BI-ANNUAL NEWSLETTER FOR THE NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION CENTER
NTC Newsletter In this issue: Exploring CAVs P.1 Equitable Complete Streets P.2
Fall 2022
Secretary Buttigieg’s Visit P.3 A Message from the Director P.4
The National Transortation Center at Morgan State University is pleased to present its bi-annual newsletter. This issue highlights ongoing research from our principal investigators related to CAVs, Complete Streets, and more. We encourage you to follow our upcoming publications and educational webinars to stay up-to-date on the latest in transportation research.
Ongoing Projects P.5
Exploring Connected & Autonomous Vehicles Developments in Connected & Automated Vehicles (CAVs) are quickly placing capabilities once left to futurists and science fiction writers comfortably within reach of mainstream transportation research. These technologies are among the most promising innovations in the transportation field, holding the potential to revolutionize efficiency and sustainability in current transit systems. Ongoing projects at the Urban Mobility Equity Center are making critical contributions to this emerging subfield. One of the many potential applications of CVs is demonstrated in the project, “Integrated Optimization of Vehicle Speed Control and Traffic Signal Timing.” Having recently been published by researchers at Virginia Tech and Morgan State University, this study uses simulators to explore how connected vehicle technology can be used in tandem with modified traffic signals to improve throughput and energy efficiency. “The proposed integrated controller can greatly improve energy efficiency with up to 17.7% fuel savings, at the same time enhancing the traffic mobility by reducing total delay by 47.18% and vehicle stops by 24.8%,” reads one passage of the study.
These findings validate those posited by similar projects published by UMEC researchers in recent years, such as “Developing an Intelligent Connected Vehicle based Traffic State Estimator,” which argues that adaptive traffic management systems, particularly those at intersections, can leverage information provided by CVs to dramatically reduce travel times experienced by travelers in automobiles. UMEC Director Mansoureh Jeihani discussed the impact that connected & automated vehicles would have on transportation equity in the coming years at the Maryland Connected & Automated Vehicle Working Group hosted by MSU. “Using CAVs to give access to jobs, medicine, and food to everyone – that’s a golden opportunity and we have to jump on it,” Jeihani said. As the technologies needed to mass produce these vehicles becomes cheaper and more widely available, it will become increasingly necessary to develop systems that are able to absorb these machines into new and existing transportation infrastructure in a way that balances efficiency, performance, and equity.