I had the opportunity to attend the 2018 TRB annual meeting to present a research project involving distracted pedestrian behaviors at signalized intersections. During the time at TRB I attended several committee meetings to see where the future of transportation is heading, a few of the committees I attended were the pedestrian research, intelligent transportation systems and the truck and bus committees. I gained a lot of valuable insight that relates to my current research project, and plenty of insight on what the results from the pedestrian paper meant. One of the most interesting things about some of the poster and technical presentations was the human factor associated with transportation engineering. The social sciences play a huge role in bicycle and pedestrian research. TRB was also a great networking experience, getting to know people from all around the country and discuss transportation issues when discussing their research during the poster session. Overall, the conference was a success for our research lab at NAU with two of our papers being considered for publication within the Transportation Research Record. Alongside two other ITE members we enjoyed the hotels happy hour and potbelly sandwiches for our whole stay. In my professional opinion the grilled chicken cheddar was the standout sandwich at the 3 different potbelly locations we tried.
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Hi everyone, I’m Rae! I’m in my last semester at NAU. I am currently our ITE chapter’s treasurer. I became interested in transportation engineering last year after taking my first traffic class. Since that first class, I’ve taken several other transportation electives that have further sparked my excitement about this field. I like how publicly involved this sub-discipline is. I know that what I will do in my career will directly improve people’s lives, which gets me excited for my career to come! As fate would have it I attended my first ever ITE meeting last spring which happened to be election night and was voted in as treasurer. Being involved as an officer this past year has opened my eyes to so much of the professional world, and I can accredit my post-graduate plans to being involved in ITE. Among others, one of my favorite experiences has been going to the Student Leadership Summit this January. The NAU ITE Executive Board had the opportunity to attend the Western District Student Leadership Summit in Corvallis, Oregon early this semester. This conference brought together 150 students from all over the USA (Arizona, California, Montana, Utah, Oregon and even Massachusetts!) While attending we listened to technical presentations, collaborated with other students to solve problems, and even got to practice speed interviews with lots of impressive professionals. The pictures above are from a tour that we got to take of the research facilities at Oregon State University and some innovative bicycle infrastructure in Portland.
This trip is just one of many that I’ve had the fortune to take with my peers. Each time we go to an ITE event I walk away confidently knowing that I made the right choice in my major and career path. Between conferences in Phoenix and leadership summits in Oregon, I’ve gotten so much beneficial exposure in my year of involvement. Go ITE! Source: www.tbo.com During the 2017/2018 academic year at NAU, a group of civil and electric engineering students are working together to address a common and scary problem that we face when driving: wrong way drivers. The team, composed by 2 civil and 2 electrical engineering students, will be working to develop a device capable of detecting and alert wrong way drivers and alert right way drivers and the authorities about the event. Given that similar efforts are being made in Phoenix, the team decided to focus in rural areas.
The device will be composed by 3 main parts. The first one, will be located on the exit ramps of interstates. Its job will be to detect when a driver goes in the wrong way of the ramp and alert the driver of its mistake. The second part will be placed along the roadway, its function is to alert the right way drivers of the threat and track the wrong way driver movements. Finally, the third part, it’s a communication module so all the information collected by part 1 and part 2 can be send to ADOT and DPS so they can send troops to stop the wrong way driver. This is a challenging project especially for being located in rural areas that often don’t have access to the power grid. With the support of Dr. Edward Smaglik and Dr. Brendan Russo, the capstone team composed by Ian Rodrigues, Zak Jenkins, Hashem Albhrani and Timothy Fisher will be delivering a viable prototype by May of 2018. This summer I had the opportunity to research with NAU’s transportation engineering department. I’m still involved, and I’m learning tons about operational efficiency and safety analyses. I worked closely with Sam Taylor, NAU ITE Chapter president. We spent long hours in our very isolated traffics lab processing data in ArcGIS (now we’re cooped up in our new research lab, thank you Dr. Russo and Dr. Mohebbi!). Oh man, we did a lot now that I think of it. The most exciting part that we did through this research was sharing our information to the transportation community. Sam recently presented at ITS Arizona Conference in late September, and before that we both presented in a T3e Webinar! We also took part in NAU’s Engineering & Science Fair for middle school students. Sam’s paper was also recently approved for presentation at TRB’s upcoming conference early next January. I’m very excited to continue working with Sam before he graduates in May, and hopefully he pursues a doctorate’s degree here in Arizona! Here are some images of Sam presenting in the webinar and practicing his presentation for the webinar.
This past summer, NAU transportation professors, Dr. Ed Smaglik and Dr. Brendan Russo, took a group of engineering students to learn about how other countries manage their infrastructure challenges. In London, England they visited Queens Castle, Westminster Abby, the Tower Bridge, the Tower of London, "Transport for London", and the Thames Barriers. Here are some pictures from their time in London: In Scotland they visited the iconic Falkirk Wheel and the Kelpies, below are a couple of pictures from their time in Scotland:
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AuthorsEach officer writes one post a year and all our ITE members are encouraged to share their experiences here. Archives
February 2018
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