RSG Senior Consultant, Steven Gayle, has achieved the status of ‘Certified Instructor’ for the National Highway Institute (NHI). NHI is the training agency of the Federal Highway Administration—offering a large number of classroom and web-based courses for federal, state, and MPO staff. Certification involves a rigorous process of training, teaching, and observation by a Master Trainer. Steve teaches the Metropolitan Transportation Planning course.

A book edited and co-authored by RSG Director, Steven Lawson, was just released. The book, Sustainable Transportation in the National Parks, synthesizes the research of the last two decades on transportation in parks and outdoor recreation. Twenty-one essays explore the interdependent relationship between transportation and the national parks—working to develop principles for managing sustainable transportation while minimizing impacts and maintaining a high-quality experience for the visitor.

The Great Place to Work® Institute recently named RSG as the latest Great Rated!™ workplace. The Great Rated! review process includes confidential surveying of employees to rate their employers on benefits and culture—ranging from professional development to overall company atmosphere. After six consecutive years of winning Vermont Business Magazine’s Best Places to Work in Vermont, RSG welcomes the Great Rated! recognition as a national honor—reflecting the company’s evolution and national footprint.

RSG consultants will lead five sessions and one workshop at the 14th National TRB ‘Tools of the Trade Conference’ in Burlington, VT from July 21-23. The conference is designed to share knowledge on factors affecting the planning, development, programming, and implementation of multi-modal transportation facilities for small and medium-sized communities. RSG is a gold sponsor of the conference.

RSG Senior Director, Bob Chamberlin, will speak at the Ohio Planning Conference on July 15th. He will speak in the session titled, “What Do We Plan When We Plan for Climate Variability and Transportation Sustainability.” The conference, held in Columbus, is focused on emerging trends and new tools for effective transportation planning across Ohio.

RSG has been honored with the 5x5x5 Growth Award from Vermont Business Magazine! The 5x5x5 Awards celebrate the achievements of the five fastest growing businesses in five categories over the last five years in Vermont. RSG placed number four in the service category this year. We held the number five spot in 2012.

The poster titled “RSGHB R Package” won the Best Poster award at the American Marketing Association’s Advanced Research Techniques Forum this week. RSG’s Jeff Keller, Jeff Dumont, and Nelson Whipple authored the poster which highlights RSG’s open-source R package that allows users to estimate sophisticated Hierarchical Bayesian (HB) models from choice-based conjoint data without significant custom programming.

This is the second time that RSG has been honored with the Best Poster award in the past three ART Forums.

RSG received an Engineering Excellence Award from the American Council of Engineering Companies of Vermont (ACEC/VT). The merit award honors RSG’s “Exit 12 & VT 2A Scoping Study” as an exemplary engineering project in the “special studies” category. The study, sponsored by the Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission, investigated transportation alternatives to address traffic congestion, enhance safety, improve bike-pedestrian connections and accommodate anticipated economic growth in the study area.

Jeff Dumont and Jeff Keller presented posters at the American Marketing Association’s 25th Annual Advanced Research Techniques (ART) Forum in Santa Fe, NM this week. Jeff Keller’s poster focuses on RSGHB (RSG’s modeling package for R) and Jeff Dumont’s explains why individual level models are not better than sample-level models.

The Puget Sound Regional Council (PSRC) recently highlighted RSG’s work on the Puget Sound Travel Study. On PSRC's website, the blog entry notes a strong survey response rate and RSG’s role as an independent research firm.