Year 2014 has been a productive and exciting year for CATSS. In that calendar alone the center attracted over $2.8 million in new external research and education funding and its expenditures amounted to close to $1 million. The center was successful in bolstering its partnerships with three new UTC consortiums. The Center for Transportation Research at University of Tennessee is the designated center for region 4 and its theme is “Comprehensive Transportation Safety”. Other members include the University of Kentucky, the University of South Florida, the University of Alabama, the University of Alabama Birmingham, the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, North Carolina A&T State University, and Clemson University.
The second consortium is headed by the National Advanced Driving Simulator (NADS) at the University of Iowa. The center, titled Safety Research Using Simulation (SAFER-SIM), will utilize driving simulation and other traffic simulation models to address the safety issues prioritized by the U.S. DOT. The center will conduct research, sponsor outreach activities in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) areas, and aid workforce development efforts in the area of transportation safety. The research will address all road users including passenger car drivers, transit users, pedestrians, bicyclists, and heavy truck drivers. Other consortium members include University of Wisconsin-Madison, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, and University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez.
The third consortium is led by the Florida Solar Energy Center at UCF. The center’s theme is “Electrical Vehicles” and other members of the team include Tuskegee University (Alabama) and the University of Hawaii, Honolulu.
CATSS continues to be an active and proud member of the National Center for Transportation Systems Productivity and Management housed at the Georgia Institute of technology. We continue our second year of affiliation with NCTSPM and it has been a successful and rewarding experience.
The Department of Civil, Environmental, and Construction Engineering, where CATSS resides, enjoys a stable and productive leadership of Dr. Mohamed Abdel-Aty, a veteran transportation faculty in the department and an international scholar. He continues to have high profile of research activities and strong ties with the center. Under his leadership a new faculty member in the “Transportation Systems” area, Dr. Naveen Eluru, joined the CECE Department and is closely affiliated with CATSS.
I am pleased and honored to continue my affiliation with CATSS and invite you to share our excitement while we continue to serve the transportation profession not only in the US but also in other parts of the world. Please drop me a note or stop by to visit our labs and chat with our faculty, research associates, and students and witness tomorrow’s research and education being executed today.