Traffic21's first Smart Mobility Challenge drew in 26 proposals from 8 counties in Southwestern PA. The 6 winning projects garnered over $400,000 in research pilot investment in 8 municipalities across Butler, Allegheny, Lawrence, and Westmoreland counties.

Municipality:  Neshannonck Township and Lawrence County-wide
Faculty Lead:  Alexandre Jacquillat and Vibhanshu Abhishek
Project Description:  The population of Lawrence County relies extensively on private modes of transportation in daily commutes and other trips. An important opportunity to reduce the costs of travel lies in technological solutions to better connect commuters and promote shared modes of transportation, for instance among employees of the same firm. This research proposes to develop a mobile platform to enhance information sharing and coordination among commuters, so public transportation and peer-to-peer ride-sharing opportunities can be identified and leveraged. Through the pilot deployment of this platform, it will assess its impact on travel behaviors and its overall efficacy. Ultimately, this research can contribute to the ongoing development of technological solutions to promote ride-sharing, reduce the costs of travel, mitigate transportation-induced emissions, and enhance access to urban areas.

Municipality:  Dormont and Mt. Lebanon
Faculty Lead:  H. Scott Matthews and Sean Qian
Project Description:  Dormont and Mount Lebanon are two adjacent and critical municipalities in the southern suburbs of Pittsburgh, which happen to share parking, transit, traffic signaling, and congestion management challenges across a shared Business Rt 19 corridor. We propose to work collaboratively with them over time to develop innovative solutions in a shared corridor, but will initially focus on parking data analysis and management. We will produce a web application that can provide parking information across the municipal boundaries, and consider pricing changes to enhance revenue.

Municipality:  The Municipality of Bethel Park and the City of Greensburg
Faculty Lead:  Bernardo Pires and Greg Cerminara
Project Description:  The Intelligent Mobility Meter (IMM) is a portable data acquisition and analysis platform for the collection of fine-grained statistics on pedestrian, cyclist and vehicular traffic. This project proposes to further improve the IMM performance while tackling challenges that affect the local governments in Southwestern Pennsylvania. Specifically, we propose to: 1) collect novel real-world large-scale datasets of visual data that will help further improve the automated detection, classification and tracking algorithms of the IMM; and 2) provide real-world valuable traffic studies and actionable information to local government entities. To achieve the goals the project we are partnering with the Municipality of Bethel Park and the City of Greensburg, and with leading engineering firm Michael Baker International. The local governments will guide the deployment of the meter to the locations that are most critical for infrastructure decision making and pledge to deploy the portable meters as necessary for the collection of the data. The CMU research group will use the data to improve the IMM algorithms and to analyze the specific traffic needs and challenges as requested by the municipalities. Finally, Michael Baker International will provide the necessary traffic engineering expertise and guidance so that the project’s output will be useful and actionable for the municipalities.

Municipality:  Cranberry Township
Faculty Lead:  Sean Qian
Project Description:  “Cranberry Township is a Progressive Municipality that works to maintain traffic efficiency on its transportation networks. Cranberry Township’s unique geographical location at the junction of Interstates 79 and 376 (PA Turnpike) can pose interesting challenges in coordinated operations.   Specifically, the Township operates a Coordinated Signal System that relies on historically Generated Signal Timings, coupled with real time technology to manage day to day operations on the local network. Unfortunately, any scheduled or unscheduled events on the limited access highways can cause havoc with our efficient operation.  Together we are proposing to incorporate real time data inputs monitored from both social media and INRIX against historical INRIX data from these limited access highways to trigger predictions of traffic delays. These predictions could then be directed to several directives, such as dynamic message boards, smart phone applications, social media and text messages, to alert the public of the anticipated delay. Those predictions also alert the Cranberry traffic system of the issue to allow for adjustments to the operating traffic plan on the real-time basis.”

