U.S. DOT Volpe National Transportation Systems Center’s Post

Happy 4th of July! We will pause tomorrow in celebration of freedom—and in honor the heroes who fought for the American promises we hold near: opportunity, equity, and hope. Have a safe and fun holiday!

We’re testing emerging data sources to analyze visitor transportation patterns in public lands, including projects in D.C. for National Park Service along Rock Creek and Potomac Parkways, Acadia National Parks, and White Mountain National Forest. These efforts can help improve transportation planning efforts by providing access to historical and near-real-time data, understanding trip routes and travel patterns, and eliminating the need to maintain physical equipment. However, these data sources also come with challenges including evolving raw data sources and questions around privacy and coverage in remote locations which often include public lands. Our team is continuing to explore the advantages and evaluate these benefits and risks in future projects as much as possible. Learn about our Public Lands team’s work: tinyurl.com/48224sm6

One of our engineers recently participated at the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO) Designing Cities 2024 Conference in support of the Joint Office of Energy and Transportation. The conference provides city staff with resources, information, and relationships to build safe, sustainable, equitable, accessible streets. These goals align the Joint Office’s Communities Take Charge Initiative to create a national platform to elevate the importance of urban and community charging, design policies and programs spurring public and private investments in local level charging, and shape best practices around multimodal and equitable charging solutions.   Learn about our Energy Analysis and Sustainability team’s work here: tinyurl.com/2dfeycka 

We’re looking for engineers to help manage complex transportation projects—from civil to mechanical, from electrical to environmental. Seeking a diverse group of well-qualified candidates. Apply now: tinyurl.com/2s4j2ntv  

To help Indiana Dunes National Park (INDU) improve traveler information communications, we’re piloting a Smart Parking Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) to better manage access to its 15,000 National Park Service acres. The goal of the pilot is to improve transportation convenience, efficiency, and safety for visitors who plan to use NPS parking lots to access beaches, trailheads, educational centers, and other park resources. The Smart Parking ITS communicates real-time parking space availability data at select parking areas with a centralized database. The information is available to park management and staff as well as the public via a website and through a display screen located at the INDU Visitor Center. The goal for this season is to improve upon the system technology that was in place the past two seasons to create a more permanent, stable system that visitors can rely on for consistent traveler information communications.   Learn more about our Public Lands team’s work here: tinyurl.com/48224sm6

On July 1, 1970, U.S. DOT established the Transportation Systems Center (TSC) to support the nation’s strategic transportation goals and the priorities of the Secretary of Transportation. The Center originally served as NASA’s Electronics Research Center, but the nation needed us to refocus on the complex transportation challenges at hand. In 1990, the Center was renamed for John A. Volpe, former U.S. Transportation Secretary and Massachusetts Governor. View our Five Decades Retrospective video, our Celebration of Our Staff video, a timeline of key U.S. DOT Volpe Center dates and milestones by the decade, and the other materials available on our 50th anniversary webpage: tinyurl.com/3nvbcnuf Happy 54th birthday to the U.S. DOT Volpe Center! 

Inclement weather, natural disasters, vehicle crashes, and road work can all lead to unpassable and unsafe roads. Closing these roads to users and communicating these closures to visitors on third-party navigation applications is essential to improving the NPS visitor experience and safety. Working with National Park Service (NPS), we created a pilot Work Zone Data Exchange (WZDX) feed to support Mojave National Preserve during recovery from monsoon roadway damage in 2022. Building on this pilot, we supported the NPS in developing and sharing information about an application that automatically generates a road closure or incident alert to NPS.gov and updates a Transportation Data Exchange (TDx) feed of all road closures and incidents in the NPS Application Programming Interface (API), which can be consumed by anyone, including third-party navigation applications. Learn more about our Public Lands team’s work here: tinyurl.com/48224sm6

To help National Park visitors more easily take transit during their visit, we recently supported National Park Service in creating static General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) feeds, a widely accepted transit data standard, for more than ten park transit systems. GTFS feeds communicate transit information to third-party navigation applications, like Google Maps. Over the next year, we will be supporting NPS in expanding the GTFS pilot to create static GTFS feeds for additional park transit systems, as well as piloting real-time GTFS at several parks. Learn more about our Public Lands team’s work here: tinyurl.com/48224sm6

Operations research analysts from our Systems Safety and Engineering Division recently visited highway-rail grade crossings in the greater Chicago area with FRA, Metra the Chicago Metropolitan Rail, and the Illinois Commerce Commission, scoping potential locations for enhanced Emergency Notification System signage. This work supports an FRA research study we’re supporting that demonstrates and evaluates technologies and strategies to increase pedestrian and vehicle safety at crossings. For more on our highway-rail grade crossing safety and trespass prevention research: tinyurl.com/4b5ykpyt

Now Hiring Engineers: We’re looking for engineers to help manage complex transportation projects—from civil to mechanical, from electrical to environmental. Seeking a diverse group of well-qualified candidates. Apply now: tinyurl.com/2s4j2ntv