Previous Mobility Colloquia

A survey technique long used by new product marketers to determine, for example, what type of shampoo consumers might buy, Stated Choice Modeling (SCM) “has a direct application” in transportation projects. W. Douglass Shaw, the presenter of the latest University Transportation Center for Mobility (UTCM) lunchtime colloquium April 14, had many examples of how SCM might be used by transportation researchers.

Shaw is a professor with both the Texas A&M University Department of Agricultural Economics and Recreation, Parks and Tourism Sciences (RPTS).

“Stated Choice Modeling has some advantages in transportation, especially because it gives respondents the chance to choose from several alternatives that don’t yet actually exist,” Shaw told the crowd. For example, SCM can help determine what factors might be important in establishing new transportation routes or making improvements in existing ones.

Shaw’s presentation was entitled “Smile! You’re on Traffic Light Camera: Applying Stated Choice Modeling to Transportation.” The title was derived from a project by Agriculture Economics and RPTS graduate students who are using SCM to assess College Station’s existing and future red light camera programs.

In the project, the students are determining how the red light cameras affect driver behavior, as well as road, traffic, and pedestrian safety, at key intersections in Bryan and College Station. Their preliminary results indicate that the assessed fines are an important attribute of the future program. The speed limit at those intersections also matters.

TTI researchers Tim Lomax and Mark Burris are using SCM on current transportation projects, including an examination of the potential for congestion lanes on Texas freeways. Shaw will be helping Burris and a graduate student on a UTCM-funded project this coming summer.

In honor of Black History Month, the UTCM and the TTI Diversity Council co-sponsored the Mobility Colloquium on the diversification of Texas A&M University. Dr. Karan Watson, Dean of Faculties and Associate Provost and Regents Professor of Electrical Engineering, was the guest speaker for the noontime event held at the Gilchrist Building.

Watson noted the slow progress of Texas A&M’s efforts in diversifying its students and faculty by citing low percentages of minorities at TAMU compared to the percent of college-ready high school graduates in Texas.

“For the state we live in, if TAMU does not change its behavior, by 2030 we will be a minority-serving university instead of having a well-represented segment of the population,” said Watson, referring to the projected year in which whites will become the minority in Texas.

Watson also encouraged everyone to look within themselves and ask what they are doing to improve diversity efforts. “It would be better for us to be seen as the institution that welcomes everyone and for us to get past our schema and our own history,” said Watson.

“I thought she was excellent,” said TTI Chief Information Officer & Director of Information Systems Kassandra Agee-Letton, who chairs TTI's Diversity Council. “Her talk homed in on the all the things we need to consider as an agency, and she gave the statistics to support her position as well as the anecdotal evidence to bring this home to the audience."

Melissa Tooley, Director of UTCM, stated that "it was a pleasure to co-sponsor this special Mobility Colloquium to honor Black History Month and bring the topic of diversity to TTI. Dr. Watson's presentation was very thought-provoking and stimulated some interesting discussion both at the Colloquium itself, and in the hallways afterward! This kind of dialogue will help TTI and TAMU prepare for the workforce of the future."

We often focus largely on moving high volumes of traffic on urban arterial roads. The problem is that in urban areas, development often clusters along arterials, resulting in lower-speed, access-related traffic mixing with mobility-related traffic. This mix of uses and users results in both higher crash rates and increased traffic congestion, particularly at signalized intersections.