 Research News Fall 2007
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| Region 2 University Transportation Research Center |
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Director’s
Letter September marks the start of school for all, from pre K to advanced degree seekers. All of us have a responsibility to continue our educations and continually improve our contributions to our agencies and firms. Even those of us responsible for teaching – all of the Faculty working on UTRC projects at universities across the region – must continually learn and study to ensure our work remains at the very cutting edge of practice. But in the rapidly-expanding transportation profession, it can be overwhelming to keep up with the latest innovations in technology, management strategies, financing techniques and planning approaches. The Transportation Research Board's Annual Meeting now draws over 10,000 participants and includes over 3,000 presentations. A core mission of UTRC is to help students and transportation professionals at all stages of the careers find the skills and training that they need. UTRC will continue to work with the region's transportation agencies to help identify speakers who can give seminars on cutting edge themes. In partnership with NYMTC, we will also soon be launching a regional training program for public agency employees. UTRC will also soon initiate a series of seminars that bring together those in practice to share their experiences in solving pressing transportation problems. Robert E. Paaswell P.E. Ph.D Distinguished Professor of Civil Engineering Director, UTRC |
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Research
Brief: Understanding Healthcare Transportation During Disaster
The
Katrina disaster revealed tragic failures of healthcare transportation
during urban disaster. Under catastrophic
disruption, there were great difficulties in transporting victims to
healthcare and in evacuating patients from flooded hospitals and
nursing homes. New York City might be subject to similar acute problems
under pandemic influenza, terrorist attack, hurricane with coastal
surge, earthquake, and other disastrous scenarios.
Two researchers from the University at Buffalo – George C. Lee, Samuel P. Capen Professor of Engineering; and Ernest Sternberg, Professor of Urban and Regional Planning – have reviewed the literature and interviewed specialists in medicine and emergency response to bring initial intellectual order to this exceptionally complex topic. This study, which is undergoing peer review before publication this fall, was funded by a grant from the University Transportation Research Center. The authors identified several key components of the healthcare-transportation nexus, including (1) patient transportation during disaster, (2) transport of personnel, supplies, and pharmaceuticals, (3) effect of disrupted transportation on general public access to healthcare (not just access for disaster victims), (4) transportation facilities and vehicles as targets or sites of disaster, and (5) transportation facilities as vectors for transmission of pandemic or a pathogen purposefully introduced by terrorists. This study focues on the first—patient transportation. Even during normal periods, many emergency departments, acute care wards, trauma centers, and other healthcare facilities operate at or near capacity. In this overburdened system, transportation serves an important function, matching patient need to healthcare supply. That function is all the more critical during disaster, when the system can face combinations of patient surge (more patients) and facility disruption (fewer facilities). Yet the subject of healthcare transportation in disaster has received relatively little research attention. Sternberg and Lee suggest as a founding framework that the problem be divided into three components. The first is incident morbidity: the distribution of injury and illness types at one or more disaster incident sites. Sometimes, healthcare facilities themselves are sites of disaster and must be considered incident sites from which patients have to be removed. The second consists of transportation assets, initially those supplied through the normal EMS system and if needed supplementary staff and ambulances. The third is healthcare capacity: hospitals and emergency departments, as well as specialized capacities such as trauma centers, burn beds, pediatric emergency departments, ventilators, and decontamination and isolation facilities. In disaster, a region’s healthcare capacity can increase in some facilities (as procedures are initiated in response to patient surge), decline (as utility disruption or staff shortage impairs care), shut down (disabled facilities are evacuated), or start up (with field units and mobilization centers brought in by the federal government). In view of these complications, the authors observe that patient transport in disaster is much more than an EMS dispatch problem. It is rather a far larger assignment problem, requiring complex institutional interactions between emergency first responders at incident sites, transport units and their dispatchers, and healthcare facilities subject to fluctuating capacities. They conclude by calling for research on institutional mechanisms for healthcare assignment during disaster. For that purpose, they identify six tentative options: assignment through 911 systems, the “assignment (clearinghouse) hospital” method, first-hospital assignment in which the first receiving hospitals reassigns patients, centralized assignment, specialized assignment, and assignment through mutual adjustment. |
