Highlights from the ITE 2007 Technical Conference and Exhibit

This year, the theme of the Institute of Transportation Engineers’ (ITE) Technical Conference and Exhibit was “Managing Congestion—Can We Do Better?” Held in cooperation with the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), the conference, which took place March 25–28, 2007 in San Diego, California, sought to answer whether the transportation profession can do a better job of addressing congestion to meet local concerns and desires. While examining new ways to solve the problem of congestion, conference participants also emphasized that reducing congestion will require transportation professionals to work with public policy-makers to create multifaceted approaches that address mobility and access goals.

In the opening session, keynote speaker Tyler Duvall, the Assistant Secretary for Transportation Policy in the Office of the Secretary at the U.S. Department of Transportation (U.S. DOT), explained the importance of focusing on policy issues as public and private partnerships are forged to find practical solutions to the nation’s congestion problem. Mr. Duvall, noting that there are not policies in place to flow resources to where they are most critical, stressed the need for major reforms that will enable professionals to develop and implement real-world solutions to congestion, a problem that is consistently a hot topic in every community. In light of this, Mr. Duvall explained that U.S. DOT will be communicating more about these policy issues over the next 20 months as it seeks to define the federal role in transportation.

In discussing U.S. DOT’s Congestion Initiative, Mr. Duvall explained the positive impact that the department’s Urban Partnership Agreements, Corridors of the Future program and policy outreach efforts can have on addressing congestion with participation from the transportation community. Encouraging the audience to narrow the gap between what transportation experts know and what politicians do not know, Mr. Duvall stated that there is now a tremendous opportunity to redefine the politics of transportation operations. By coming together as a country to address congestion, transportation professionals and policy makers can unite to identify the problem and address it specifically before there is a major economic impact.

NTOC Talks will continue to publish more information about the congestion topics discussed at ITE’s 2007 Technical Conference and Exhibit over the next few issues as a result of ITE’s partnership with FHWA to increase awareness about the various facets of congestion. This partnership enabled ITE to leverage the technical content of the conference in order to share information with the broader transportation profession. Four highly qualified professionals were chosen to attend all of the sessions within one of the conference’s four technical tracks. These professionals then summarized the track’s key points and presented those points at the closing session of the conference. The professionals are currently preparing brief papers of the major points for ITE Journal and the NTOC Talks newsletter. NTOC Talks will be publishing the papers in upcoming issues as they become available.