Robert Schneider

Advisor: Robert Cervero

PhD City and Regional Planning, University of California, Berkeley, 2011

MRP Urban Planning, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2001

BA Geography and Mathematics, Augustana College, 1999

University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee - Present

• Professor, Urban Planning 

Dr. Robert Schneider is a Professor with more than 20 years of practical and research experience in the sustainable transportation field. He teaches Planning Policy Analysis, Applied Projects in Urban GIS, and Pedestrian and Bicycle Transportation. He contributes to international, national, and local research projects on safety, travel behavior, demand analysis, and data collection for active transportation modes.

Robert has led more than 30 peer-reviewed journal articles related to pedestrian and bicycle transportation, and he has won paper awards from the Transportation Research Board Pedestrian Committee in 2001 and 2012, the World Society of Transport and Land Use in 2014, and the Transportation Research Board Bicycle Committee in 2021.

Robert’s safety research has identified roadways with the highest concentrations of pedestrian fatalities across the US(link is external), summarized US pedestrian fatality trends over four decades(link is external), and produced a new method of classifying pedestrian and bicycle crashes(link is external). He is currently analyzing pedestrian safety at night(link is external) as a part of a National Cooperative Highway Research project team. His pedestrian fatality hot spots study(link is external) was one of two academic articles cited in the US Department of Transportation’s National Roadway Safety Strategy (PDF file)(link is external). Robert’s research has been featured in Streetsblog USA(link is external), Planetizen(link is external), and the Washington Post(link is external).

Robert’s travel behavior research produced the Theory of Routine Mode Choice Decisions(link is external), a framework to explain how people choose between pedestrian, bicycle, transit, and automobile modes. He has quantified walking, bicycling, and transit trips produced by different types of land uses(link is external) and produced statistical models to estimate how many pedestrians cross specific intersections(link is external) and how many neighborhood workers commute by different types of transportation(link is external). He has assessed satisfaction(link is external) with a variety of types of transportation, including walking, bicycling, riding the bus, and taking microtransit.

Locally, Robert is co-PI of the National Science Foundation FlexRide(link is external) Milwaukee project, a pilot application of microtransit service connecting central city workers with suburban jobs. He has led Wisconsin Department of Transportation projects to analyze statewide pedestrian and bicycle crash trends (PDF file)(link is external), evaluate driver yielding to pedestrians in crosswalks (PDF file)(link is external), and quantify pedestrian and bicyclist risk at multi-use trail roadway crossings and intersections (PDF file)(link is external). He and his student teams have surveyed residents and analyzed safety for Milwaukee Safe and Healthy Streets(link is external) and the award-winning Milwaukee Pedestrian Plan(link is external). Robert is a core team member of Milwaukee Safe and Healthy Streets(link is external) and has collaborated on research and client projects with multiple organizations, including the City of Milwaukee Department of Public Works(link is external) and Department of City Development(link is external), Coalition for Safe Driving MKE(link is external), Villard Avenue Business Improvement District(link is external), Neighborhood House of Milwaukee(link is external), Medical College of Wisconsin(link is external), and UW-Milwaukee Office of Sustainability(link is external).

Between 2001 and 2007, Robert worked for Toole Design Group, LLC, assisting with pedestrian and bicycle planning projects in communities such as Washington, DC, Rockville, MD, Alexandria, VA, Greensboro, NC, and Seattle, WA. Robert served as Chair of the Transportation Research Board Committee on Pedestrians from 2014 to 2020, providing national and international leadership to bridge the academic and professional community. He was named Research Professional of the Year in 2019 by the Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professionals.