Learn more

Municipality:  McKees Rocks Borough
Faculty Lead:  Sean Qian
Project Description:  A CSX intermodal rail terminal is planned to open in late 2017 on a parcel of land located immediately north of the McKees Rocks Bridge in the Borough of McKees Rocks and Stowe Township, PA. The development will consist of an intermodal facility that will accommodate approximately 50,000 lifts per year opening year (2018) and 136,000 lifts per year at full buildout (2023). Access to the terminal is proposed via an improved Michael Alley to Island Avenue (SR 0051). It is expected to generate a significant number of trucks in the Borough of McKees Rocks, which adds additional burdens on the existing roadway in the Borough. The terminal may bring in heavy congestion to individual roadway drivers. A traffic impact study was conducted indicating a minor congestion increase with the new infrastructure. This research project conducts an in-depth analysis of the potential traffic impact in high temporal and spatial resolutions. Using the data collected in the traffic impact study along with other relevant data sets possessed by CMU Mobility Data Analytics Center, we simulate individual cars and trucks, and model their route choices, travel time and mixed traffic flow conditions. The result includes the travel time, travel delay, vehicle-mile-traveled and emissions for each road segment and intersection by time of day. We will also examine the effectiveness of potential traffic management strategies, specifically West Carson Street Extension and truck routing.

Learn more

Municipality:  Borough of Millvale
Faculty Lead:  Stefanie Danes, Don Carter and Stephen Quick
Project Description:  The Regional Transportation Alliance notes that Pittsburgh’s various modes of transportation are not well integrated into an overall mobility system. This is nowhere more evident than where they cross paths, such as at Millvale’s gateway, where the downtown street grid, the Route 28 exit ramps, the railroad, Girty’s Run, and the riverfront converge within the space of less than 500 feet. It is a very multi-modal place, yet every mode of transportation interferes with the others, causing both access and safety problems. The goal of this project is to improve accessibility and safety at this complicated intersection and, in turn, to transform this gateway location into a catalyst for further revitalization of the Borough. Building on design concepts created in a graduate urban design studio in the fall, the Remaking Cities Institute research team will develop a set of interventions in the built environment that improve access and safety and contribute to the borough’s economic and social vitality. The proposed improvements will range from short-term tactical moves to long-term investment in infrastructure and landscape. The final product will include a comparative analysis of the proposed interventions.

Learn more

On May 8, 2019, Carnegie Mellon University’s Traffic21 announced North Huntingdon Township and the Airport Corridor Transportation Association (ACTA) as the winners of its second Smart Mobility Challenge.

Traffic21, a research institute operated out of CMU’s Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy and Mobility21, its affiliated USDOT National University Transportation Center in the College of Engineering, sponsored this year’s challenge as a continuation of its mission of transforming southwestern Pennsylvania into a testbed for mobility innovation.

With generous funding from the Hillman Foundation, the Smart Mobility Challenge invited representatives of municipalities and public transit operators in Allegheny, Armstrong, Beaver, Butler, Fayette, Greene, Indiana, Lawrence, Washington and Westmoreland counties to identify real-world mobility challenges affecting their communities and apply to receive support from CMU faculty and students.

“The problems submitted for consideration illustrate the mobility challenges we face in southwestern Pennsylvania and the awareness and dedication of our local leaders and transit operators to find solutions,” said Lisa Kay Schweyer, Program Manager of Traffic21.

Lynn Manion, Executive Director of the ACTA, and Michael Turley, Assistant Manager of North Huntingdon, represented this year’s award recipients. Their challenges were selected based on the availability of data to answer the stated problem and alignment with the academic strengths of the Carnegie Mellon University Mobility Analytics Center (MAC) team.

Manion’s mobility challenge involves designing a flex route first and last mile system to maximize mobility and operating efficiency as well as ridership comfort, while Turley seeks a solution to alleviate congestion, ensure safety and anticipate travel demand on a heavily trafficked roadway.

