Leading T. H. E. way

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering held the 106th Illinois Transportation and Highway Engineering conference in late February.

More than 1,200 engineers, transportation officials, technicians, faculty and students were in attendance.

The two-day, jam-packed program offered presentations on transportation safety, connected and autonomous vehicle technologies, policy, and issues critical to the safe and economical movement of people and goods in Illinois and across the world.

Imad Al-Qadi, Illinois Center for Transportation director and UIUC Bliss Professor of Engineering, chatted about the Illinois Autonomous and Connected Track, which is a high-speed connected and autonomous vehicle track anticipated to be built at ICT in Rantoul, Illinois. He also spoke about truck platooning in relation to autonomous transportation.

Following Al-Qadi’s presentation, he had the honor of awarding the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials Sweet 16 award, which recognizes high-value research projects.

The AASTHO Research Advisory Committee selected Illinois Department of Transportation’s Douglas Dirks and UIUC’s Jeffrey Roesler and John Popovics for their hard work on research project “R27-146: Ultrasonic Imaging for Concrete Infrastructure Condition Assessment and Quality Assurance.”

The 107th T.H.E. conference is set for Feb. 23-24, 2021, with pre-conference activities starting on the 22nd.

It will be held at a new venue, the I Hotel and Conference Center. This reconstructed location will allow ample amount of space for additional attendees. For more information, please contact Megan Everette.