STAR sheds light on technology-transportation connections
CTS Research E-News, April 2009
University of Minnesota researchers recently concluded a six-year study of the connections between transportation and the information and communication technologies that permeate the modern world. The Sustainable Technologies Applied Research (STAR) project examined a wide range of issues including travel behavior, emergency services, and modeling techniques.
The project’s principal investigators included Richard Bolan, Lee Munnich, and Kevin Krizek of the Hubert Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs’ State and Local Policy Program (Krizek is now at the University of Colorado); Humphrey Institute visiting scholar Thomas Horan; and David Levinson, the Richard P. Braun/CTS Chair in Transportation Engineering, from the civil engineering department. Their research was supported by the ITS Institute through a grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Research and Innovative Technologies Administration.
In order to examine transportation and technology from multiple perspectives, the STAR project encompassed several independent studies that examined different questions. Findings from these projects are integrated in a final summary report.
Among the key issues examined by the STAR researchers were potential methods of implementing and paying for new technologies that affect transportation, the effects of information and communications technologies on commercial development and transportation, the potential for connection between private innovators and public entities, and the possible impacts of information technologies on privacy and freedom in the transportation arena.
Additional contributors to the STAR research included: Mark Berndt, Richard Burkhard, Frank Douma, Chandler Duncan, Susan L. Handy, Andrew Johnson, Ugur Kaplancali, Ramachandra Karamalaputi, Adam Kokotovich, James Lehnhoff, Yi Li, Michael Marich, Denise McCabe, Pavithra Parthasarathi, Benjamin Schooley, Colbey Sullivan, Ryan Wilson, Peng Xu, Bhanu M. Yerra, and Lei Zhang.
Places and Networks: The Changing Landscape of Transportation and Technology (CTS 08-15), the final technical report of the STAR project, is available from the ITS Institute Web site.
A summary of findings from the STAR project is also available from CTS.