Rural matters: Roads that work for people should work for the environment, too.
Professional Development
Program Overview
WTI takes pride in the state-of-the practice research we conduct in our laboratories and in the field. Our greatest satisfaction comes when one of our projects solves a specific problem on a roadway or makes a maintenance engineer’s job a little easier on a day-to-day basis. Therefore, our outreach efforts – putting our research findings into the hands of people who can use them – are just as important as the research itself.
Since its earliest beginnings, WTI has supported and encouraged researchers--from both WTI and other organizations--to share their findings through presentations, training workshops, and other forums. Building on 16 years of experience with a broad range of technology transfer activities, WTI continually explores new and refined methods of communication and collaboration, to ensure that we reach as many people as possible with the information they need the most.
With our unique understanding of rural transportation challenges and solutions, WTI engages in outreach activities that make important contributions to national transportation policy and practice. Within this context, WTI focuses on efforts that are:
- Topical - identifying emerging issues of concern and raising awareness
- Timely - continually integrating our latest research into forums and workshops so that practitioners have the most up-to-date information
- Targeted - providing the research to busy professionals with time and resource constraints through regional events, webinars, onsite trainings, and other alternative forums.
Events
Upcoming events being hosted or sponsored by WTI include the following.
June 14-16, 2011; Yreka, California
What does it take to make Rural ITS work? It takes technical excellence across a variety of skill areas. It takes creativity. It also helps to learn from the experiences of others. The challenges in making Rural ITS work are significant. Therefore, it’s important for ITS technology practitioners to be able to meet in order to share what they’ve learned and help advance the state-of-the-practice.
If you are involved with ITS technology at a field level, whether in design and engineering, communications system development, systems integration, or field mainte¬nance, we invite you to attend the 2011 Western States Rural Transportation Technology Implementers Forum.
The Forum is an annual two-day meeting where professionals involved with implementing transportation technology solutions exchange detailed technical information about how solutions are engineered and implemented. It is a time for dynamic discussion of practical and technical issues associated with rural ITS, to promote transferability of solutions and knowledge across the ITS community. Presenters delve into how solutions were developed, focusing on applications that have been deployed in the field and are being used in live traffic situations. Technical presentations are planned for 1 to 2 hours each, ensuring that this level of detail may be presented and understood. In-depth equipment demonstrations and numerous opportunities for networking with peers are also part of the agenda.
Share what you have learned and learn from others. For more information, please contact Leann Koon at the Western Transportation Institute, (406) 994-7643.
Conference website: http://www.westernstatesforum.org/
July 11-13, 2011; Big Sky, Montana
Why Traffic Safety Culture? Traffic crashes represent the largest cause of fatal injury for nearly all age groups, especially in rural America. Rural states such as Montana have the misfortune of having the highest traffic fatality rates both in terms of exposure (VMT) and population risk (per capita). Driver behavior represents the single largest causal factor for these traffic crashes. Specifically, most crashes result from poor decision making rather than misperceiving information or not having the requisite skills to act correctly. This implies that most crash-related behavior factors – such as speeding, drunk driving, failure to yield, seat belt non-compliance – are the direct result of deliberate decisions by drivers that increase crash risk and injury severity. Consequently, unless we can focus our research efforts on understanding how culture influences driver attitudes and decision-making processes, we cannot expect to engineer a fundamental and enduring change in driver behavior in our transportation systems.
We will continue to strive for increased understanding amongst traffic safety researchers, practitioners, and policy makers about the role of traffic safety culture on (1) behavioral factors that increase rural (and national) traffic crash risk; and (2) attitudinal barriers to public and political acceptance of traffic safety interventions. However, the second Summit will take these goals a step further by helping the audience to see the connections between theory and practice. Attendees should come prepared to listen, learn, share and discuss not only their experiences, but those of others in both facilitated small-group discussions and larger question/answer sessions.
Conference website: http://www.ruraltscsummit.org/
Coeur d’Alene, Idaho - August 28-31, 2011
Named by French-speaking fur traders, Coeur d’Alene, Idaho has long been a hub for exchanging goods. In 2011, we will continue this tradition as we exchange knowledge and information at the 2011 National Rural ITS Conference and ITS Rocky Mountain Annual Meeting. Located on the shore of beautiful Lake Coeur d’Alene, attendees can mix family-friendly fun with training and networking opportunities, dozens of technical sessions and exciting professional tours. Don’t forget to save time for the golf tournament hosted by the ITS Rocky Mountain Chapter. You wouldn’t want to miss the opportunity to hit a golf shot onto the world's only moveable, floating green! It's always an adventure here, so join us for "Adventures in ITS".
This conference will provide participants an opportunity to network and share experiences within and across a wide variety of ITS disciplines. In addition to traditional ITS topics, this event will bring together both traditional and non-traditional ITS users to address such issues as rural safety, creating and maintaining livable/sustainable communities, multi-agency coordination, and workforce development, as well as EMS and transit issues.
The many different training and networking opportunities available through this event will provide participants with the tools necessary to effectively plan and deploy ITS technologies within their own jurisdictions.
Conference website: http://www.nritsconference.org/
As each state makes its journey to improve snow and ice control operations, road and maintenance agencies identify emerging needs for new equipment, the improved deicing and anti‐icing materials, and refined snow removal methods, in order to meet increasing demands. While progress has been great over the years, stakeholders determined that this needs assessment process could be expedited by bringing together state DOT snow and ice control experts and the private sector providing equipment, materials and services to share information and network on snow and ice control related issues. They also wanted the forum to include research organizations, who could identify gaps in communication, knowledge and technology and develop strategies to bridge those gaps. To address all of these issues, snow and ice control experts from 35 state Dots convened on August 29‐30, 2007 in Columbus, Ohio for the First National Winter Maintenance Peer Exchange. In that Exchange, participants identified research needs topics, which were subsequently adopted by several national research groups for continued investigation. Progress on the work of these national research groups was is posted on this site and is updated regularly. Additionally, a second event was held in August 2009 and those documents are also being posted on this site. The 2011 Peer Exchange is currently being planned for September 19-22, 2011 in Bozeman Montana.
2nd Road Dust Management Practices and Future Needs Conference
November 7-9, 2011, Las Vegas, Nevada
This conference will bring together local, state and county road practitioners, as well as researchers and federal agencies to discuss current practices, identify best practices and lessons learned to assist practitioners, industry and researchers. The conference will feature national and international experts presenting current best management practices and will use presentations and poster sessions, roundtable dialogue and training sessions to accomplish this. The themes of the 2011 Road Dust Best Management Practices Conference will be Environmental Compatibility and Sustainability, General and International Best Practices, and Unique and Extreme Conditions. To better serve our road dust community, we will be offering a training session on How to Put Down Product and/or Understanding Dust Plume Opacity.
Sponsored in part by: Federal Highway Administration-Federal Lands Highways, University of Nevada-Las Vega, and the Western Transportation Institute.
More information can be found on the conference website:
Past Events
Set against the majestic backdrop of the Rocky Mountains and Lone Mountain, the 2006 National Rural ITS (NRITS) Conference, held in Big Sky, MT, August 13-16, provided more than 250 rural transportation and emergency services professionals with three days of workshops, technical sessions, and unique networking opportunities. Conference presentations, agenda and much more information is available by clicking the link above.
Professional Committee Web Pages
Technology transfer is key to our mission of moving research in to practitioners hands. One technology transfer role that WTI research staff members perform is to serve on many professional committees. As part of that service WTI hosts professional committee web pages to accelerate the dissemination of research findings and to assist our local, state and federal partners.
Transportation Needs for National Parks and Public Lands
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