OMUG held a technical session with Dr. Paul Waddell on October 10, 2024, for a technical deep dive into UrbanSim calibration concepts.  Dr. Waddell presented information on back-propagation and automatic differentiation, showing how the method is used for calibration in the UrbanSim cloud-based land use modeling platform.  A recording of this session is available here.

We met online in August 2024 to hear presentations from ODOT's Shen Qu (Speed Flow Analysis), Josh Roll and Alex Bettinardi (Using Pedestrian Actuator Data for Modeling and Pedestrian Data Fusion.)    A recording of the full session is available here.   Video clips and slides for individual speakers are available in our Presentation Archives.  

Thank you also to Metro's Brian Blanc and Mat Titus at Sundstrand Technical Consulting for kicking us off with great "lightning talks", and to Kyle Hauger at Metro for moderating this session.   

We convened online for an interesting session on transportation safety analysis, featuring Lake McTighe from Metro, Alex Bettinardi from ODOT's Transportation Planning Analysis Unit, and Josh Roll from ODOT Research.  Thank you to our moderator, Garth Appanaitis from DKS!  A recording of the full session is available here.  Individual video clips for each presenter can be found in our Presentation Archives.

Thank you also to Professors Liming Wang and Miguel Figliozzi at PSU for kicking of this session with terrific lightning talks!

OMUG members met for an informal networking session over lunch to share insights and perspectives from the 2024 TRB Annual Meeting.  Thank you to our host Liming Wang from PSU for facilitating the interesting conversation!

OMUG convened a session on probe data featuring presentations by Sam Granato of the Ohio DOT, plus Chi Mai and Josh Roll from Oregon DOT.  A recording of the full session is available here.  Individual video clips for each presenter can be found in our Presentation Archives.  

Tara Weidner from ODOT's climate office was our guest moderator for this session that included a demo of new EV charging dashboard tools from Jillian Dimedio of ODOT; an update on federal and state guidance for project-level GHG analysis from Natalie Liljenwall of ODOT; a presentation on GHG analysis for the Interstate Bridge Project from Rebecca Frohning of WSP; and an update on efforts to develop guidance and tools for Climate Friendly and Equitable Communities analyses from Garth Appanaitis of DKS.  The full recorded session is available here.  For individual video clips and pdf slides, see the presentation archives.  

Adam Argo from ODOT and Jonathan Slason from RSG gave us an encore of their presentation from the 2023 TRB Conference on Innovations in Travel Analysis and Planning:  "Oregon Transportation Plan:  Case studies of utilizing scenario planning in an era of rapid change and uncertainty."  (This session won "best presentation" at the TRB conference!)  A pdf of their slides is available here and the meeting recording is here.  

DKS Associates hosted an informal lunchtime networking session for us to share information from the 2023 TRB Innovations in Travel Modeling and Planning Applications Conference.  Thank you to Garth Appanaitis, our host and moderator for a great discussion!

We convened in at PSU in person for the first time in nearly four years to share insights from the TRB 2023 Annual meeting.  Thank you to our host and moderator, Liming Wang, for a great discussion!

We convened online to hear about tools that PTV has developed for using Visum with ActivitySim.  Alex Bettinardi from ODOT's Transportation Planning and Analysis Unit was our guest moderator for this session.  Binny Paul and Ben Stabler from PTV Group took us through an overview and demo of Visum's ActivitySim Installer, tools for integrating ActivitySim with Visum, and using Visum for ActivitySim output visualization, select link analysis, and sharable dashboards.   A video recording of this session is available here, and a pdf of slides is here.

Our online meeting in October 2022 included excellent presentations from Bibiana McHugh of TriMet on her agency's smart mobility platform and mobility data; Joe Castiglione from the San Francisco County Transportation Authority on TNC survey insights from California; and Eliot Rose from Metro on recent e-scooter modeling methods.   A recording of the full event is available here.  Individual clips for each speaker are available in the presentation archives.

We had a terrific joint session with the ITE SimCap Group on dynamic traffic assignment.  Speakers Peter Bosa from Metro, David Hensle from RSG, Randy Johnson from DKS, Kayla Fleskes from DKS, and Chetan Joshi from PTV spoke about recent DTA applications in Oregon and Michigan.  A full recording of this session is available here.   Individual video clips  and slide decks for each presenter are available in the presentation archives.

Joe Castiglione from San Francisco Transportation Authority, Jilan Chen from Southeast Michigan Council of Governments, Alex Bettinardi from ODOT and Joe Freedman and David Hensle from RSG joined us for a look at how ActivitySim is being developed and used nationwide, and the potential for its use in Oregon.

