DECEMBER 2021
NEWS & UPDATES
Congratulations to Sze-Chuan Suen, Maged Dessouky, and Neeraj Sood for receiving a grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Library of Medicine for their project, Using Road Traffic Data to Identify COVID-19 Priority Testing Locations in Southern California Principal. This project aims to identify areas of potentially high disease prevalence by synthesizing and using traffic patterns, as these may shed light on possible transmission patterns in Los Angeles County.
The METRANS Advisory Board gathered in November, meeting virtually to discuss new organizational initiatives, significant research updates, and ways to strengthen communications efforts.
 

METRANS and the Pacific Southwest University Transportation Center (PSR) hosted Drs. Dan Wei, Matthew Roorda, and Marlon Boarnet for the last research seminars of the Fall 2021 transportation seminar series.


The Los Angeles chapter of the Women's Transportation Seminar (WTS-LA) awarded academic scholarships to four inspiring USC students aspiring to pursue careers in the transportation sector.
 
PSR PARTNER UPDATES
The Institute of Transportation Studies (ITS) - Irvine recently received a Smart & Connected Communities Grant from the National Science Foundation. The research proposal titled ‘Revamping Regional Transportation Modeling and Planning to Address Unprecedented Community Needs during the Mobility Revolution’ will receive $1.5 million in funding over 4 years through its Smart & Connected Communities program.

RESEARCH
Environmental Justice in Southeast Los Angeles:
PSR Researchers Address Pollution and Mobility Issues
The project titled “Improving Environmental Justice and Mobility in Southeast Los Angeles” combines research in transportation and the principles of environmental justice to address two issues in the underserved communities of Southeast Los Angeles: impacts of freight and public transit job accessibility. The research team included METRANS Director Genevieve Giuliano; Marlon Boarnet, Professor and Chair of the Department of Urban Planning and Spatial Analysis at USC; and Miguel Jaller, Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UC Davis.
PSR Researchers Estimate the Environmental Impact
of Autonomous Emergency Braking
While Autonomous Emergency Braking (AEB)’s main goal is to prevent both the loss of life and property damage, the consequential environmental impact due to congestion mitigation has been severely understudied. In a recent PSR report published last June, Estimating the Impacts of Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB) Technology on Traffic Energy and Emissions, researchers Guoyuan Wu, Associate Researcher at the University of California, Riverside; Matthew Barth, Director of Bourns College of Engineering – Center for Environmental Research & Technology (CE-CERT) at the University of California, Riverside; Xishun Liao, Research Assistant at the University of California, Riverside; and Lan Yang, Visiting Scholar from Chang’an University investigated the traffic-level impacts of AEB technology. Identifying a critical gap in existing literature, the research team sought to study AEB and its overall effect on environmental sustainability and traffic congestion.
Recently Completed Research Projects
METRANS researchers from our member institutions have recently completed the following projects in the three topical areas of: integrated management of freight and passenger systems, sustainable and efficient urban freight transportation, and urban mobility. To learn more about specific projects, please click on the title to access the research briefs and reports.

Konstadinos Goulias (UCSB), "A Before-After Intervention Experiment and Survey" | PSR-20-15
Maged Dessouky (USC), "Dynamic Routing for Ridesharing"| PSR-20-06
The METRANS Transportation Consortium was established in 1998 as the first University Transportation Center in Southern California. METRANS is a joint partnership of the University of Southern California (USC) and California State University, Long Beach (CSULB).

METRANS' mission is to solve metropolitan transportation problems of large through interdisciplinary research, education and outreach. Its three primary objectives are: (1) fostering independent, high quality research to solve the nation's transportation problems; (2) training the next generation transportation workforce; and (3) disseminating information, best practices, and technology to the professional community.
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