On Sept. 10-12  the Northwestern University Transportation Center will again offer its Infrastructure Pricing Executive Program – this year focusing on Highway Infrastructure Pricing.

Don’t miss the opportunity to participate in this highly relevant and timely program aimed at transportation professionals who manage private and public fee paying facilities; engineers and project managers who oversee maintenance and new construction; and consultants and advisors to infrastructure providers and those who finance infrastructure projects.

Topics to be covered will include dynamic and congestion pricing, demand forecasting, private/public partnerships, infrastructure investments decision-making based on projected revenues, network demand prediction tools and more.

20% Discount for Government and Academic Registrations; Early Bird rate available until Aug. 17^th.

Please contact Ms. Diana Marek if you have any questions.

For more information and to Register see:  Pricing Highway Infrastructure Executive Program

Fellow redditor yakshamash posted this note earlier explaining the situation: “I was going through a town in NY and decided I needed food, I parked and went into a diner, 15 minutes later I look out the window and notice that there was a meter near my car, I run out and feed it, but I was too late. The dreaded slip of paper was under my winsheild. I grabed it to see what the damage was, and was surprised to find this”

What I appreciate the most here is that the City of Auburn lives by its motto – Focused on being The Best Small City in State of New York State.   Now, why don’t the big cities like Washington, DC follow this business-friendly model of parking enforcement instead of their current money-hungry anti-business parking policies which does nothing but increase the anxiety of the customer..

(Source: Credit Donkey)

Key messages in this infograph:

• When you take public transportation, you are more likely to run other errands on your route, saving you time and money from additional trips with the car.
•     Public transportation creates less congestion, saving money and the environment with shorter, less expensive trips for everyone.
•     When used regularly, public transportation can reduce the need for some to have a second car (or a car at all). Imagine less debt, fewer car payments, less emissions, and less money spend on repairs and gas.
•     Many transit agencies are now replacing old buses with hybrid or hydrogen fuel cell buses. This making public transit even greener, especially when connected to renewable sources such as solar.

Image Courtesy: Credit Donkey

(via autobloggreen)

It is always an awesome sight to see how machines build another machine.  As it happens, I can’t help but think if this venture succeeds, that would mark the first time Detroit really faced a serious challenge from Silicon Valley.. June 22nd, the announced delivery date for first batch of customers (other than the ones who got the Founder series) is just few days away and let’s see what is going to happen.. Hit or miss, you gotta love the boldness of Elon Musk to enter into this venture and fight the carmarking heavyweights of Detroit and other global auto industry powerhouses.

I have had the privilege of listening to Bryan in person at many industry-related events over the years but never heard some of the things he has shared in this awesome interview with Channel Next Cast. He goes into details about his entry into the business and how his company is innovating the transportation data to solve the congestion, in addition to offering excellent advice for wanna-be innovators & entrepreneurs. It is truly refreshing to see a dynamic youngster like him bring the much needed innovation and fresh, outside the box thinking towards solving the age old transportation problems – primarily congestion.

One interesting fact that I liked from Bryan’s interview: He is not a fan of red light cameras (like most of us) and he thinks traffic congestion problems can be solved for the large part in the next 10 years. Hmmm!

For those interested, here is a graphic from today’s Wall Street Journal article that covers INRIX and other start-ups working on transportation-related “big data“.

Image Courtesy: Wall Street Journal

Summary of the interview (made available by ChannelNextCast on YouTube.com):

Bryan Mistele wants to eliminate one of society’s biggest issues — traffic. How’s he going to do it? Find out in this episode of nextcast.

Growing up, Bryan knew he wanted to run his own tech company. After spending time in high school working with electrical engineers, he wrote down a life goal: start and be CEO of a two hundred person tech company. Now with 300 employees, he and his team at INRIX are tackling the ever-present problem of traffic. Bryan tells Jeff how they’re making this worldwide problem completely personal, by optimizing technology and getting people where they want to go. He also shares his secrets of success with Jeff — the perfect combination of persistence and naivete. * When Brian left Microsoft, he thought INRIX would be completely funded within a month. Twelve months and 70 rejections later, his company finally came to life. He credits this with a healthy balance of persistence and naivete. “Venture capitalists all told us we would be crushed…now we are the leader.”
* He also says he owes much of his success to wisdom gained in his early years, working at an electrical engineering firm. Following their advice of finding a partner who shares your career goals led him to the wife who encouraged him to persevere in the face of VC rejection. “If I hadn’t had that person in my life I never would have gotten off the ground,” he says. * It’s always been Bryan’s dream to run his own tech company, from the time he wrote it down as a life goal at age 16. He noted that in a big company, your future is tied to someone bringing you along up with them. Now, as a CEO, “whether it succeeds or fails, it’s up to me…and I like that.”
* Is this a trend? Our second nextcast guest who says he’d eliminate traffic cameras, Bryan explains that they actually cause more accidents than they prevent. What other improvements to the world of traffic does Bryan have to offer? We’re less than a decade away from seeing them all come to life.

