pacific nw transportation consortium region 10 Pactrans

This past October PacTrans attended and demonstrated its research products at the first Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) International Smart Cities Conference in Guadalajara, Mexico. With an overarching theme of sustainability, this conference is focused on technology and policy topics central to human-infrastructure integration and data-driven decision making. This first annual conference brought together approximately 500 individuals from 103 cities in 45 countries on six continents, working in a broad range of disciplines in the public and private sector around the world. During this four day conference, attendees were invited to interact and learn about current and emerging trends in smart cities and sustainable economic development. Smart transportation was this conferences most popular subject with over 30 talks in the program.

PacTrans Director, Dr. Yinhai Wang attended as a general co-chair on the conference planning committee, accompanied by several University of Washington graduate students who gave presentations on their current research work. Second year University of Washington graduate student Ruimin Ke, presented a talk on mode inference from mobile device location data, based on the PacTrans-funded project “Data Collection and Spatial Interpolation of Bicycle and Pedestrian Data,” led by Professor Michael Lowry from the University of Idaho and Professor Yinhai Wang from the University of Washington.

Students from the University of Washington also staffed the PacTrans exhibit at the conference, giving demonstrations and discussing PacTrans research with conference attendees. PacTrans demos attracted many working professionals and students who showed interest in PacTrans research products or coming to the UW for graduate studies. Despite the initial threat of Hurricane Patricia, attendees enjoyed warm, mild weather in Guadalajara throughout the conference.

Next year’s conference will be held in Trento, Italy, in September 2016. Look for PacTrans to be in strong attendance at next year’s conference, both presenting research and promoting the center.