A METRANS funded research paper authored by USC researchers Dr. Cyrus Shahabi, Dr. Luciano Nocera, and Dr. Genevieve Giuliano studied the feasibility of freight traffic modeling from precise and localized but sparse freight data and built machine learning (ML) models that can predict freight volumes on highway segments. Freight data sources are very limited, often based on infrequent surveys or extrapolations of in-road sensor data. This research aims to close that gap by combining multiple data sources - e.g., weigh in motion stations (WIMS), the UCI Truck Activity Monitoring System (TAMS), and CCTV cameras which are now widely available on highways. The contribution of this research is to use advanced ML models to process data (e.g., from CCTV video feeds) to extract truck observations and hence more accurate truck flow data.

METRANS has launched Transportation Pathways (www.transportationpathways.org), a new website which aims to introduce high school students to the field of transportation and empower them to take control of their educational future. The website consolidates information from ten schools across the Pacific Southwest region that house some of the nation’s most impressive transportation research, workforce, and training programs. “There are over 13 million people in the United States today that are working in transportation. It’s a great opportunity for people who are looking for their next career or their first career. The opportunities are endless.” says METRANS Director, Marlon Boarnet, on the website’s home page video.

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 transportation problems of large metropolitan regions 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.