Blog

Today is my last day at the conference and while it wasn't so jam-packed as the others, it might have been my favorite.

On the challenges of reported economic impacts (Transportation and Economic Development Committee meeting)

Presentation on the effect of on-time performance on ridership and revenue (Mark Feldman, Session 233):

This afternoon I attended Session 343 on the Role of Transit in Creating a More Equitable Society. Each presentation focused in one way or another on assessing the adequate provision of transit service from a spatial and socioeconomic perspective, as well as the role of transit and automobiles in facilitating access to jobs, services, health care, groceries, day care, and education.

"Transformation Technologies" is one of the the three "hot topics" designated by TRB for this Annual Meeting, so it's only appropriate that my first session of the conference gave me a crash course introduction to GTFS data and all the cool things people are doing to leverage information published in this format. If you're wondering what a crash course looks like with a bunch of very excited data geeks all interacting with data and documentation in real-time, here's a screen shot from today:

Ready to learn.

Washington National Airport: built, like much of Boston, where once there was only water. Hello DC!

My bags are packed—well, not quite. But it's busy here at the office getting ready for the annual pilgrimage down to DC where everyone in the transportation world gets to mingle with thousands of their closest friends. With approximately 11,500 attendees at last count, TRB really does have the feel of a (very large) family reunion.