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Transportation and land use behavior and decisions in the private marketplace are closely intertwined. Yet public policies concerning transportation and land use are made by separate agencies; interjurisdictional coordination in these areas is of vital importance for effective implementation of specific issues. A project nearing completion for the September 11th Memorial Program's Planning Initiative seeks to identify strategies for addressing this problem. This project was led by Dr. Allison L. C. de Cerreno, Director of the NYU Wagner Rudin Center for Transportation Policy and Management, with assistance from Bruce Shalher, prior to him becoming Deputy Commissioner at NYCDOT. Using specific examples from across the NYMTC region, the project describes the challenges facing effective urban-suburban and suburban-suburban coordination in transportation and land use. The project further examines specific issues related to transportation and land use where such coordination is most urgently needed and identifies specific practical ways in which interjurisdictional coordination could be strengthened throughout the NYMTC region. The final product of this research will be the development of a workshop and a guidebook/manual for running it. The workshop will be aimed at several key audiences:
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Sept. 11 Memorial Program
Academic Initiative Update
 The University
Transportation Research Center has continued
to work with the New York Metropolitan Transportation Council to
administer
NYMTC’s September 11th Memorial Program for Regional Transportation
Planning –
Academic Initiative. This program was established to honor three
colleagues lost in the attack on the World Trade Center, Ignatius
Adanga,
Charles Lesperance, and See Wong Shum. This program was designed to
educate and
motivate people interested in transportation technology and planning
and to
encourage innovations in planning activities throughout the region. The
program’s Academic Initiative provides tuition and stipend support to
talented
students from across the region for internships and independent
research
projects.
2006-07 Student Presentations The four students who participated in the program during the 2006-07 academic year will make final presentations of their work at a brown bag lunch seminar at NYMTC. The students are:
Their final presentations are available
on the UTRC website under "Education - September 11th Memorial
Program".
Five Students Selected for 2007-08 NYMTC has announced that five students were selected to participate in the Sept. 11th Memorial Program Academic Initiative during 2007-08. Three students were selected to participate in internships at NYMTC member agencies:
In addition, two students were selected to conduct independent research projects:
For more information, please visit UTRC’s website at www.utrc2.org |
New
RITA Administrator Paul Brubaker Paul
Brubaker was
recently confirmed as
the new Administrator of the U.S. Department of Transportation’s (DOT)
Research and Innovative Technology Administration (RITA). He
was nominated by President George W. Bush on June 18 and sworn in on
Aug. 8. Administrator Brubaker will oversee the
coordination and review of the Department’s $1 billion investment in
research, development and technology that enhance the nation’s
transportation system. RITA oversees the Bureau of
Transportation Statistics, Intelligent Transportation Systems program,
Volpe National Transportation Systems Center, Transportation Safety
Institute, University Transportation Centers program, and the Department's cross-modal research initiatives. Prior to joining RITA, Brubaker was Chief Operating Officer of Procentrix, a consulting firm that specialized in assisting organizations in leveraging their investments in information technology. He also served as Deputy Assistant Secretary and Deputy Chief Information Officer at the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD). In early October, Administrator Brubaker will visit the University Transportation Research Center at the City University of New York to discuss the center’s programs and new initiatives in promoting transportation research and education in the region. |
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Womens
Transportation Seminar Scholarship
For more information, please visit
UTRC’s website at www.utrc2.orgChan Ju (Jeannie)
Kwon is the 2007 recipient of the UTRC’s WTS Student Award of $1000,
which goes to the winner of the Women’s Transportation Seminar’s (WTS)
Leonard Braun Memorial Graduate Scholarship. Jeannie
is working on a Master’s degree in Public Administration at Wagner
School of Public Service of New York University. She
was an assistant to Elliot Sander at DMJM Harris and has followed him
to the MTA, where she is a Special Assistant to the Executive Director.
In her new position, she is responsible for coordinating
the MTA Quarterly Review process to establish performance measurement
goals for the agency in conjunction with other MTA personnel.