As recipients of this year’s Smart Mobility Challenge, Manion and Turley will receive support from MAC, which collects, integrates and learns from massive amounts of mobility data and contributes to the development of smarter transportation systems. MAC will use the mobility problems identified by Manion and Turley to provide data, analytics and recommended solutions for each mobility problem.

“We look forward to solving the challenges presented by the ACTA and North Huntingdon,” said Heinz College Dean Ramayya Krishnan. “Only at Carnegie Mellon do we have this unique opportunity to collaborate with partners in our region to solve real-world problems faced by their communities.”

“The solutions that result from these projects can provide other cities with ideas on how to apply big data to address their own transportation problems,” says Jonathan Cagan, the interim dean of Carnegie Mellon Engineering.

For the submissions not selected, CMU offered to connect representatives from municipalities and public transit operators with faculty from across campus to explore additional solutions through class projects. Manion and Turley will begin working with CMU on July 1, 2019, with the projects to be completed by June 30, 2020. 

Carnegie Mellon University’s Traffic21 Institute announced the Township of Shaler, the City of Monessen, and Heritage Community Transportation as the winners of its third Smart Mobility Challenge.

Traffic21, a research institute operated out of CMU’s Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy and Mobility21, its affiliated USDOT National University Transportation Center in the College of Engineering, sponsored this year’s challenge as a continuation of its mission of transforming southwestern Pennsylvania into a testbed for mobility innovation.

With generous funding from the Hillman Foundation, and the US DOT, the Smart Mobility Challenge invited representatives of municipalities and public transit operators in Allegheny, Armstrong, Beaver, Butler, Fayette, Greene, Indiana, Lawrence, Washington and Westmoreland counties to identify real-world mobility challenges affecting their communities and apply to receive support from CMU faculty and students.

“The problems submitted for consideration illustrate the mobility challenges we face in southwestern Pennsylvania and the awareness and dedication of our local leaders and transit operators to find solutions” said Lisa Kay Schweyer, Program Manager of Traffic21.

Walk Bike Shaler, in partnership with the Township of Shaler, will partner with CMU researchers led by the Remaking Cities Institute to inform and contribute to the Better Boulevard initiative. CMU, providing urban design and computer vision expertise, will deploy cameras for visual data, develop computer vision algorithms to analyze data, and develop mobility/urban design recommendations from the data and responsive to community priorities. Shaler’s pattern of a long Main Street in a suburban context is a mobility/urban design case study relevant to numerous municipalities in Southwestern PA and nationally.

The City of Monessen, led by Mayor Matt Shorraw, will partner with CMU researchers led by the Remaking Cities Institute inform and contribute to the ongoing work of the City of Monessen on its Comprehensive Plan and related initiatives related to mobility, equity, and safety, focused on Mid-Downtown Monessen. CMU, providing urban design and computer vision expertise, will deploy cameras for visual data, develop computer vision algorithms to analyze data, and develop mobility/urban design recommendations from the data and responsive to community priorities. Monessen’s pattern of a riverfront downtown is a mobility/urban design case study relevant to numerous municipalities in Southwestern PA and nationally.

Heritage Community Transportation, a program of Heritage Community Initiatives, will partner with CMU researchers to review the impact of COVID-19 on its services with the objective to recommend rider-focused service enhancements. This project will collect data on demand patterns, develop new theory, and provide practical policy recommendations. It also provides faculty and students the opportunity to conduct research with a transportation provider whose mission is to serve our region’s most vulnerable populations.

“The Traffic21 Institute has helped establish the city of Pittsburgh as a world renowned test bed for transportation intelligent technologies,” said Chris Hendrickson, Director of Traffic21. “Through the Smart Mobility Challenge projects, we are thrilled to be able to extend this reach further into the southwestern Pennsylvania region.”

There was one other application from Beaver County and Traffic21 staff connected that municipality’s representatives with faculty to explore additional solutions through class projects versus a traditional award. All projects will begin July 1, 2021, with completion by June 30, 2022.