Robert Brydia, PMP

TTI Senior Research Scientist
Division Head

Education

• M.S., Civil Engineering, Pennsylvania State University, 1991
• B.S., Civil Engineering, Clarkson University, 1987

Short Biography

Mr. Brydia is currently Division Head of System Reliability with more than 35-years’ experience in transportation operations, technology, and project leadership. Mr. Brydia joined the Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI) in 1996 and has consistently demonstrated leadership across multiple roles, charting a path of success for both people and projects across all levels of federal, state, and local sponsors.  Mr. Brydia has worked with numerous offices within FHWA/USDOT and multiple state DOTs including Georgia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Texas as well as the private sector.

Mr. Brydia is a developer and implementer of leading-edge systems, deployments, methodologies, applications, and products within the operations realm. Some of Mr. Brydia’s significant accomplishment have been the design and use of end-of queue (EOQ) warning systems for freeway construction, hybrid travel time/EOQ systems, comparative travel time methodologies for construction zones, advanced in real-time traveler information and dynamic traffic maps, variable speed limits, and numerous aspects of connected and autonomous vehicles and their impact on, and relationship to traditional infrastructure. His deployments in support of construction traveler information have experienced more than a billion trips and resulted in significantly increased awareness and a reduction in work zone fatalities. His current focus is on transportation innovation where he leads efforts fostering innovation at Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) across all 25 Districts and lifting individual District successes to the Enterprise level.

In addition to numerous products and real-world deployments, Mr. Brydia has more than 200 publications, including national and state level research projects, libraries of detailed fact sheets, congressional reports, as well as being a primary author on the National Traffic Operations Manual, and a primary technical contributor to the National Highway Automation Concept of Operations. Overall, Mr. Brydia has been the principal investigator on more than $50M of research projects with an additional $50M as technical lead.

From 2016 through 2022, Mr. Brydia was an Adjunct Professor of Practice in Industrial and Systems Engineering, guiding more than 100 student teams through original and topical capstone projects drawn from his transportation experience. Mr. Brydia is often sought for insight into transportation operations from the media and has appeared as an expert in numerous print sources as well as before legislative staffers.

Mr. Brydia has won several awards and his project results have won national awards and acclaim on multiple occasions. Mr. Brydia is active in the profession as a member and friend of TRB committees, multi-year board member and past President of The Texas chapter of ITS America, the current President of the Brazos Valley section of ITE, and a graduate of LeadershipITE. He received his Master of Science degree in Civil Engineering from The Pennsylvania State University in 1991 and is a PMI Project Management Professional.