News Tagged: Portal

How does transit move you? Oregon Transportation Summit special focus

Posted on July 22, 2014

Transit supporters offer up a host of arguments for their favorite form of transportation but may struggle to counter a response of “prove it.” This year’s Oregon Transportation Summit could help change that.

Fresh research showing some of the benefits of transit will keep the public transportation track lively and relevant during the sixth annual summit. Morning and afternoon workshops spotlight transit, bookending a luncheon keynote by noted transit planner Jarrett Walker.

The Oregon Transportation Summit takes place Monday, Sept. 15 at Portland State University.

University of Utah researcher Reid Ewing made national and international headlines recently with a study showing the effect of light rail in a busy travel corridor. The study, funded by the National Institute for Transportation and Communities, was the first to document a drop in automobile traffic after the opening of a light-rail line. Ewing presents his research at a morning workshop,  “Why Transit Makes you Feel Good.”

At the same session, Chris Bone of the University of Oregon will present on crowd-sourced evaluations of transit and Steve Callas of TriMet will present Portland State University-developed software to visualize performance data. Catherine Ciarlo of CH2M Hill moderates.

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Tags: arthur nelson, ch2m hill, christopher bone, crowd-sourcing, human transit, jarrett walker, megan gibb, metro, nitc, oregon transportation summit, portal, public transportation, reid ewing, steve callas, transit, transit-oriented development, travel corridors, zgf architects

PSU’s Intelligent Transportation Systems Lab is recognized nationwide

Posted on April 12, 2013

The quality of OTREC research has recently been recognized on a national level.

Selected data from the Portland Oregon Regional Transportation Archive Listing (PORTAL) will be part of a new national data sharing platform.

The US Department of Transportation has released the first version of this platform, called the Research Data Exchange, which collects and publishes archived and real-time transportation data from multiple sources.

In the language of their home page, the Research Data Exchange (called the RDE for short) was primarily developed to “support the development, testing, and demonstration of multi-modal transportation mobility applications being pursued under the USDOT ITS Dynamic Mobility Applications (DMA) Program and other connected vehicle research activities.”

In other words, USDOT created this database so they could use it. But – in the spirit of collaboration common to those with an interest in collecting and managing vast amounts of information – they’re sharing it.

The RDE is free and open to the public. Registered users can make comments and ask questions about the content, and recognized contributors are able to submit new research projects. It is hoped that the ongoing growth of the database will contribute to its usefulness for everyone involved.

As of now, there are nine data environments in the RDE, and one of them is from PORTAL.

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Tags: fhwa, metro, national science foundation, otrec, portal, research data exchange, southwest washington regional transportation council, usdot