The annual Association of Metropolitan Planning Organizations (AMPO) conference will be held this week in Atlanta, GA. RSGers Peter Plumeau and Steven Gayle will be in attendance and RSG Senior Consultant, Jeff Frkonja, will be presenting in the Thursday session titled “Project Evaluation.” His presentation will provide an overview of benefit cost analysis principles, identify environmental issues relevant to long-range transportation plans, describe key inputs and assumptions used in benefit cost analysis, and provide examples and illustrations.

RSG President, Tom Adler, will be presenting this week in Berlin, Germany at the German Aerospace Center’s Institute of Transport Research. His presentation titled, “From Surveys to Big Data: Future Tools for Travel Forecasting” will summarize the large body of research that RSG has generated related to long-distance travel by air, rail, bus, and auto and explore opportunities for collaboration with European researchers in this field.

RSG Director, Stephane Hess, co-authored the article “Temporal Transferability of Models of Mode-Destination Choice for the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area” which was published in the latest issue of the Journal of Transport and Land Use. The article summarizes the findings from a literature review that demonstrates there is little evidence about the transferability of mode-destination models over typical forecasting horizons. The analysis demonstrates that improving model specification improves the transferability of the models, and in general the transferability declines as the transfer period increases.

RSGers Eddie Duncan, Senior Engineer, and Colin High, Principal Consultant, will present this week at RE2014 (Renewable Energy 2014) in Burlington, VT. RE2014 is Vermont’s annual convention bringing together key players in the renewables sector. This year's conference highlights current energy challenges, Vermont’s leadership role in the energy industry, and the steps needed to implement an integrated energy infrastructure.

Eddie will present during the session titled “Wind: the Facts on Production, Sound and Wildlife,” and Colin will present on the session titled “The Transportation Challenge: Meeting 90% by 2050.”

RSG Senior Consultant, Vince Bernardin, will present at the 2014 Indiana MPO Conference in downtown Columbus, Indiana. The presentation titled “New Modeling Data, Techniques and Capabilities in MACOG, MCCOG, and Beyond” will review recent work for the Michiana Area Council of Governments (MACOG) and Madison County Council of Governments (MCCOG) in the context of new exciting developments in the field of travel data and modeling.

RSG Senior Consultant, Elizabeth Greene, co-authored the article “Long-Distance Work and Leisure Travel Frequencies” which was published in the latest issue of Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board. In the article, Elizabeth and her co-authors explored factors influencing non-distance-based definitions of long-distance travel to help long-distance survey designers know which demographic factors they should include in their surveys. The findings suggest that future data collection for long-distance travel can be tailored to address the specific definition being studied.

RSG Director, Marc Aquila, was recently announced as a ‘Rising Star’ by Vermont Business Magazine. The 2014 ‘Rising Star’ award recipient list is comprised of 40 winners under the age of 40. Award recipients were selected by a panel of judges for their commitment to business growth, professional excellence, and involvement in their communities.

The National Park Service (NPS) recently selected RSG to serve as the nation’s lead contractor for visitor use and social science research in the national parks through a five-year, up to $20 million contract. This provides RSG with a unique opportunity to help the NPS with the stewardship of America’s national treasures, the national parks.

RSG Analyst, Nagendra Dhakar, co-authored the article “Route Choice Modeling Using GPS-Based Travel Surveys” which was published in the latest issue of Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board. Nagendra and co-author Sivaramakrishnan Srinivasan combined data from a large-scale GPS-based travel survey and geographic information system-based roadway network databases to develop models for route choice. These models produce statistically significant and intuitively reasonable effects that are sensitive to basis of trip and traveler characteristics

RSG Analyst Ben Cummins co-authored the article “Why Do Voters Support Public Transportation? Public Choices and Private Behavior” which will be published in the next issue of the journal Transportation. In it, Ben and co-author Michael Manville examine American support for transit spending, in particular the support for financing transit with local transportation sales taxes. The findings suggest a collective action problem; people support transit for its collective benefits, but these benefits are realized through increased ridership, which does not necessarily result from increased funding. The findings were also mentioned in CityLab’s recent article “If So Many People Support Mass Transit, Why Do So Few Ride?” which explores the same concern.