University of Washington

This past October, Torgeir Vaa, spent a week at the University of Washington discussing potential projects and collaborations with PacTrans director, Yinhai Wang. Mr. Vaa is the senior principal engineer in the Intelligent Transportation Systems Department of the Norwegian Public Roads Administration (NPRA). Mr. Vaa's primary interest is in traffic sensing and big data analytics tools that have been under development in the UW STAR Lab for many years. He was particularly interested in using Dr. Wang's Mobile Unit for Sensing Traffic version 1 (MUST-1) sensor and the DRIVE Net data platform for monitoring their busy freight corridors. Specifically, much discussion revolved around opportunities with the E8 corridor. NORWEGIAN PUBLIC ROADS ADMINISTRATION SENIOR PRINCIPAL ENGINEER TORGEIR VAA TALKS PARTNERSHIP WITH PACTRANS AND THE STAR LAB This particular corridor is an interesting case. It connects fishing towns in Norway to Helsinki, Finland. This is particularly important because Finland is the only country with permission to fly over Russia. Thus, to get fresh salmon to Tokyo and China, the goods need to be moved quickly to Finland so they can be transported by air to their final country destination. The E8 corridor is a narrow highway that regularly has treacherous conditions: snow and ice, steep slopes, etc. The mobile sensors would provide an inexpensive way to keep tabs on vehicle location and traffic information. Further, the DRIVE Net platform could integrate spatial and temporal data to better visualize actual operations on that economically important corridor. Mr. Vaa and Dr. Wang also spoke about other potential mobile sensor functionalities that the STAR Lab could be working on to further improve their utility in this particular application. PACTRANS ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR PARTICIPATES IN BIG CITY CHALLENGES EXPERT PANEL Several months ago, OSU Associate Professor and PacTrans Associate Director, Dr. David Hurwitz, was invited to sit on an expert panel hosted by the Portland Business Journal. The title of the panel was A bright path to progress: A panel of experts on the Rose City's biggest challenges, "By almost any measure, Portland has been one of the most dynamic cities in the country in the 21st century. Growth and change is constant, and seems to be happening at an ever-faster pace, raising the question of what the future holds for Portland. Dr. Hurwitz was joined by a handful of experts from the development and finance world. He was not only the only academic but also the only expert there to represent the transportation system and community. He spoke about the parallels between the paradigm shift of the early 20th century (horse-and-buggy to personal automobile) and the paradigm shift that we are likely to see in our lifetime (ridesharing platforms, autonomous vehicles, and the internet-of-things). He also spoke at length about the importance of policy and infrastructure investments and how those will play a huge role in our changing urban environments. 33 2014-2015 Annual Report

• Cover