I am happy to announce that UIC has received a $3.1M NSF IGERT grant: Title: IGERT Graduate Program in Computational Transportation Science Congratulations to Ouri Wolfson for leading this effort, the co-PIs, and the over 20 UIC scientists that participated in developing this proposal (see attachment for a full list of names). The proposal involves five UIC colleges. Our sincere thanks to Deans Banerjee, Chou, Comer, Hambleton, and Lenway for their strong support. The proposal also received outstanding support from Vice-Chancellor Gislason and OVCR, and Dean Hulse and the Graduate College. Thanks also to Computer Science staff members Denise Kelly, Imelda Baker and Ivy Yuan for excellent administrative support in preparing the proposal. We thank everyone involved for both their "pre-award" efforts, and in advance for the "post-award" support they have committed to make this project successful. This IGERT award supports the establishment of a graduate training program in the Information Technology aspects of Transportation Science. The doctoral students in the program will investigate technologies in which sensors, traveler-devices such as PDA’s, in-vehicle computers, and computers in the static infrastructure are integrated into a collaborative environment. The students will also investigate how these technologies are adopted, and the implications of such adoption. The envisioned environment will enable solutions to transportation problems such as dynamic ride-sharing, real-time routing, and navigation. Basic research in information management, communications, software architectures, modeling tools, human factors, traffic prediction, and transportation planning is essential for founding a new discipline that will integrate millions of disparate, highly mobile computers and sensors into a collaborative system. The IGERT students will demonstrate the vision via a prototype test-bed application which will integrate the results of their research. The prototype, the Intelligent Traveler Assistant, is a software system that runs on hand-held computers, and plans optimal trajectories for a traveler. Surface transportation accounted for 9.7% of the nation’s 2003 GDP and 19% of average household expenditures in 2002. Computational transportation scientists will develop the next generation of intelligent transportation systems, aimed at addressing inefficiencies that result in excessive environmental pollution, fuel consumption, risk to public safety, and congestion. For example, total emissions of carbon dioxide in the United States were 5,870 million metric tons in 2003. In the same year, 13 million barrels per day of petroleum products were consumed in the U.S. for transportation purposes, accounting for 66% of all petroleum used. Nationally, in 2003, there were 42,643 traffic accident fatalities that cost society $230.6 billion. Excessive congestion cost the United States over $63 billion in 2002 from fuel and wages alone. The objective of the project is to educate professionals that address these problems. For more details, please see attachment. Peter C. Nelson, Ph.D. 312-996-3259 (office) |
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