Year: 2015

RSG's work with the Capital District Transportation Committee on the future of freight in the Albany, NY area was featured in media. The article highlights that the amount of freight shipped through the area is projected to grow by 67 percent over the next 15 years. This projection is part of a larger effort RSG has led to craft a regional freight and goods movement plan, including freight-supportive projects, policies, and strategies to support the region’s economic growth and quality of life. This is one of many freight-related studies RSG is involved in throughout the US.

RSG Senior Consultant, Steven Gayle, was recently appointed by ITE International President Paula Flores to serve on the ITE Strategic Initiatives Committee, and will serve as Vice Chair. This Committee is tasked with advising the ITE Board of Directors throughout 2016, devising priorities and creating strategic action plans to make ITE the organization of choice for transportation professionals. It will focus on programs that keep ITE on the leading edge of professional development, technical excellence, and advocacy.

For the second year in a row, RSG has been named a Great Place to Work® by the Great Place to Work® Institute. This honor is achieved by participating in a confidential survey of employees to rate their employers on benefits and culture. Our Great Place to Work® Review summarizes RSG as “Laid-back and intellectually challenging, employees say RSG values stimulating work and the well-being of those around them.” To learn more, check out our full Great Place to Work® Review.

Since its release in 2013, RSG’s open-source software package, RSGHB, has been downloaded over 10,000 times, across 113 countries. RSGHB, available on The Comprehensive R Archive Network (CRAN), is designed to estimate Hierarchical Bayesian (HB) models from choice-based conjoint data, allowing users to run sophisticated models, which until RSGHB’s release required significant custom programming.

RSG’s Jeff Dumont and Jeff Keller created and maintain RSGHB and have won two consecutive “Best Poster” awards for RSGHB-related posters at the American Marketing Association’s annual Advance Research Techniques Forum.

RSGHB currently averages 450 downloads a month with top downloading countries including the US (31% of downloads), Japan (10%), China (9%), Germany (4%), Spain (4%), India (4%). We are proud to see RSG improving models around the world!

RSG Director, Dan Weinstein, is presenting at TMRE: The Marketing Research Event in Orlando today. His talk is titled, “Choice Modeling for Business Action: Driving Incremental Revenue through Advanced Analytics.”

RSG Senior Consultant, Steven Gayle, was invited by the Executive Director of the National Operations Center of Excellence (NOCoE) to join an advisory group of transportation planners. This group aims to raise the profile of transportation system management and operations (TSMO) in the planning community and to make sure that topics that link planning and operations are included in NOCoE forums and blogs. NOCoE is a joint effort of AASHTO, ITE, and ITS America.

RSG is highlighted in today’s Valley News article titled, “Lebanon Development Would Impact Traffic.” The article covers a recent RSG traffic impact study on a proposed development of more than 300 new single-family homes in Lebanon, NH.

Last week, the Upper Valley Transportation Management Association (TMA) honored RSG with an award for our employee transportation policies. The TMA’s annual awards recognize organizations that make it easier to bike, walk, carpool, and ride the bus in the Upper Valley. RSG, winner of the ‘Small Workplace’ category, is lauded for innovative programs, including co-locating near transit and offering subsidies to employees who purchase homes near the workplace.

RSG’s Jeffrey Dumont, Jeff Keller, and Nelson Whipple authored the poster “Understanding How Covariates Perform Across Different HB Packages,” which won the Best Poster award at the American Marketing Association’s Advanced Research Techniques (ART) Forum this week. The poster articulates the similarities and differences in performance across popular hierarchical Bayes modeling packages—such as RSGHB, bayesm, and Sawtooth's CBCHB—and the implications for the modeler.

This is the third time that RSG has been honored with the ‘Best Poster’ award at this event.

RSG’s Puget Sound Regional Travel Study was featured yesterday on the front page of The Seattle Times. The study surveyed more than 6,000 households in the Seattle metro area to help planners understand more about how and why people travel around the region. The article focuses on how lifestyle trumps affordability for most living in central Seattle.

RSG is working with the Vermont Agency of Transportation to develop an On-Road Bicycle Plan in support of enhancing on-road bicycle improvements on the State highways. The deadline for public input is May 15th and both Vermont Public Radio and Burlington’s WCAX News shared the story. RSG and VTrans are collecting public input on where people ride now and routes people would like to ride if they were safer. This input will help to inform where to focus limited resources towards bicycle improvements and allow better integration into Agency projects.

RSG is working with the South Carolina Department of Transportation to determine drivers’ willingness to pay for travel time savings for a new stretch of Interstate 73 in South Carolina. The survey is currently in field and the project was recently featured by NBC’s WMBF news program. Check it out.