A full recording of the meeting is available here, and individual clips are available in our presentation archives.  

We met online to hear several excellent presentations related to Covid travel and mobility impacts.  

• Becky Knudson of ODOT shared information of ODOT's traffic reporting framework and trends observed during 2020 and 2021.  

• Anna Johnson with the Oregon Employment Department shared perspectives on the labor economy during the pandemic.  

• Mark Bradley from RSG, Ram Pendyala from Arizona State University, and Giovanni Circella from UC Davis provided highlights from pandemic travel behavior surveys.  

Thank you to Mark Bradley for serving as our moderator for this event!  A full recording of the meeting is available here, and clips of the individual presentations are available in the presentation archives.  

We had a terrific line up of speakers for a discussion of economic topics related to transportation modeling.

• Jeff Raker from Metro provided an overview of Metro's Economic Value Atlas, a collaborative project to establish tools and analysis aligning planning, infrastructure and economic development to support public investment decisions.

• Matt Bihn and Alex Oreschak from Metro provided an update on the Portland region's congestion pricing study, including modeling strategies and findings from their recent pricing feasibility analysis

• Lisa Zorn from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission in the San Francisco region explained how her region's activity-based travel model was used to inform cost-benefit analyses for her region's long range transportation plan.

Thank you to our moderator, Kyle Hauger, from Metro, for fielding great questions from our audience.  A recording of this meeting is available here.  

We took our annual brownbag networking event online this year due to the COVID pandemic, and still had a good turnout.  Joel Freedman from RSG, Randy Johnson from DKS and Bill Stein from Metro volunteered as discussion leaders, sharing insights and interesting takeaways from the 2021 Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting, which was also held virtually this year.

Thanks to all  good sports who participated in our "most interesting lunch" contest, and to our winner Peter Hurley at PBOT for sharing his terrific recipe.

We met to hear how governmental agencies are beginning to integrate greenhouse gas (GHG) into their project prioritization and funding processes.  Chris Porter from Cambridge Systematics moderated an expert panel:

• Peter Hurley from the City of Portland's Bureau of Transportation, spoke about GHG analysis in the City's planning efforts,

•  Kim Ellis from Oregon Metro, provided an Oregon MPO perspective,

• Yanmei Ou from the Sacramento Council of Governments provided a metropolitan transportation plan example from California,

• and Chris Breiland from Fehr and Peers,  spoke about application of California's "Climate Smart Communities" framework at California MPOs.  

Special thanks to Tara Weidner at ODOT for coordinating this terrific event!  A recording is available here.

We were joined by several freight analysis experts for an online event highlighting recent advances in freight systems, research and analysis tools.  Becky Knudson, who recently chaired the OMSC's Freight Subcommittee, reported on recommended interagency collaboration on data, research and tools.  Gareth Robins, Director of Analytics at EROAD gave us a glimpse of how truck transponder data might be used to improve freight planning.  Professor Eric Jessup from Washington State University and Dr. Sal Hernandez from Oregon State University gave a presentation on a recent study of commodity flows in Idaho using EROAD and other.  Dr. Miguel Figliozzi from Portland State University spoke about the fast changing landscape of last-mile delivery innovations, and Kyle Hauger from Metro gave us an update on Metro's freight model.   

Presenters' slides are available in the presentation archives. 

We had a great discussion over lunch, sharing perspectives from the TRB Annual Meeting.  Ben Stabler from RSG, Randy Johnson from DKS, Kira Gover-Cutter from ODOT and Liming Wang from PSU were in Washington DC for the TRB meeting, and brought back many interesting insights.  

You can find follow up materials from the discussion here.  

What an interesting panel session moderated by Professor Liming Wang from PSU!  Ray Jackson from the Mid-Willamette Valley Council of Governments, reported on inter-agency work in 2017-2018 to assess how well Oregon's existing models can analyze connected/autonomous vehicles (C/AVs).  Nick Meltzer from the Corvallis Area Metropolitan Planning Organization shared information about how transportation planning agencies in Oregon are continuing to collaborate as new technologies unfold.  Alex Bettinardi from ODOT presented information on a new Exploratory Modeling and Analysis Tool developed by the national Travel Model Improvement Program (TMIP-EMAT).  And, Dr. Joe Broach from Metro's Research Center shared fascinating findings from a national stated mode choice experiment.

Individual slide decks are available in the presentation archives.