(Source: AASHTO)

Recently found this nice 62-page report on vehicle electrification via an AASHTO e-mail and felt compelled to share.  Here are some excerpts from the AASHTO Journal:

Plug-in electric vehicles can lessen U.S. dependence on imported oil, address rising gas prices, enhance air quality, and reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, but their full potential will only be realized through a broad-based group of stakeholders working together, concludes a report released Tuesday by the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions and co-sponsored by AASHTO’s Center for Environmental Excellence.

The report presents several recommendations from a coalition that includes automakers, electrical utilities, environmental groups, and state officials. Coordinated public and private actions at the state and local levels can help ensure that plug-in owners are able to more readily charge their vehicles without overburdening the electric grid, the report states.

Recommendations include encouraging state public utility commissions and other policymakers to set up a consistent regulatory framework across the nation to better synchronize technical standards; streamlining the establishment of changing stations in both home and commercial settings; leveraging electricity rate structures to promote charging at off-peak times; helping local policymakers and other stakeholders in the appraisal of needs in their jurisidictions; strategically targeting public and private investments in related infrastructure; and providing credible information on the costs, benefits, and choices involving plug-ins.

[scribd id=85636602 key=key-2n0xv981yvwrrne389q8 mode=list]

Image Courtesy: AAA via Grist.com

Found this interesting graphic on Grist in an article titled “How high do gas prices have to get to trigger behavior change? “.  So, do Americans really change their driving habits when the gas prices rise? According to the graph, the answer is an emphatic yes.  The article quotes AAA saying, ” A AAA survey conducted at the beginning of the month found 84 percent of respondents saying they have changed their driving habits or lifestyle in some way in response to recent gas-price increases, and 87 percent would change driving habits further if prices remain this high for long. The most common change adopted so far is combining trips and errands, which 60 percent of respondents say they’ve done. And 16 percent say they’ve purchased or leased a more fuel-efficient vehicle.” Read the entire article here.

Note:  If the gas prices continue to rise with the drum beats of war getting louder and louder by the day, we can expect to see many drivers ditching their cars and opt to taking transit to work and to other places.  I hope the transit agencies do everything in their power to demonstrate the conveniences of riding a bus/train and entice these flocking masses to continue using transit as a primary option for getting around.  Oh, the big question I have in mind – Are the American transit agencies equipped to handle this sudden spike in ridership? Many transit agencies are hobbled by poor funding patterns over the years and it will be hard to meet this new segment of ridership arrives to what is an already exploding demand.  Let’s see what happens.  (Oh, no matter what the scenario is, one can expect to see a decline in VMT numbers again).

(Source: TSAoutofourPants.wordpress.com via Reddit)

Blogger Jonathan Corbett is upping the ante in his protracted fight against the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) much criticized Transportation Security Administration (TSA). In the video below, he demonstrates the flaws in the nude body scanners widely deployed at US airports.  Amazing to see how simple yet effective his strategy is  as he clears the security check points at multiple airports with hidden materials completely undetected.  TSA is going to have some serious explaining to do soon as this video is starting to go viral. It is already generating a brick ton of comments on Reddit.

[yframe url=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olEoc_1ZkfA’]

Click here to read more.

(Source: Autoblog)

The graphic says it all.  To get more details on the data, recommend clicking image.

Image Courtesy: Autoblog.com

(Source: Transportation Issues Daily, Komonews.com, Seattle Times)

The toll company operating the tolled bridge on Highway 520 in Seattle, WA has published the below infograph, which makes a compelling case to the customers in the region against using the congested bridge on I-90, just a few miles away. Both bridges across Lake Washington connect downtown Seattle with a very large population and employment region. The overall cost savings and reduction in travel times offer a great incentive to the drivers who favor the toll road.

Image Courtesy: TransportationIssuesDaily.com

In addition to the above , the commuters also have another handy decision-making tool – a smartphone app titled “520 or 90” whose tag line sells it easily: “Find out which bridge is faster or cheaper in less than 10 seconds.”

Image Courtesy: 520or90.com

The app creators expect drivers to save 8hrs of travel time per month if they took 520, which may only cost $90/month in tolls, the rough equivalent of a monthly phone bill.  Those who opt to take I-90 may save the $90/month but the trade-off is eight extra hours stuck in traffic.

Local news portal Komonews.com indicates the faster travel times on the toll road 520 were due to a reduction in traffic volume as more driver quit the 520 to save the $$.  It also quoted the researchers at INRIX, a well known traffic data company, saying that before the toll was implemented, I-90 drivers were going twice as fast as their 520 counterparts.

According to Seattle Times, the traffic volume on 520 has dropped of nearly 40% after the implementation of the tolls. It observed that much of the traffic, as expected, shifted to I-90, where volumes were up 20 to 25 percent for the morning but only 3 to 7 percent in the evening.  In addition, the local transit operator (King County Metro) expects ridership on its cross-lake routes to pick up by 15 percent as a result of the tolls, spokeswoman Linda Thielke said. Riders on several routes confirmed buses were more crowded Monday.