UTC Best Practices

Robert L. Bertini, Ph.D., P.E.Director, Oregon Transportation Research and

Education Consortium (OTREC)

June 30, 2009

UTC Best Practices

• What is your unusual partnership, and what makes it work so well?

• How does OTREC relate to Secretary LaHood’s priorities: safety, economic recovery, sustainability and livability

• Why is the UTC grant important to our work?

• What risks have we taken in pursuing this partnership/priority area

• How do we define success?

We Are a Partnership Portland State University, in partnership with the University of Oregon, Oregon State University, and the

Oregon Institute of Technology

• Project selection criteria• High level (vice president) advocacy for inter-

institutional collaboration• Model for other statewide research centers • Associate director at each campus

Collaboration Woven Through Everything We

Do

OTREC by the Numbers 2009

Number of months since Strategic Plan approved: 32Number of proposals received: 237

Total projects funded: 107Number of multi-campus projects: 25

Number of multi-PI projects: 62Number of research projects partnered with ODOT: 37

Number of faculty principal investigators: 82Number of external sponsors participating in OTREC: 34

Number of disciplines participating in OTREC: 19Number of graduate students involved in projects (estimate):

82Number of undergraduate students involved in projects

(estimate): 38

Theme

Healthy Communitie

s

Advanced Technology

Integration of

Transportation and Land

Use

Sustainable Transportation SolutionsResearch • Education • Technology Transfer

Consistent with Safety • Economic Recovery • Sustainability • Livability

Collaborations

urban studies and

planning

geomatics

electrical engineeringmechanical and materials engineering

political sciencestatistics

geography scienceeducation

mathematics

sociology

business administration

computer science

chemistry

civil and environmental engineering

information systems

chemicalengineering

forest engineering

economics

industrial and

manufacturing engineering

landscape architecture

education

geographic information systemsanthropology

historyconstruction

engineering

planning, public policy and management

community health

100 faculty ▪ 4 campuses ▪ Multidisciplinary (27) ▪ Multimodal ▪ VP Level Oversight ▪

Selection Criteria

Sustainability Partnership• 09.08 PSU receives $25 million grant from James F. and

Marion L. Miller Foundation for sustainability

capacity-building

• 12.08 OTREC receives Miller Grant to fund Sustainable Transportation Program Manager

• 01.09 OTREC welcomes John MacArthur, STPM

• 06.09 Projects jointly funded with Miller Foundation:

• 2010-345: Development of a Model to Predict and Mitigate Environmental and Public Health Impacts of Traffic Flows and Traffic Management Policies in Urban Transportation Microenvironments

• 2010-347: A Comprehensive Roadmap for the Development of Low/No Emission Vehicle Infrastructure in the Portland Metro Region

• 10.09 Partnership with ODOT, City of Portland and PGE

Region X Transportation Consortium

• Four UTCs (Alaska UTC, NIATT, OTREC, & TransNow)

• Four DOTs (Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, & Washington), WSDOT Lead

• Pooled-fund formed by DOTs in Region X

• Oversee collaborative RFP of regional significance and impact

• Selected two topics of interest for 2009• Climate Change Impact Assessment for

Surface Transportation in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska

• Low ADT Highway Storm Water Quality Data

• Multidisciplinary/Multistate OTREC/AUTC team selected for Climate Change project

• UTC funds allocated through OTREC/AUTC processes

Region X Transportation Consortium

Annual Student Conferences Since 2002

Transportation Education Conference

and Teaching Workshop

2009

Regional Student of the Year Award

2009

Regular Meetings

OTREC/Rahall Institute Project

•Collaboration between UTCs

•Monsere (PSU, OTREC) – Data Archive

•Nichols (Marshall, Rahall Institute) – WIM Data Systems

•Higgins (OSU, OTREC) – Bridge health

•Unique

•Leveraging existing ODOT data

•Comprehensive (42+ million observations)

•Uses of the archive

•Automatically monitor sensor health and calibration

•Develop more efficient pavement and bridge designs

•Extract freight system performance and planning data

Application of WIM Data for Improved Modeling, Design, and Rating

•Focus– Re-design cities and communities for people– Applied research with community impact– Intersection of green buildings/green communities/green policies

•Involved Disciplines• City Planning, Architecture, Landscape Architecture, Public Policy• Applied Research, Service Learning, Technology Transfer

•National Issues– Global climate change– Automobile & oil dependency and associated costs – Congestion problems– Obesity epidemic and healthy communities

• OTREC was the catalyst for this integration and helped createthe foundation for future work and opportunities.

s c i . u o r e g o n . e d u

Sustainable Cities Initiative

Initiative for Bicycle & Pedestrian Innovation

Evaluation of Bike Boxes at Signalized Intersections• Partnership with City of

Portland • Important aspect of FHWA

approval of experiment (MUTCD)

• Mitigate “right hook” collisions• Colored pavement markings• Video surveillance before and

after plus user survey• Anticipated Results:

• How does it work?• When and where to apply?• Does color matter?• Improvements in application

• Assist agency with quantitative analysis

Community School Traffic Safety Partnership

• Partnership with City of Portland• Funds portion of one faculty position and

two graduate students• Focus safety resources to reduce driver

errors, improve pedestrian and bicycle safety, and enhance safer bicycling and walking routes to school

• Financed by an incremental increase in traffic citation fines

• PSU ITS Lab serving as technical advisors, developing strategic action plan, developing and recommending performance measures

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UTC Grant & Risks•Why UTC grant is important to our work

•Research in OTREC’s theme all pillars of sustainable transportation

•OTREC’s thematic program areas are underfunded areas of research

•Focuses on aspects of transportation that is emerging to be very important and redefining transportation from predominately car-based mobility to more climate-friendly options and approaches

•What risks have we taken in pursuing this partnership/priority area?

•Funded disparate projects in early stages to figure out how theme would play out within the unique four university consortium

•Priority theme area is less rooted in infrastructure which is an emphasis of the DOT

•Less overlap of research with DOT in more recent RFPs which means less cash match for program

•Emerging with more cohesive sense of identity and recognized nationally as leaders in sustainable transportation and cities

Success: OTREC Research(ers) in the

News• Cutting edge research, nationally recognized professors (Daily Vanguard, May 26, 2009) Catherine DeRivera , PSU

• Car-Free in America? (New York Times, May 12, 2009) Marc Schlossberg, UO

• OSU Researchers Test New Wavemaker To Learn About Tsunami And Hurricane Damage (Oregon Public Broadcasting, April 29, 2009) Daniel Cox, OSU

• Running on Empty (Harvard Political Review, March 6, 2009) Tony Rufolo, PSU

• Bike lanes work, PSU professor says (Portland Tribune, October 16, 2008) Jennifer Dill, PSU

• Realtors peddle real estate to bike-happy clients (USA Today, August 29, 2008) Jennifer Dill, PSU

• Suburban Housing Saga (The Washington Diplomat, June 2008) Nico Larco, UO

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Success• 34 Collaborative Partners• 25 Multi Campus Projects• 62 Multi-Investigator Projects• 19 Disciplines• 92 Seminars for 2789 Professionals• 56 Papers• 18 New Courses• 1 New Degree Program• One “Big Idea” Selected at UO• New Sustainability Initiative Launched• 70 Master’s Graduates• 28 Projects Complete or in Peer Review

Success

Success

• On time and on budget

See you in Portland 2011!

Thank You!www.otrec.usbertini@otrec.us