The Baltimore Regional Transportation Board (BRTB) along with the Intelligent Transportation Society of Maryland (ITSMD) held its joint Annual Meeting and BRTB Traffic Signal Forum on Wednesday, October 16th at the Maritime Conference Center in Linthicum. The two events are held jointly every two years.
The forum welcomed a record breaking 250 attendees and examined the conference theme of Smart Mobility: Moving Safely, Moving Ahead. Guests included staff from local and state departments of transportation and public works, traffic engineers, signal engineers, planners, transportation system operators; private sector companies involved in consulting, providing/installing/maintaining/designing traffic signal equipment and ITS equipment, Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs), Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and academia. The event also included 26 exhibitors from public and private sectors.
The forum commenced with a welcome video from Chrissy Nizer, Maryland Motor Vehicle Administrator and welcome keynote from Neil Pedersen, Executive Director of the Transportation Research Board. Pedersen provided an informative overview of completed research on strategies, challenges, and issues related to implementation of connected vehicle and automated vehicle technologies.
Following the opening address, the group split into two tracks of sessions. The first focused on transportation technologies, including emerging trends such as shared mobility and micro mobility (e-scooters) and transportation system management. The second focused on traffic signal operations, data, and technologies.
During lunch, keynote speaker Shailen Bhatt, President and CEO of the Intelligent Transportation Society of America (ITSA) provided information from a national perspective related to transportation technologies and priorities for reauthorization of federal transportation legislation, which expires in September of 2020.
The final plenary session was a panel on smart mobility featuring representatives from CISCO, Ford, BOSCH, and Lyft, who shared their perspectives and observations of implementing emerging technologies and new forms of mobility.
The day concluded with an exhibitor-sponsored reception, which provided more time for networking and discussions with exhibitors.
Guests received a wealth of new information, training, discussion and networking as a result of the Joint ITSMD Annual Meeting and BRTB Traffic Signal Forum.
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