Willie A. Deese College of Business and Economics

CATM Virtual Research Symposium 2022

The fourth CATM Research Symposium was an online event held February 7-8, 2022, from 11:00 AM to 5:30 PM. Jon Antin, CATM research program manager and leader of the Vulnerable Road Users group at Virginia Tech Transportation Institute, and staff organized the event.

The symposium was an opportunity for students, faculty, and researchers from the three consortium member institutions, including North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (lead), Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (VTTI) and Embry–Riddle Aeronautical University (ERAU), Daytona Beach, to share and learn transportation-related research information. Specifically, the principal investigators or graduate students involved in research projects, partially or fully funded by CATM, presented the progress or final conclusions of the studies.

On the first day of the symposium, Greg J.D. Winfree, who is the director of Texas A&M University’s Transportation Institute and has a prestigious background in transportation law and the U.S. Department of Transportation, was the keynote speaker. Winfree gave an informed and interesting talk on “The Transformation of Transportation: The Road Ahead.”  

The theme of presentations on that Monday was “Emergency Situations” and featured the following presentations:

  • Analyzing the Role of Air Transportation in COVID-19 Pandemic Disaster and Multiscale Model for Hurricane Evacuation and Fuel Shortage – Shirish Namilae (ERAU)
  • Epidemiological Models for Transportation Applications: Secondary Crashes - Samarth Motagi (ERAU)
  • Usability of Urban Air Mobility: Quantitative and Qualitative Assessments of Usage in Emergency Situations – Sean Crouse (ERAU)
  • Machine Learning for Dynamic Airspace Configuration Towards Optimized Mobility in Emergency Situations - Houbing Song, Ph.D. (ERAU)
  • Dynamic Routing of Unmanned-aerial and Emergency Team Incident Management – Detrick Barkley (N.C. A&T)
  • Multi-agent Reinforcement Learning-based Pedestrian Dynamics Models for Emergency Evacuation – Niharika Deshpande (N.C. A&T)
  • Travelers' Rationality in Online Anticipatory Emergency Response Model – Joseph Som (N.C. A&T)
  • Multiscale Model for Hurricane Evacuation and Fuel Shortage – Shirish Namilae (ERAU)
  • Multi-scale and Collaborative Disaster Evacuation Planning Framework – Yupeng Yang (ERAU)
  • Modeling Future Outbreaks of COVID-19 Using Traffic as Leading Indicator – Scott Parr (ERAU)
  • Multi-scale Models for Transportation Systems Under Emergency and Real-time Recommendations for Traffic Control in an Intelligent Transportation System During an Emergency Evacuation - Parts 1 and 2 – Xiuli Qu (N.C. A&T)

You may view a recording of day one's presentations here.

On the second day of the symposium, the keynote speaker was Rory A. Cooper, Ph.D. He is the founder, director and CEO of Human Engineering Research Laboratories, a joint venture of the University of Pittsburgh, the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. He currently serves as FISA/PVA distinguished professor, past chair, in the Department of Rehabilitation Science and Technology and professor of bioengineering, physical medicine and rehabilitation and orthopedic surgery at the University of Pittsburgh. Cooper, who is a disabled veteran using a wheelchair, spoke with experience and passion about “Accessible Autonomous Vehicles and Transportation Systems – The Need for Greater Inclusion of People with Disabilities.” The research presentations that day focused on “Vulnerable Road Users” (VRU) and was as follows:

  • Connected Electric Vehicles: Vehicle-Pedestrian Communications to Enhance Vision Impaired Pedestrian Safety – Sadie Cooke (VTTI)
  • Acoustic Situation Awareness and Its Effects on Pedestrian Safety within a Virtual Environment – Raphael Patrick (VTTI)
  • Equitable Dynamic Pricing for Express Lanes – Venktesh Pandey (N.C. A&T)
  • ROAD TRIP (Rural Older Adult Driver Tailored Research Integrated Plan) and Detecting Early-Stage Dementia Using Naturalistic Driving – Jon Antin (VTTI)
  • Development, Design, and Calibration of the Vulnerable Road User Mobility Assistance Platform (VRU-MAP) – Justin Owens (VTTI)
  • Analysis of the Non-Driving Mobility Needs of People with Disabilities – Andrew Miller (VTTI)
  • Vulnerable Road Users Demand-responsive Transit Optimization with Healthcare Privatization (VRUTOP) – Hyoshin Park (N.C. A&T)
  • VRU-Personalized, Optimum, and Dynamic (POD) Routing – Justice Darko (N.C. A&T)
  • Automated Last Mile Connectivity for Vulnerable Road Users – Andrew Alden (VTTI)
  • Evaluation of Web-Based Driving Feedback for Teens and Their Parents – Sheila Klauer and Joshua Radbeck (VTTI)
  • Mask-Wearing Behaviors in Air Travel During Coronavirus Pandemic an Extended Theory of Planned Behavior Model - Jing Yu Pan (ERAU)

You may view a recording of day two's presentations here.

Dr. Maranda McBride, Ph. D., director of CATM, professor of management at N.C. A&T, and former director of N.C. A&T's Transportation Institute, opened and closed the symposium daily with remarks. At the end of each day, a virtual networking session provided attendees and presenters the opportunity to explore that days’ subjects further as well as discuss current supply chain, pandemic, and transportation topics.