Illinois transportation group presents research at 95th annual TRB meeting

The Illinois Center for Transportation (ICT) and the transportation group of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign had a strong presence at the 95th Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board (TRB).

The meeting, held at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C., on January 10-14, attracted more than 13,500 transportation professionals from around the world. With more than 5,000 presentations given in nearly 800 sessions and workshops, the topics presented spanned all aspects of transportation engineering. A great number of sessions addressed the theme for the 95th meeting: Research Convergence for a Multimodal Future, while others focused on one or more hot topics, such as transformation technologies, resilience, and transportation and public health.

 At the meeting, ICT-affiliated researchers gave several presentations based on research projects sponsored by the Illinois Department of Transportation. Please see the full list of presentations based on IDOT-funded research here.

In addition, ICT researchers presented their latest findings on several other topics, the full details of which can be viewed here.

Also at this year’s meeting, Professor Ryan Fries of Southern Illinois University Edwardsville and Geno Kohler, Permit Unit Chief for IDOT, were invited to participate in a poster session recognizing the 16 AASHTO High Value Research projects for 2015 for the research they led on the project “Development of Highway Incident Management Operational and Training Guide Phase II.” Another project conducted by ICT on behalf of IDOT also received special recognition for its significant impact: “Improvement for Determining the Axial Capacity of Drilled Shafts in Illinois Shales,” which was led by University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign professor Timothy Stark and IDOT Foundations and Geotechnical Unit Chief Bill Kramer, was one of only ten structures-related projects featured in AASHTO Research: Cost Saving Techniques for Bridges and Structures and highlighted during a the High Value Research poster session at the 2016 TRB meeting.

On January 12, more than 600 alumni, faculty, staff, and students from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Illinois gathered at a reception hosted by ICT and the transportation group at UIUC. The event, which has become an annual tradition during the meetings of TRB, was an occasion for academics and professionals to mingle, network, and discuss the latest advancements in the transportation engineering field.