Archive for August, 2014

ATRA Academic Council

August 30th, 2014

academicSeveral years ago ATRA formed a Academic Research Committee. For 2014, this effort is moving forward as an Academic Council (AC). Its vision, mission and membership fees and benefits are listed below. Sensing much new interest in advanced transit, AC is inviting other institutions to join as we seek new paths forward for automated mobility in our society.

So far the Academic Council has instituted

  • A $500.00 annual student paper award
  • $2,000.00 grant to San Jose state with their work on solar powered automated transit networks
  • Yearly participation in the TRB/AUVSI Automated Vehicles symposium, organizing the transit and shared mobility breakout session, and this past summer additional transit themes in other breakout sessions
  • An all day workshop sponsored by : UCDavis, National Center for Sustainable Transportation, Southern California Association of Governments, ARUP, Kimley Horn, Fehr & Peers, and NCIT, National Center for Intermodal Transportation. The workshop committee focused the event on assisting Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPO’s) in their efforts to address these new automated technologies
  • An NSF Sustainability Research Networks competition grant application with San Jose state taking the lead
  • Presentations at the PodCar city conference

Automated Transit Networks paper from ATRA

August 29th, 2014

Implementing_Automated_Transit_Network_Solutions_Principal_ConsiderationsImplementing Automated Transit Network Solutions, Principal Considerations is a new paper from ATRA that discusses the key benefits and obstacles common to all ATN systems and examines the specific case for four different applications; an urban regeneration project, an airport, a campus style estate and a legacy park project.

The First Annual Martin Lowson Paper Award

August 9th, 2014

martin lowsonIn honor of the inventor of the first commercial PRT system

$500.00 paper award
ATRA fosters the development of automation and networking to advance the quality and sustainability of transportation, particularly for our urban areas. ATRA academic committee has instituted an annual paper award to recognize contributions in that area. The objective is to recognize high quality, original work that advances the thought and practice of fully automated, networked systems. The inaugural competition will be 2015. ATRA will accept papers that have been authored and/or published between January 1, 2013 up until the end of March 31st 2015. The papers may have been submitted to journals and/or conferences (in fact ATRA encourages this), or may be unique to the ATRA competition. The emphasis in 2015 is on Automated Transit Networks toward sustainable urban mobility.

The First Annual ATRA Paper Award 2015

Contact information: smcdonald@siu.edu

Rules of the competition:
Submit paper to smcdonald@siu.edu
Follow TRB paper guidelines for a blind peer review process