The Texas Transportation Institute (TTI) was well represented at the 90th Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board (TRB) in Washington, D.C., as dozens of employees presented papers and others were given awards for their work. The meeting was held Jan. 22–26.
A team of TTI researchers — Kay Fitzpatrick, Susan T. Chrysler, Vichika Iragavarapu and Eun Sug Park — received a “best paper” award for their work on crosswalk markings that is influencing national policy decisions on pedestrian crosswalk markings. The foursome received the D. Grant Mickle Award for their paper “Detection Distances to Crosswalk Markings: Transverse, Continental, and Bar Pairs,” which was published in Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 2250.
“This project was a wonderful example of how colleagues with different talents can team together and generate an extremely successful product,” Fitzpatrick noted. “We were all willing to improve our portion of the project so that the final product was high quality along with, of course, being usable by the profession.”
Also honored at the TRB Annual Meeting was retired TTI Senior Research Scientist George Dresser, who received the Aviation Group 2012 Francis X. McKelvey Award, named for a long-time researcher in the field of aviation. The award is presented to an individual in recognition of his or her demonstrated commitment to the betterment of the aviation industry.
Dresser retired from TTI in 2004, following a 35-year career, 25 of which he served as manager of the Transportation Planning Program. Early in his career, Dresser worked with the Texas Aeronautics Commission and the Texas Department of Transportation’s Aviation Division, where he developed the methodology for state airport system planning still used today. His work dates back to the early 1970s, when he was instrumental in developing the state’s first Texas Aeronautical Facilities Plan.
Dresser helped pioneer the regional planning meeting process, where airport planners visit airports in the system and hold public meetings in the airport communities to discuss the needs of local airports, their role in the community, and how stakeholders can help each other in building and developing the local, regional and state economies.
Graduate Research Assistant Lisa Larsen was named University Transportation Center for Mobility (UTCM) Student of the Year. In part, she was selected based on her performance as a student and her work on a UTCM research project, which considers the equity impacts of a vehicle-miles-traveled fee. Larsen received the award at TRB’s Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C., at the Council of University Transportation Center’s banquet.
Graduate Research Assistant Ben Sperry was named the Outstanding Doctoral Student of the Year of the Southwest Region University Transportation Center. He received the Dr. William J. Harris Award at TRB’s Annual Meeting. Sperry, a graduate of Texas A&M University, conducts research focused on understanding how existing passenger rail lines contribute to mobility and economic development in intercity corridors.