Jeannie also started the Wagner Transportation Association (WTA) at NYU, which has the purpose of connecting students to transportation industry practitioners. Through the WTA, she has arranged for walking tours of the Fulton Street Station and Grand Central Terminal and talks by NYC Councilman John Liu and NYSDOT Commission Tom Madison. Jeannie is particularly concerned about issues of management and sustainability. She states that: “I am specifically interested in continuous quality improvement in management operations, oriented towards customer service for transportation. I’m also interested in how transportation leaders can green the infrastructure and pursue sustainability initiatives.” |
 Dr. Fan Yang has
recently joined the City
College of New
York faculty as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil
Engineering. He received his Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental
Engineering and his M.S. in Computer Sciences from the University of
Wisconsin, Madison, in 2005 and 2003. Following completion of his
studies, he worked as a senior research analyst at
Transportation/Logistics group at Environmental Systems Research
Institute (ESRI) for more than two years. His research expertise
and interests include travel behavior, transportation network
optimization, infrastructure management, intelligent transportation
systems, logistics systems, and geographic information sciences.
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UTRC would like to
welcome two new staff members: Ms. Nadia Aslam joined UTRC in spring 2007 and is working at UTRC as a research and administrative assistant. She is involved in managing new RFPs, improving UTRC’s project databases, developing project budgets, and other administrative responsibilities. She is also a graduate student in Biochemistry at the City College of New York, and plans to study medicine and work in medical research after earning her Masters degree. Mr. Jose Pillich
joined the UTRC staff as a Communications and Outreach Coordinator and
Research
Assistant. He will assist the UTRC Consortium with its
publications,
media relations, event coordination and currently is doing research
work with
the CUNY Building Performance Lab. For the last three
years, he
worked in an insurance/reinsurance company as a technical
assistant. In
addition, he has worked as a research assistant for a professor who is
examining
a New York Business Improvement District. |
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Research
Grant News
Integrative
Freight Demand Management
A team of universities from across Region 2 has received a grant from the USDOT Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration to design a Freight Demand Management system for the New York City metropolitan area. The system would utilize GPS enabled smart phones, policy, cutting edge freight demand management (FDM) and traffic simulations developed by project partners based on their technological methodological advances. The function of the project would be to shift truck traffic to off-peak hours, improve traffic and environmental conditions and increase NYC business competitiveness by allowing tax deductions to receivers and large freight traffic generators willing to do off peak deliveries. The proposed idea is an innovative combination of techniques that could improve urban traffic conditions and become a showcase example in the future. The team is led by Dr. José Holguín-Veras (RPI), and includes Dr. Alain Kornhauser (Princeton), Dr. Kaan Ozbay (Rutgers), Dr.Satish Ukkusuri (RPI) and Dr. Allison L. C. de Cerreño (NYU). The project will involve numerous government and private sector partners, including the New Jersey Motor Truck Association, New York State Restaurant Association, Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, New York Metropolitan Transportation Council, New York State Department of Transportation, New Jersey Turnpike Authority, I-95 Corridor Coalition and the Transportation Coordinating Committee (TRANSCOM). Civic Engagement in Improving Public Transit Dr. Niraj Verma and Dr. Daniel B. Hess, both of the Universty at Buffalo urban planning department, received a grant from the Federal Transit Administration's Public Transportation Participation Pilot Program. The project, entitled "Awakening Public Participation to Improve Public Transit: Civic Engagement in Shaping Revenue Generation Strategies" tests and applies a model for instituting impact fees, parking fees, or other forms of revenue generation from developments in city centers with the aim of using these resources for improving or developing public transit. A public participation process throughout all phases of the project is proposed that will engage stakeholders in balancing their interests around these issues, solicit their input in achieving common objectives, and foster collaboration among residents, developers and other stakeholders. Other recent research
