Cesar Quiroga, Ph.D., PE

TTI Senior Research Engineer
Program Manager

Education

• Ph.D., Civil and Environmental Engineering, Louisiana State University, 1997
• M.S.C.E., Civil Engineering, Louisiana State University, 1986

Short Biography

Dr. Cesar Quiroga is a Senior Research Engineer and Manager of the Utility Engineering Program at the Texas A&M Transportation Institute.  He is an international expert on utility engineering.  He is also a leading expert on the interactions between unconventional energy developments and transportation systems.  His professional and research activities extend to 3D, BIM, GIS, and other spatial data technology applications; data modeling; optimization of the project delivery process; right-of-way acquisition and property management; and transportation operations and safety.  His professional experience also includes several years of surface hydrology and hydraulic engineering work as well as construction supervision.

Dr. Quiroga is active on several committees and organizations.  At the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), he is a member of the committee updating the Standard Guideline for the Collection and Depiction of Existing Subsurface Utility Data and the committee developing the Standard for Recording and Exchanging Utility Infrastructure Data.  He is also a founding member of the Utility Engineering and Surveying Institute (UESI) at ASCE.  At UESI, he is active in various leadership capacities at the national, state, and regional levels.  At the Transportation Research Board (TRB), he was the Chair of the Utilities Committee and a member of the Design Section and the CIM Subcommittee until 2020.

He has conducted numerous studies that have attracted national and international attention.  He is currently leading two major research projects for the National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP), 11-08 and 15-69, which deal with acquisition of right of way, utility relocation reimbursements, and utility conflicts during construction.  Worth noting is Second Strategic Highway Research Program (SHRP2) Project R15B, which produced a holistic utility conflict management (UCM) approach for managing utility conflicts during project delivery.  Dr. Quiroga led the research effort and played a leading role on the implementation of this UCM approach throughout the country providing support as a subject matter expert (SME).  In some cases, the involvement has been more in-depth.  For example, for the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT), Dr. Quiroga has led an initiative that involves providing technical support and training for the UCM implementation at all 25 districts.  This implementation has produced millions of dollars in monetary savings, saved several years in project delivery time, and led to a more effective relationship between TxDOT and utility industry stakeholders.

Dr. Quiroga has also conducted groundbreaking research analyzing the impacts of energy developments that rely on horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing techniques on the state transportation system, as well as developing recommendations to address those impacts.  Examples of impacts include additional truck traffic volumes, accelerated pavement and roadside degradation, and increases in traffic crash, injury, and fatality rates.  This effort also includes developing leading edge, GIS-based forecasting tools.