From the Managing Director

On behalf of the NOCoE, I encourage those who are interested in becoming its next Managing Director to respond to the recently issued RFP that you can find on our NOCoE website. I have been asked what the process for naming a new Managing Director is and I direct everyone to the RFP and the schedule it identifies.

It is my privilege to serve in an interim capacity until a new Director is named and although I will step down effective the hiring date of the new Director, I look forward to providing transitional assistance in the short term and enthusiastic support for the long term as the Center continues its commitment to the TSM&O community.

Looking ahead, we will begin promoting our next series of webinars soon.  If the topics you will soon see listed stimulate your thinking about other areas we might cover, please let us know. We will also be releasing our first annual report in the next few weeks. It speaks to a strong first year that we achieved thanks to you. It was good to see so many of members of the TSM&O community at TRB and our hats go off to Neil Pedersen and his team for their tremendous success.

The Evolving Nature of TSM&O
By Abbas Mohaddes
CEO, Mohaddes Group and NOCoE Board Member

Strong forces and influences from the computer and communication industries have augmented our ability to manage and operate our traffic management systems. Improvement in processing speed has afforded us with real-time information.

Advanced technologies in communication has taken us from twisted pair copper to fiber optic cable and from Ethernet and IP to the cloud! We used to react to incidents, now we are proactive through use of advanced motorist information systems and incident management. To read more, please click here.
 

Salt Lake City, Utah Workshop 2016
By Steven Lavrenz, PhD, EIT

First of all, for those who attended the Automated Traffic Signal Performance Measures (ATSPMs) workshop, or for those simply interested in continuing the conversation on traffic signal performance measures, I encourage you to participate in NOCoE’s discussion forums. There are several threads that have been started on ATSPMs already, and we would love to see them grow. Please visit the NOCoE website at transportationops.org and choose “Discussion” from the homepage to register and continue the dialogue!

On January 26th & 27th, I had the opportunity to attend the ATSPMs workshop in Salt Lake City, Utah. This was a peer exchange sponsored by the Federal Highway Pooled Fund Study for Traffic Signal Systems Operations and Maintenance (of which Purdue University, UDOT, and INDOT are leading partners), along with AASHTO and the NOCoE. Please click here to read more.

Upcoming NOCoE Webinar:
TSM&O Research Coordination & Highlights of the 2016 TRB Annual Meeting

February 26, 2016, 11:00 a.m.-12:30 p.m. (EST): This webinar will feature highlights of key outcomes resulting from the many 2016 TRB Annual Meeting TSM&O sessions, workshops, committee meetings, and events. The webinar will feature current research ideas under consideration for NCHRP synthesis statements and problem statements as well as lay out a process and schedule for coordination and collaboration going forward. Please click here for more information and here to register.

New Resource: SHRP2 Moving Us Forward

The U.S. Federal Highway Administration has released a report that highlights three years of the Second Strategic Highway Research Program’s implementation activities and progress. Please click here to view.

Register with NOCoE and Join the Discussion Forum!

We hope you find the NOCoE (http://www.transportationops.org/) a place where you can share information as well as receive it – we encourage you to register and share in our discussion forum your latest work plan, specific challenge you are facing with an operations practice or new technology, or techniques you’ve used to empower your staff. This is your transportation operations resource and we are interested in your feedback to continually improve our porfolio of services. Please feel free to contact the Center with your suggestions, either through the website or at TKERN@transportationops.org.