Finding ways to improve transportation methods is a constant question on the minds of many New Yorkers. Shifts in transportation as a result of COVID-19, implementation of Congestion Pricing Tolls, and recent increases in bus and train fares have altered the way New Yorkers get around the city. It leaves many pondering how New York’s oldest and largest subway system coupled with its busy streets could see a shift towards a more environmentally friendly, efficient, and affordable future.
For researchers at the CUNY Institute for Transportation Systems (CUNY-ITS), it’s a matter of advancing education within transportation engineering.
“The institute was created 40 years ago to develop a curriculum to educate people in transportation engineering,” says Dr. Camille Kamga, Director of CUNY-ITS and Professor of Civil Engineering. “It’s part of the civil engineering department and it’s also CUNY wide so it is very multidisciplinary.”
Through collaborations with other CUNY campuses, CUNY-ITS mimics that of a tree, with roots extending to various groups of students and faculty all working towards a shared goal: creating a strong, skilled workforce of future transportation professionals to build a safer and more resilient transportation system.
The institute’s research is conducted under the umbrella of the University Transportation Research Center (UTRC), a consortium comprised of major higher education institutions in New York, New Jersey, and Puerto Rico. UTRC organizes its efforts around several specialized centers. The Center for Social and Economic Mobility for People And Communities through Transportation (SEMPACT), for instance, used technology, data, and planning to support accessible and resilient transportation systems in the region, though its federal funding was recently terminated by the USDOT. The Center for Travel Behavior and Demand (TBD), which is a National University Transportation Center led by the University of Texas at Austin, studies how people move and how travel demand changes over time and the Universal Transportation Model Simulation Center (UTMSC), which focuses on pioneering advancements in transportation modeling for complex networks.
Training programs and partnerships with members in academia, transportation and government agencies allows students to see how they can find solutions to issues commonly found in the city and beyond.
Waymo presents their self-driving Jaguar I-PACE at Bronx Community College
On October 16th, students from Bronx Community College’s Automotive Technology Program showcased their collaboration with leading autonomous driving company Waymo. The program’s autonomous vehicle (AV) training curriculum was developed in partnership with Waymo and the UTRC, which Kamga also directs.
With the unveiling of Waymo’s self-driving Jaguar I-PACE on BCC’s campus, students, faculty and industry partners were given a glimpse into the future of transportation technology and potential workforce avenues for members of the AV training program to look into.
Unlike other institutes, CUNY-ITS is not solely research based. The educational and workforce components are key factors to what makes the institute so distinct.
“We tailor our educational offerings to attract students into the transportation program,” says Kamga. “The institute supplies much of the student workforce for the regional transportation industry.”
The institute offers a wide range of classes for undergraduate and graduate students interested in the interdisciplinary structure of the program. Undergraduate students are offered classes in civil engineering such as Transportation Systems and Urban Transportation which touches on environment and societal factors that impact transportation design. Graduate students are offered a robust curriculum covering areas such as highway engineering, transit systems, traffic control, intelligent transportation systems (ITS), freight logistics, airport design, transportation safety, and sustainable technologies.
Beyond automotive transportation, the institute has also focused on transportation habits that were reshaped by the pandemic.
“After COVID, the way that people behave on a daily basis has changed a lot. With people working from home we also had, during COVID, a lot of people developing different patterns of shopping online,” says Dr. Alison Conway, Professor of Civil Engineering. Like Kamga, Conway wears many hats within the institute serving as Deputy Director for SEMPACT and Associate Director of TBD.
Conway explains, prior to the pandemic, folks have commonly viewed passenger travel and delivery of goods separately. However, as work from home standards were set during the pandemic and have remained, there has been an increase in online shopping trends.
“We’re trying to understand the impacts – particularly how working from home might change the way that people shop and the way that they are getting deliveries,” says Conway. Finalizing this project through TBD, Conway hopes to uncover “the total impact on the transportation system from the shifts that are occurring.”
In a related project, students from CCNY’s Civil Engineering program and students from Hunter College’s Urban Planning program are collaborating to better design streets with goods in mind. With the addition of bike and bus lanes, this project aims to create sustainable urban freight systems without impacting other entities on city streets.
“We’re part of a team working with the University of Washington and a few other partners on a national project, developing guidance on how we can better design the streets so that the goods can get in, but in a way that isn’t going to have negative impacts on everyone else on the street,” explains Conway.
Leandra is an early career journalist with an M.A. in Arts & Culture Reporting and Documentary Filmmaking from The Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism. With experience reporting for community news outlets such as The Riverdale Press and The Mott Haven Herald, Leandra currently writers for CUNY academic publications The RICC and Research in Focus.