  | Established in 1999 with $2 million in annual federal funds, URI’s Transportation Center focuses on more than cars and pavement. | |||||||||
New Avenues in TransportationBy Todd McLeish When chemistry professor Brett Lucht went looking for funding for his research into paints and plastics that change color at various temperatures, he turned to an unexpected resource—the URI Transportation Center. Established in 1999 with $2 million in annual federal funds, the Transportation Center, which is located on Briar Lane just outside the URI gate, focuses on much more than just cars and pavement. When Lucht discovered that his research had safety applications in the transportation industry—his paints could be used on road signs to indicate when pavement could be icy—the Center opened its purse strings to support the project. That’s exactly the kind of reputation the Center’s director, Richard Horn, is trying to build. “We don’t want to be viewed as focusing exclusively on traditional transportation matters,” he said. While ports, transportation planning, and alternative transportation modes are a big part of the Center’s work, Horn is increasingly looking to support atypical projects that may have implications for transportation. In 2000, for instance, the Center funded research into a study of driver distractions that turned into one of the nation’s first scientific analyses of cell phone use in automobiles. It also resulted in worldwide media attention for URI last summer, and it made Industrial Engineering Professor Manbir Sodhi a national spokesman on the issue. Geosciences Professor Tom Boving also generated national news with his Transportation Center-funded project. He’s developing a system of decontaminating roadway run-off, which collects in storm water detention ponds, before it reaches local waterways. “Most of the contaminants in roadway run-off are attracted to suspended organic material and sediments, which then settle to the bottom of the ponds,” he said. “But a certain fraction of contaminants remain in solution and can flow out into the bay untreated.” To capture these contaminants before they pose a hazard, Boving is evaluating the effectiveness of shredded wood as a filter. Early tests showed that it was successful at removing 97% of the common storm water contaminant pyrene. The URI Transportation Center is one of 33 such centers funded by the U.S. Department of Transportation to conduct multidisciplinary research, education, technology transfer, and outreach for surface transportation systems. Thanks in large part to the efforts of the late Sen. John Chafee, URI’s Center is one of six “super centers” that receive the maximum federal funding possible. “These centers are primarily a capacity building program to get faculty and students involved in transportation issues,” explained Horn. “We need to develop a larger cadre of professionals who can be called on to address critical transportation questions. We need to gather more people—professionals at an academic level and students at all levels—into the transportation field.” While each center has a different theme, Horn said that the URI Center is unique because of its close ties to the Rhode Island Department of Transportation. “We have direct participation from the most senior people at RIDOT,” he said. Among the most active is Phil Kydd ’81, assistant director of DOT, chairman of the URI Transportation Center’s operating council, and former president of the URI Alumni Association, who likens the center’s 18-member executive board to a transportation think tank. “DOT is fully invested in the Center, not only financially but also in terms of time and resources,” said Kydd. That commitment comes in part from the knowledge that approximately 80 percent of DOT’s engineers are—and will probably continue to be—URI graduates. “RIDOT is not merely a partner with the Center but also a customer that has a vested interest in the products being produced at the University, both in its students and its research,” added Kydd. “We’re committed to building an expanded curriculum that will broaden the expertise of future engineers.” Kydd and Horn are working on building a team of cross-disciplinary transportation professionals at URI. For instance, DOT is funding a newly-hired executive-in-residence in the College of Business Administration to teach transportation policy and two full-time faculty members in the College of Engineering. It is currently seeking a senior faculty member in the College of Business Administration with expertise in transportation management. In addition, the Center is reaching out to faculty in the colleges of Arts and Sciences, Human Science and Services, and Environment and Life Sciences to encourage them to lend their talents to transportation-related issues. The Center is also funding 50 graduate and undergraduate students each year to allow them to work on transportation research projects. “Transportation education has to start well before the college years, though,” Kydd said. “We need to stimulate a career interest in transportation at an early age and create a career path to get future engineers to go to URI.” To achieve this goal, the Transportation Center is working with primary and secondary schools and youth groups throughout the state to help kids understand the role transportation plays in everyday life. Led by Education Professor Bill Croasdale, the Center’s outreach efforts include transportation camps every summer for inner city children and children from the Narragansett Indian tribe. The students travel on trains, buses, ferries, and canoes, and they tour a submarine and various military vehicles, among other things. The most exciting day of camp, according to Croasdale, is when the students visit a Hasbro manufacturing and distribution facility “to learn the logistics of how toys move around inside the factory and find their way to the local toy store. For most of them it’s the first time they see that transportation has a role in almost everything they do.” The Center’s education efforts extend to transportation professionals, too. In the first partnership of its kind, the National Highway Institute and the Transportation Center are offering two- and three-day short courses at the Center for engineers and other transportation practitioners throughout the Northeast. Courses offered include such diverse topics as noise abatement, pile driving, highway financing, environmental policy, and traffic control devices. “The Transportation Center provides a real value to the state and the region, to students, faculty and professionals,” concluded Horn. “We’re developing information to support the debate on regional transportation issues, and it gives the University an opportunity to participate in the far broader arena.” |
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