke more specifically about transportation issues faces our growing world. He challenged the room not to be afraid of companies like Uber, who some feel are upsetting the established order, but instead to seek partnerships with cutting edge technology companies. Dr. Wang outlined what he believed to be the keys to making our transportation systems more intelligent: from censors, to big data, and intelligent analytics.

This engagement provided a great opportunity for Dr. Wang to highlight several of the PacTrans funded projects that have been undertaken as well as many of the projects that STAR Lab is currently working on.