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Faculty from the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s Department of Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering are working on ways to ease the current and future problems of traffic congestion, thanks to a $14 million grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation.
In December 2016, the USDOT designated a consortium of 10 Southeastern universities as the Region 4 University Transportation Center led by the University of Florida. The consortium, named the Southeastern Transportation Research, Innovation, Development and Education (STRIDE) Center, will use the $14 million over the next five years to develop novel strategies for reducing traffic congestion.
Virginia Sisiopiku, Ph.D., associate professor of transportation engineering, is the associate director of STRIDE on the UAB campus. She also is director of the UAB Transportation Engineering and Development Lab (TRENDLab), which will be engaged in the STRIDE study.
STRIDE builds on a previous consortium — the University Transportation Center — that existed under an earlier grant and had a much broader focus. Under the current grant, STRIDE will focus specifically on traffic congestion through the use of new technologies available in vehicles, telecommunications capabilities and shared autonomy in transportation.
“Building on our earlier partnership with STRIDE, this new grant will expand our research on congestion management, a core area of expertise of the TRENDLab, housed in the Civil Engineering department,” Sisiopiku said. “UAB research in 2017 will focus on the influence of technology on travel demand and behaviors, performance measurement and management using connected and automated vehicle data, and work zone planning, design and operations for reduced congestion.”
For more information, visit www.uab.edu/engineering/trendlab or contact Sisiopiku at vsisiopi@uab.edu.