RSG Consultant Nikhil Sikka is attending Modeling and Simulation of Transportation Networks, a week long course part of MIT's professional education short programs. This week long course will cover world’s most sophisticated transportation network and demand models, dynamic traffic assignment models, activity-based models, and related analytical techniques necessary in the planning, design, and operations of transportation systems. The course is sponsored by the Intelligent Transportation Systems Laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and will be taught by world’s leading experts in the field including, Professor Moshe Ben-Akiva (MIT), Haris Koutsopoulos (KTH Royal Institute of Technology), Hani Mahmassani (Northwestern University), Ennio Cascetta (University of Naples/Ministry of Transport – Regione Campania, Italy), and/or Pierluigi Coppola (University of Rome).

RSG Senior Director Peter Plumeau is headed to Washington, D.C to participate in the summer meeting of the TRB Freight, Marine, and Planning Committees. This conference will blend the traditional mid-year business meetings of standing committees with plenary and focus sessions addressing topics with implications for multimodal freight planning, goods movement and freight system resiliency. The conference will open with a plenary session conveying the challenges faced by public sector agencies at all levels (Federal, State, MPO, and Corridor-level organizations) in facilitating and implementing the freight provisions of the latest surface transportation authorization law known as MAP-21.

RSG's Jeffery Dumont will be presenting, “The Use of the Multiple Discrete Continuous Extreme Value Modeling Framework when the Budget is Latent: Two Consumer Package Good Examples” at the International Choice Modelling Conference in Sydney, Australia.

The Town of Seabrook Planning Board recently voted to amend their Site Plan Regulations to include RSG's traffic exaction formula for US 1 through Town. US 1 is a densely developed commercial corridor that faces significant development pressure and ongoing traffic congestion. RSG worked with the Town of Seabrook (NH) to develop a clear, understandable approach to developer traffic exactions (i.e., per trip cost that a developer must pay to develop along a specific corridor to fund road improvements) that would provide a fair and level playing ground for developers and allow the Town and NHDOT to finance critical improvements to the US 1 corridor. It is great to see our work making a positive impact.

The Supreme Court ruled today in favor of equal treatment under federal law for legally married same-sex couples, a position RSG supported in an employer amicus brief filed earlier this year on behalf of 278 employers nationwide. RSG was one of only two Vermont companies to sign the brief, which argued that DOMA forced employers to separate lawfully married employees into two categories—married same-sex couples and married opposite-sex couples—for taxation purposes and benefits administration.

RSG's Steven Gayle will be attending a Federal Highway Administration peer exchange on the impact of fracking on state and local roads. There has been a great deal of interest in the how heavy vehicles related to natural gas drilling and hydro-fracking impact roads, and what state and local governments are doing in response. This event brings experts from North Dakota, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

Senior Consultant Vince Bernardin will be attending this overview of the Evansville, Indiana MPO’s hybrid tour-based model, including motivation for the approach, introduction to the hybrid architecture and select results.

RSG Senior Director, Peter Plumeau will be attending this joint midyear meeting for TRB and AASHTO Committees in Washington, D.C. This conference is unique in that it will blend the traditional midyear business meetings of more than a dozen standing committees with a focus addressing the transportation challenge of doing more – and better – with less.

RSG analysts Jeff Keller and Pratt Hetrakul will be attending the Advanced Research Techniques (ART) Forum in Chicago, Illinois. The ART Forum offers a one-of-a-kind environment in which research practitioners, industry clients and academics come together to share ideas and learn about state-of-the-art quantitative methods for strategic and tactical marketing decisions. Topics range from new developments in established methodologies (e.g., choice modeling and conjoint analysis) to new online data sources and methodologies.

RSG Senior Engineer Dave Saladino will be attending the annual Joint Maine/New Hampshire ITE Meeting in Wells, Maine. Prof. Peter Furth, Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Northeastern University, will be presenting information on bicycle & pedestrian facility design for all users, as well as transit priority.