Kay Fitzpatrick, Ph.D., PE

TTI Senior Research Engineer
Division Head

Education

• Ph.D., Civil Engineering, Pennsylvania State University, 1989
• M.S., Civil Engineering, Texas A&M University, 1984
• B.S., Civil Engineering, Texas A&M University, 1983

Short Biography

Dr. Kay Fitzpatrick is a Senior Research Engineer at the Texas A&M Transportation Institute. She has both bachelor and master degrees from Texas A&M University and a doctor of philosophy degree from Penn State University. She is a registered professional engineer in Texas and Pennsylvania. Prior to joining TTI in 1989, she spent several years working for a consulting firm and for Penn State University as an instructor and a researcher. During her time with the consulting firm she participated on arterial design projects, traffic operations and safety projects, and traffic impact studies.

Her research interest includes the effects of roadway features on traffic operations and safety. She has been the principal investigator for numerous research projects for TxDOT, NCHRP, TCRP, and FHWA. Dr. Fitzpatrick recently finished the TxDOT research project that developed new criteria regarding design speeds over 80 mph and another TxDOT project that evaluated best practices regarding access to managed lanes located within an existing freeway. Dr. Fitzpatrick recently completed the TCRP/NCHRP project on Improving Pedestrian Safety at Unsignalized Roadway Crossings that recommended selected engineering treatments to improve safety for pedestrians. The project also developed modifications to the MUTCD pedestrian traffic signal warrant and encouraged consideration of the HAWK in the MUTCD. She has led several studies for the Texas Department of Transportation that developed guidelines and recommendations for urban intersection designs, speed management techniques, school site design, and traffic control devices for schools. She was responsible for a major FHWA project that developed a design consistency evaluation module for the Interactive Highway Safety Design Model (IHSDM) and a NCHRP project that developed a handbook on accident mitigation techniques for congested rural and exurban two-and-three lane highways. She recently finished the TxDOT project that investigated when to convert a two-lane rural highway to a four lane roadway based on a safety evaluation. She is currently leading the FHWA project that is investigation engineering countermeasures for improving pedestrian and bicycle safety.

Dr. Fitzpatrick is a member of the TRB Operations and Preservation Group and a friend of the Intersection Task Force, and the Operational Effects of Geometrics and the Geometric Design Committees. She is co-chair for the 2003, 2007, and 2012 Urban Street Design Symposiums. She wrote the chapter on intersection design for the ITE Urban Geometric Design Handbook. She has been honored with the TTI/Trinity Researcher Award (1995 and 2004), the TRB Patricia Waller Award, the TRB Fred Burggraf Award, and several best of session paper awards from TRB and ASCE. She has authored or co-authored over 100 papers and 100 research reports or guides.