• May 16, 2025

    Strong Turnout for Intro & Intermediate Data Courses — Get Ready for the Advanced Session in Fall 2025!

    In May, Dr. Ryan Avery, Deputy Director of the Washington State Transportation Center (TRAC) at the University of Washington, taught both Introduction and Intermediate Transportation Data Analysis Courses for the PacTrans Workforce Development Institute (WDI).

    For the Introduction to Transportation Data and Analysis Tools course, ten students actively participated in discussions on data, geographic information systems, and data visualization techniques. Practical topics covered issues surrounding gathering and organizing data, skills required for the management and analysis of increasingly large data sets, transportation dataset trends and limitations, capacity limits of desktop tools to process data for projects, and creating data reports for others to demonstrate system performance or justify project investments. Students also participated in a hands-on Excel exercise. Dr. Avery provided an introduction to GIS, an ArcGIS demonstration, presented map projections, and gave GIS examples.  The course wrapped up with a discussion about continuing education opportunities in these areas.

    For the Intermediate Transportation Data and Analysis Tool course, students learned about database design and organization in relation to the importance of maintaining the integrity of the data and in facilitating a data query. Dr. Avery provided an overview of Structured Query Language along with nuances of running queries through demonstrations and hands-on practice opportunities for participants. Dr. Avery also reviewed potential issues to consider when applying machine learning to transportation datasets and presented an overview on programming languages.  The course wrapped up with resources for continuing professional development in data science. Many participants were affiliated with Trimet and WSDOT.

    Save the date for our Advanced Transportation Data and Analysis Tool course coming in the Fall of 2025 on September 9-10, 2025!

    View all our courses at pactranswdi.org.