As an unprecedented amount of people across the country have transitioned to short-term telecommuting, many folks are now left wondering if remote work may be here to stay. Did this simply fuel the adoption of an inevitable change?

Today at 12PM ET Sustainable Transportation Vermont’s (@stvermont) will host a Facebook Live event with RSG Director Jon Slason. He will share the latest research on trends in telecommuting, discuss if it is here to stay, and, if so, how it will impact our transportation system.

Like many of our clients and collaborators, ensuring the well-being of our employees and the continuity of our business operations during the COVID-19 health crisis has been RSG’s top priority over the last month.

On March 13, we set into motion plans to transition to a fully remote workforce to comply with emerging state-mandated stay-at-home orders for nonessential businesses. We’re fortunate to have access to the talented people and technologies required to make the transition to remote work as seamless as possible for our employees and our clients.

At RSG, we’ve always felt it was our responsibility to proactively make a positive and significant impact on our clients and communities. Right now, fulfilling our responsibility means staying put to “flatten the curve” and stop community spread of COVID-19.

But this note isn’t about us. Every day, millions of Americans now wake up to routines disrupted, trips canceled, and workplaces shuttered. For many of these people, the future has never felt so uncertain. In just the last few weeks, I’ve read COVID-19 news stories contemplating the rise in remote work, the renewed importance of drone deliveries, and the popularity of telemedicine. If even a small percentage of these changes stick after COVID-19, our world may look quite different soon.

Unsurprisingly, many of our clients are now asking themselves what the “next normal” will look like and how soon it will arrive. I find these questions reassuring because they remind us that what we’re collectively enduring is only temporary. During these temporary challenges, RSG remains as committed as ever to collecting robust data and delivering actionable insights. Understanding behaviors in a complex system has never been an easy undertaking, but COVID-19 further raises the stakes and challenges us to think big.

As the nation continues to fight this battle against COVID-19, we’re seeing unprecedented actions taken by federal and state agencies. Americans are coming together in response.

As always, RSGers will continue to come together, even while working at a distance. As a small, employee-owned company focused on the success of our clients, we truly are in this together.

If you have any questions, or just want to learn more about how we’re thinking about some of the changes brought about by COVID-19, please reach out. We’re just a phone call or email away.

Stay safe and be well,

Stephen Lawe
CEO

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (JASA) selected an RSG-authored paper as the “Technical Area Pick” in the noise category. The paper, titled “Wind turbine audibility and noise annoyance in a national U.S. survey: Individual perception and influencing factors” was co-authored by RSG’s Ryan Haac, Ken Kaliski, and Matthew Landis. It was part of a multi-disciplinary research effort to evaluate the factors that affect outdoor audibility and noise annoyance of wind turbines.

Interestingly, they found that wind turbine sound level was the most robust predictor of audibility yet only a weak, albeit significant, predictor of noise annoyance. Consistent with international findings, they found that communities in the US are less tolerant of wind turbine noise than other common environmental noise sources.

JASA’s Technical Area Pick honors the best paper published in each category from the last year. As a selected article, access is free through the end of May. Read it in full at https://asa.scitation.org/doi/10.1121/1.5121309.

RSG CEO Stephen Lawe is presenting at the Joint Florida Model Task Force & Transportation Data and Analytics Workshop today. The workshop brings together transportation modeling professionals from across the state to discuss statewide modeling standards and model enhancements. Stephen’s presentation, titled “Behavioral Data: State of the Practice,” will cover his perspective on the historical and future evolution of travel behavioral data and its implications.  

RSG’s Erica Wygonik recently led a presentation to the Miami-Dade Freight Transportation Advisory Committee (FTAC). She shared takeaways from work that RSG has done on how drone delivery can reduce carbon emissions.

Maybe in a few years your Valentine’s Day flowers will be delivered by drones…

http://www.miamidadetpo.org/freight-transportation-advisory-committee.as

On Monday, the Transportation Research Board (TRB)’s Transportation-Related Noise and Vibration Committee honored a paper co-authored by RSG Sr. Director Ken Kaliski and AECOM’s Roger Wayson with the Harter Rupert Award. The paper, titled “Acoustic Modeling of Meteorological Effects on Roadway Noise,” shares how to account for meteorological impacts when modeling road traffic noise levels. The award honors TRB’s best paper on transportation noise.

We're looking forward to sharing some of our work and learning from others at the 2020 Transportation Research Board (TRB) Annual Meeting in Washington, DC next week. We’ll be moderating and giving several presentations at the event, covering a range of topics— from quantifying the health impacts of transportation investments to understanding new mobility services through visualization.

The TRB Annual Meeting program covers all transportation modes, with sessions and workshops addressing topics of interest to policy makers, administrators, practitioners, researchers, and representatives of government, industry, and academic institutions. The program is expected to attract over 13,000 transportation professionals from around the world. We are proud to be a sponsor of the event.

We are pleased to welcome Jay Evans as Vice President of Operations at RSG. Jay brings over 25 years of experience in consulting and successfully building teams and delivering results across distributed, highly matrixed organizations. His addition to RSG will enhance the delivery of projects through supportive business operations and investments in RSG staff. For more information on Jay, check out his profile at https://rsginc.com/team/jay-evans/.

RSG’s Ryan Haac, Ken Kaliski, and Matthew Landis were published in a recent issue of the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. Their paper, part of a multi-disciplinary research effort led by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, evaluates the factors that affect outdoor audibility and noise annoyance of wind turbines.

Interestingly, they found that wind turbine sound level was the most robust predictor of audibility yet only a weak, albeit significant, predictor of noise annoyance. Consistent with international findings, they found that communities in the US are less tolerant of wind turbine noise than other common environmental noise sources.

© 2019 Acoustical Society of America. This article may be downloaded for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and the Acoustical Society of America.

The following article appeared in Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (Vol.146, No.2) and may be found at https://doi.org/10.1121/1.5121309.

RSG Senior Director Steve Lawson was asked to present recently at the New Hampshire State Park Managers Meeting in Pembroke, NH. His presentation shared the framework for managing visitor use and capacities at parks and how to apply this information to address issues like overcrowding, resource impacts, and risk management within public lands. The meeting, held annually in New Hampshire, draws in park managers, park directors, and district supervisors from across the state.

Learn more about our work on public lands in our latest summary report for the National Park Service and Department of the Interior.