I was on a webinar last week styled as a TRB Annual Meeting Preview: Evolving the Next Generation of TSM&O Research.  It had presentations from the AASHTO Subcommittee on TSM&O’s Research Working Group, TRB’s Regional TSM&O Committee (AHB10) and Freeway Operations Committee (AHB20), the National Operations Center of Excellence, the Institute of Transportation Engineers, ITS America, and the Federal Highway Administration.  The purpose of the webinar was to highlight critical activities underway during this important highways transition period and set the stage for aligning and engaging the TSM&O community in advance of, and during, the 2016 TRB Annual Meeting. 

After the 90 minute webinar, I was struck how complex and layered our field is.  And why the efforts of the stakeholder community to collaborate, communicate, and coordinate are so important.  Our success as transportation professionals is predicated on a life cycle of learning.  We live a cycle of knowledge development that we then test and refine and share.  Effective knowledge sharing or transfer is about applying that knowledge and then, once committed to practice, we analyze and evaluate and learn again on the road to new knowledge. The stakes are high—safety, mobility, sustainable transportation—each contributes to our nation’s economic prosperity and to everyone’s personal well-being. All the more reason that we collaborate, communicate, and coordinate, right?  

As a community of practice, the members of the TSM&O community have a lot to offer each other.  TRB epitomizes the ultimate transportation experience when nearly 15,000 people come together from all around the world to network and to learn.  The Center looks forward to being there to celebrate its first anniversary and to play its role to improve our nation’s transportation system as a facilitator, convener, and provider of support services to the TSM&O community.