awards
*Not funded through the UTRC Consortium For more information, please visit UTRC’s website at www.utrc2.org |
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UTRC currently has the following open requests for proposals: • Sustainable Transportation Systems (sponsored by NYSERDA – due October 10, 2007) • Assessment of a Dynamic Back Calculation Analysis of Falling Weight Deflectometer Deflection Data (sponsored by NJDOT – due October 14, 2007) • Development of Falling Weight Deflectometer Procedures Manual (sponsored by NJDOT – due October 14, 2007) • Customer Behavior Relative to Gap Between Platform and Train (sponsored by NJDOT – due October 14, 2007) • Heavy Metal Contamination of Highway Marking Beads (sponsored by NJDOT – due October 14, 2007) • The Impact of Demographic Changes on Transit Patterns in NJ (sponsored by NJDOT – due October 14, 2007) • Seismic Design Recommendations (sponsored by NJDOT – due October 14, 2007) • Non-contact Skid Resistance Measurement (sponsored by NJDOT – due October 14, 2007) • Evaluation of the Automated Distress Survey Equipment (sponsored by NJDOT – due October 14, 2007) • Automated Pedestrian Counter (sponsored by NJDOT – due October 14, 2007) • Transportation: Impact of the Economy (sponsored by NJDOT –due October 14, 2007) • Energy Savings/Cogeneration Plant (sponsored by NJDOT – due October 14, 2007) • Crosswalk Demonstration Project (sponsored by NJDOT – due October 14, 2007) • Warm Pavement Technology (sponsored by NJDOT – due October 14, 2007) • Develop Consultant Management Estimating Tool (sponsored by NYSDOT – due October 31, 2007) • Graduated Driver’s License, Phase 2 (sponsored by NJDOT – due October 31, 2007) • Review of NJ Point System (sponsored by NJDOT – due October 31, 2007) • New Jersey Motorcycle Fatality Rates (sponsored by NJDOT – due October 31, 2007) • Diesel Retrofit Assessment (sponsored by NYSDOT - November 2, 2007) For more information, please visit UTRC’s website at www.utrc2.org |
| Upcoming Events Jay N. Meegoda & Thomas M. Juliano. "Underground Asset Management." NJDOT Technology Transfer Seminar. NJDOT, Sept. 25, 2007. NYMTC Special Council Meeting. Borough of Manhattan Community College, Sept. 27, 2007. Robert Checchio. "Evolution or Revolution? Advances in Aviation Technology and their Effects on Spatial Development Patterns." NJDOT Technology Transfer Seminar. NJDOT, Sept. 27, 2007 "The Road to Energy Independence." 3rd Annual Alternative Vehicle Technology Conference. Center for Sustainable Energy.Bronx Community College, Oct. 05, 2007 Allison L.C. de Cerreno. "High-Speed Rail in the United States: Can the dream be realized?." NJDOT Technology Transfer Seminar. NJDOT, Oct. 16, 2007. Robin Chase. "Transforming Transportation Through Wireless Networking." UTRC Visiting Scholar Seminar. Baruch College, Oct. 19, 2007. Dr. Anne G. Morris. " Urban Freight: Developing a Freight Efficient Strategy in a Built Environment." NJDOT, October, 23, 2007. Anil Agrawal. "Blast and Seimic Effects on Highway Bridges." NJDOT Technology Trasnfer Seminar. NJDOT, Oct. 30, 2007. "Thinking Bigger: New York & Transportation in the Northeast MegaRegion." NYMTC/NYU Wagner Rudin Center Conference. New York University, Nov. 13, 2007 "Protecting New York from Terrorism and Disaster: Taking Stock, Setting Directions, Looking Forward." Jan. 10-11, 2008. |
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Region
2 University Transportation Research Center
(Serving New Jersey, New York, Puerto Rico, and U.S. Virgin Islands) Robert E.
Paaswell, Ph.D., P.E., Director UTRC
Research News is
published quarterly by the University Transportation Research
Center, which is based at the City College of New York, 910 Marshak
Hall, New
York, NY 10031. Editorial inquiries can be made by calling
José Pillich
at 212-650-8046. For more information on our programs or to
notify us for
an address correction, please email nadia@utrc2.org. CONSORTIUM
MEMBERS include the
City University of New York, Columbia University,
Cornell University, New Jersey Institute of Technology, New York
University, Polytechnic
University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Rowan University, Rutgers
University, the State University of New York system, Stevens Institute
of
Technology, and the University of Puerto Rico. |