pacific nw transportation consortium region 10 Pactrans

Last week, March 15 through 17, Oregon State University and the Oregon Department of Transportation hosted the biennial Northwest Transportation Conference on OSU’s campus in Corvallis, Oregon. With more than 400 transportation professionals from throughout Oregon and the Pacific Northwest in attendance, this event touts being the Northwest’s premiere transportation event, “Since its inception in 1949, the Northwest Transportation Conference has served as a forum for engineers, designers, builders, operators, planners, and other transportation officials.”

ODOT Research Manager and PacTrans External Advisory Board Member, Michael Bufalino, chaired this year’s event. The theme was, “Transportation Tools You Can Use on the Job.” Thus the 20+ sessions, discussions, and events offered throughout the conference were all geared at equipping the professionals in the audience with practical, applicable knowledge and tools that they could take home and begin using today.

Here are some the highlights:

1. PacTrans Associate Director and PI, David Hurwitz, moderated a session on innovations in right-of-way (ROW) design in which he also presented his research on right-hook crashes at intersections with bicycle traffic.
2. PacTrans PIs, Michael Olsen and David Hurwitz, accompanied two of their student researchers, Alireza Kashani and Kamilah Buker, in a presentation on 3D virtual sight distance analysis using mobile LIDAR data.
3. PacTrans PI Haizhong Wang moderated a session on systemic safety and disaster simulations in which he also presented research on post-earthquake life safety and mobility. Dr. Wang also presented research on integrated analysis of bicycle ridership, bicycle level of traffic stress, and bicycle crashes for safety and planning considerations in another session later in the conference.
4. PacTrans partner Adrian Pearmine from DKS Associates, hosted a fascinating conversation about the evolution of mobility. More specifically he invited three professionals who work closely with the subject of Connected and Autonomous Vehicles to update us on the current state of “driverless vehicle,” and discuss some of their main opportunities and challenges.

PacTrans was not only excited to sponsor and attend this year’s conference but we were also very proud to see the ways our steadfast investments in research, education, and workforce development are playing in integral part in the trajectory of transportation engineering and planning in the Pacific Northwest.