UTCs

safe systems summit

Sarah Garner, Offer Grembek, Jill Cooper, 2019 Safe Systems Summit

ITS Berkeley facuty and researchers are involved in two exciting University Transportation Centers

National Institute for Congestion Reduction (NICR)

NICR is the USDOT’s only national center focused on congestion relief. The consortium also includes the lead institution of the University of South Florida and three additional partners: UC Berkeley and UC Berkeley Institute of Transportation Studeies, Texas A&M University and its affiliated Texas A&M Transportation Institute College Station and the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez.

A $7.5 million grant was awarded by the USDOT in June 2019 to establish a national university transportation center (UTC) aimed at advancing research and education programs that address the nation’s critical transportation challenges. The consortium was selected from more than 50 applicants nationwide for this highly competitive award.

NICR is dedicated to congestion reduction through multimodal solutions for the surface transportation system. This diverse team of experts is uniquely positioned to help reduce congestion through its deep understanding of modeling, transportation planning and regulation, public transit and shared mobility. It aims to produce tools (methods, guidelines and policies) for improving congested, multimodal systems in the immediate future.

NICR’s research will focus on optimizing the efficiency and reliability of travel for all transportation system users, data modeling and analytical tools to evaluate the effects of the shifting transit incentive structure, and ridesharing and alternative forms of transportation, grouped under four pillars: Urban and Rural Traffic Management in the Age of Big Data, Battling Congestion Using Innovative Mobility Platforms, Incentivizing Transit in the Face of Innovative Alternatives, and Battling Congestion on Freeway Corridors.

Professor Michael Cassidy leads the effort at UC Berkeley as an Associate Director. ITS Assistant Director Laura Melendy acts as a Technology Transfer Assistant Director and ITS Associate Director Daniel Rodriguez and Professor Susan Shaheen serve on the Executive Committee.

Collaborative Sciences Center for Road Safety (CSCRS)

UC Berkeley SafeTREC is excited to be a part of the Collaborative Sciences Center for Road Safety (CSCRS), a U.S. Department of Transportation-funded National University Transportation Center led by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Highway Safety Research Center.

CSCRS is one of five national University Transportation Centers announced in November 2016. The Center unites leading university transportation research, planning, public health, data science and engineering programs with the mission to create and exchange knowledge to advance transportation safety through a multidisciplinary, Safe Systems approach.

The UC Berkeley team, led by SafeTREC Co-Director Offer Grembek, is one of four university consortium members, along with Duke University, Florida Atlantic University and University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

See SafeTREC's involvment with CSCRS and a list of the Road Safety Fellows