MIT Portugal Program faculty will contribute to—and, in one case, lead the development of—a major new initiative announced on March 4, 2009 by MIT designed to tackle large-scale, global transportation challenges. Called Transportation@MIT, the initiative, according to its website, is “a coordinated effort to address one of civilization’s most pressing challenges: the environmental impact of the world’s ever-increasing demand for transportation.” It will begin as a two-year pilot program, and plans exist for the formation of two labs, one in Cambridge and one located outside the United States.  Cynthia Barnhart Cynthia Barnhart MIT Dean of Engineering Professor Subra Suresh—a member of MIT Portugal’s Governing Committee—said the venture would “encourage the rapid development of new ideas in sustainability, technology, businesspractices, and public policy related to all modes of transportation.” In the MIT news story announcing the project, Joseph Sussman, JR East Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Engineering Systems and acting Transportation Systems lead at MIT, said that the interdisciplinary, interdepartmental approach being taken by the organizers of the initiative will be an improvement from the “highly modal way” that transporation planning is currently done. Professor Christopher Zegras, MIT Transportation Systems focus area lead (on research leave in Spring 2009), said the enterprise “will have a major impact” if it does succeed in bringing together the different disciplines involved in transportation, from mechanical and electrical engineering to business management, urban planning and operations research. Numerous MIT Portugal faculty are expected to participate. Among them, in addition to Professors Sussman and Zegras: Dan Roos, Director of the MIT Portugal Program at MIT and Japan Steel Industry Professor of Engineering Systems and Civil and Environmental Engineering; David Marks, co-lead for the Transporation Systems focus area, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Engineering Systems, and MIT coordinator of the Alliance for Global Sustainability; Moshe Ben-Akiva, Director of MIT’s Intelligent Transportation Systems Program and a researcher in MIT Portugal’s CityMotion, SCUSSE (Smart Combination of passenger transport modes and services in Urban areas for maximum System Sustainability and Efficiency) and SOTUR (Strategic Options for Integrating Transportation Innovations and Urban Revitalization) projects; and Professor William Mitchell, who is involved the SCUSSE program, among other transportation-related projects at MIT. By extension, MIT Portugal faculty and students who collaborate with the Cambridge-based faculty involved in Transportation@MIT also will have opportunities to contribute to this effort. (Read the MIT news story announcing the initiative.) |
