2020 has brought a lot of challenges, but we have also some reasons to celebrate. Since last autumn, we have found ways to honor TRB’s centennial anniversary.
Telling a great story
With rich anecdotes from Iowa to Panama, tales of best-sellers, and the secrets to success, Sarah Jo Peterson
weaves together the history of TRB in order to, as she writes, better imagine: “What will TRB be used for next?” Time and again, she notes the importance of balancing scientists, practitioners, and commercial interests in the make-up of TRB’s work and volunteers as well as the idea that, “Everyone interested is invited.”
A consistent theme throughout TRB’s history has been mobility research. In 1936, the Annual Meeting discussions included highway finance, gas consumption and tire wear, the durability of concrete, estimating traffic volume, and the relation of curvature to speed. The science of materials, human factors like speed, environmental factors, and planning accuracy remain at the top of our agenda. All still depend on bringing academic scientific expertise to meet with hands-on experience.
Even the seemingly unprecedented step of moving the
2021 Annual Meeting online, as the book shows, has some precedent. During World War II, TRB shifted the timing as well as the location of the Annual Meeting to different cities. One year, the meeting followed the constraints of a remote conference of its time: “The Annual Meeting for 1944 went unassembled, although [TRB] produced a
Proceedings.” Looking at our past may offer some reassurance for our future.
Where do we go from here?
Celebrating the past is only one way to honor a centennial. What is the future of transportation research and what is TRB’s role in that future? Learn from a panel of TRB veterans and younger leaders about the steadily expanding scale and scope of TRB’s activities over the last 100 years, and what we might expect in the transportation field during the next 100 years. Join our
webinar on Thursday, November 12 from 3:00 to 4:30 PM ET
and send in your ideas and questions during this moderated event.
What do you say about TRB’s next century?
Volunteers have told us the many ways in which TRB has moved their careers forward and made a difference to their communities. This summer,
volunteers shared their vision of TRB 100 years from now as part of the “Tell Us ‘Our’ Story” initiative.
Michael Morris, Director of Transportation at
North Central Texas Council of Governments looked locally at what the Dallas Ft. Worth area would bring to the history of transportation saying, “…Our legacy is tying together in a marketplace the supply and demand for transportation and dynamically priced managed lanes is what we’re giving to the community. So over the next 100 years, we’ll be smarter in the way to price our transportation projects. We’ll take advantage of market forces.”
TRB formally became a part of the National Academies along the time of the widespread adoption of the car. Since then, more modes of transportation have been more formally embraced, but the need for knowledge hasn’t changed.
Bernard Izevbekhai, Research Operations Engineer at the Minnesota Department of Transportation, says. "Considering the ubiquity of drones within the last half decade facilitating such infrastructure activities as bridge inspection, road construction inspection, and examination of inaccessible locations … the use of pavements may change with the introduction of a means of transportation somewhere between the airplane and the road surface. The road surface … must be more intelligent, multifunctional and able to communicate extremely well with driverless vehicles … TRB will be commensurately poised to examine, initiate, or foster research in these new vistas to sustain the incomparable intellectual level of scrutiny that the Board has always provided. I see TRB accomplishing conferences of over 5,0000 attendees, mainly remotely, while encouraging various small groups and committees to come together so that the networking aspects are not sacrificed at the altar of the technical..."
Geraldine Knatz, Professor of the Practice of Policy and Engineering at University of Southern California, and a member of the National Academy of Engineering goes a step further.
"100 Years from now at TRB's 200th year anniversary, people will look back and wonder about the vehicles people own and think ‘how inefficient.’ Single owner vehicles will be replaced by a transportation system that will be fast, efficient, clean, accessible to all, and on-demand. The emphasis on transportation planning will be on alignments and right-of-ways, not built infrastructure … And the role for TRB is to imagine this reality sooner rather than later and ensure that it is leading the way for the next 100 years."
Domenic Coletti, Principal Professional Associate at HDR, added, "Much like today, I hope 100 years from now TRB is still a venue for sharing ideas, sharing expertise, information, and experience, and for advancing the state of knowledge in the transportation industry."
We want to hear from you now and in the future
TRB projects will continue to look at day-to-day details as well as explore some of the bigger topics needed for understanding a new culture of mobility. Both are necessary to propel the industry into the future. TRB’s standing committees tackle issues large and small and you can add your voice by becoming a Friend of any of our committees today.
Even before a global pandemic, adjusting to and planning for the ever-changing airport environment has grown increasingly complex yet necessary. An active TRB Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) project will produce a guide to develop a culture of innovation at airports . By working closely with the communities they serve, airports can see continued success.
State transportation agencies’ leadership can expect to gain insight into the challenges expected in coming decades as well as successful strategies for meeting these challenges from an active TRB National Highway Cooperative Research Program (NCHRP) project. Continued research can advance the state of practice in stewardship of our transportation systems’ investments with practical and effective tools.
Completely new mobility ideas have the potential to be trends or truly life-changing innovations. Fare-free public transportation is an area of research that requires experience, knowledge, and sensitivity to a broad range of political, social, economic, and environmental considerations and TRB’s Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP) takes on the hard work of figuring out how this could be put to work in an active project.
You can get involved with future Cooperative Research Program work. Look for ongoing information on new projects, requests for proposals, or to nominate yourself or others to serve on a project panel.
The activities celebrating TRB’s history are possible thanks to the generous support of individuals or organizations that contributed to become members of the Century Club or a Century Patron.
There is no shortage of ways for you to continue being part of our story into the next century. After all, “Everyone interested is invited.”
TRB resources:
TRB Events:
TRB active projects:
Contact:
Beth Ewoldsen, Content Strategist
Transportation Research Board
202-334-2353; bewoldsen@nas.edu
Published November 2, 2020
This Summary Last Modified On: 11/3/2020