UB shows strong presence at TRB’s 98th annual meeting

By Nicole Capozziello

Over 13,000 transportation and bridge engineers, researchers, and professionals traveled to Washington, D.C. to share findings, meet other researchers and learn about transportation and bridge engineering trends around the world.

A highlight of the meeting was the University at Buffalo reception, which was held on January 15 to showcase current research and reconnect with alumni and colleagues in the transportation field.

Nearly 200 people attended the reception, which was jointly hosted by the directors of three UB transportation-related institutes: Andrew Whittaker, Director of the Institute of Bridge Engineering (IBE), Panos Anastasopoulos, Director of the Stephen Still Institute for Transportation and Logistics, and Adel Sadek, Director of the Transportation Informatics University Transportation Center.

“It was great to interact with the professors one-on-one,” said Dan D’Angelo, a principal civil engineer at Applied Research Associates, Inc. and civil engineering alumnus (’83).

“Part of the benefit of attending an event like TRB is to develop and maintain relationships,” D’Angelo added. “We teamed with UB on three projects recently, in part because of opportunities to interact and learn about others’ research at TRB.”

Outside of connecting with members of the UB community at the reception, students were able to collaborate and learn from others within their research areas.

“I had the opportunity to meet and interact with people who are solving many different transportation problems,” says Sarvani Sonduru Pantangi. “Consultants and researchers from around the world were interested in our research on the application of advanced statistical methods in transportation problems.”

“My research is in a somewhat unique area – I examine maintenance data from U.S. railway tracks using machine learning and advance data analytical methods,” said Faeze Ghofrani. “I was surprised to find a TRB committee focused on maintenance in railway transportation, and they seemed happy to see new researchers and young professionals coming into the area. I was able to talk to the chair of the committee and made some important connections.”

Both Sonduru Pantangi and Ghofrani are PhD students in the Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering.

The work of over 20 researchers from the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences was showcased at this year’s meeting. A complete list is as follows (names of faculty members are shown in bold):

Presiders

• Panos Anastasopoulos, Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering, Statistical Methodology Committee
• Qing He, joint appointment in the Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering and the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Simulation of Traffic Signal Systems Subcommittee, AHB25(3)
• Ariana Fay, Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering, Nanosilica Coatings to Improve the Tensile Bond Strength of Cementitious Grouts
• Kuan-Ting Chen, Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Communicating Automation Reliability Through Music Quality: A Sonification Approach to Driver Feedback

Speakers

• Huei-Yen “Winnie” Chen and Kuan-Ting Chen, Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Driving Style Clustering Using Naturalistic Driving Data
• Yu Cui and Qing He, Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering, and Jing Gao and Chuishi Meng, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Forecasting Trip Purpose with Social Media Data and Google Places

Posters

• Panos Anastasopoulos, Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering, Analysis of Accident Injury-Severity Outcomes: The Zero-Inflated Hierarchical Ordered Probit Model with Correlated Disturbances
• Panos Anastasopoulos and Ugur Eker, Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering, An Exploratory Investigation of Public Perceptions Toward Key Benefits and Concerns from the Future Use of Flying Cars
• Amjad Aref, Faeze Gohfrani, Qing He, Li Tang and Abhishek Pathak, Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering, Exploring the Relationship Between Foot-by-Foot Track Geometry and Rail Defects: A Data-Driven Approach
• Kuan-Ting Chen, Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Using Naturalistic Driving Data to Examine the Influences of Driving Styles on Crash Severity Level
• Panos Anastasopoulos, Satish Mohan and Sarvani Sonduru Pantangi, Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering, Public-Private Partnerships for Roadway Construction and Preservation and Traffic Safety: An Exploratory Empirical Analysis of Crash Frequencies
• Panos Anastasopoulos and Sarvani Sonduru Pantangi, Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering, Effect of High-Visibility Enforcement Programs on Aggressive Driving Behavior: An Empirical Analysis Using SHRP2 Naturalistic Driving Study (NDS) Data
• Panos Anastasopoulos, Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering, and Peter Rogerson, Department of Geography - Correlated Grouped Random Parameters Hazard-Based Duration Analysis of Elderly Travel Times
• Panos Anastasopoulos, Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering, Understanding the Impacts of Internal Migration and Household Registration System on Travel Mode Choice in China
• Qing He and Yunpeng Shi, Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering, Capacity Analysis and Cooperative Lane Changing for Connected and Automated Vehicles: An Entropy-Based Assessment Method

UB was a Bronze level sponsor of this year’s meeting, which was held on January 13–17, 2019.