News
05.25.2023
Greg Mandelman joins RSG as Vice President
Greg Mandelman joins RSG as Vice President of Market Research and brings nearly 20 years of experience tackling complex social and analytical challenges around the world. Throughout his career, Greg has been integral to the success of transformative projects, with a focus on conducting behavioral energy research and modeling transportation electrification trends. He has overseen a multimillion-dollar portfolio of behavioral energy research, led a team of statisticians and analysts at a major utility company, and designed an electric vehicle energy impact forecasting model for state regulators in California. “I’m thrilled to join RSG,” said Greg. “RSG does what few firms can by pairing data collection with modeling and analysis to deliver exceptional client solutions. In addition to this, RSG’s focus on behavioral research means I can continue to help clients in the energy and vehicle electrification spaces while being part of a larger team that delivers unmatched research and analytics.” Greg's experience leading behavioral research in the transportation and energy sectors will help RSG continue to deliver exceptional survey-based research services to our clients while expanding into new, high-growth markets.
05.12.2023
RSG Principal to lead revisions to international acoustics standard
Ken Kaliski, Principal at RSG, was appointed as Project Leader for the revision of ISO 1996-1 during the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) ISO/TC 43 “Acoustics” Plenary Meeting in Montreal, Canada, held from May 2 to May 6, 2023. The ISO 1996-1 is an international standard on acoustics, focusing on the description, measurement, and assessment of environmental noise.
In his new role, Ken's duties will include managing the ISO standard's content to create an updated international standard. This task will require collecting the most recent research for drafting the standard, fostering agreement among the global community, and facilitating several comment and response rounds. ISO delegates will then vote on the updated standard. Ken will supervise the process as Project Leader.
“I'm thrilled to take on the Project Leader role for the revision of ISO 1996-1, Acoustics — Description, measurement and assessment of environmental noise — Part 1: Basic quantities and assessment procedures,” Ken said. “I eagerly anticipate contributing to a global agreement to enhance the procedures that practitioners rely on. I'd like to extend my gratitude to the previous Project Leader, Stephen Keith, the US delegation for their nomination, and Douglas Manville, the Convenor of Working Group 45.”
RSG's noise control engineering service depends on national and international standards like ISO 1996-1. Ken's role as Project Leader will ensure these standards remain current and relevant. The final revised standard will contribute to enhancing our service quality and helping our projects earn acceptance from clients and regulators.
Click to learn more about RSG's noise control engineering services »
03.28.2023
RSG experts' paper on larger wind turbines' sound levels focus of webinar
RSG's Ken Kaliski (Principal) and Ryan Haac (Consultant) co-wrote a paper with experts from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Vermont Environmental Research Associates, Inc., titled “Effects of land-based wind turbine upsizing on community sound levels and power and energy density,” on wind turbine upsizing's impact on community sound and power output levels, published in the journal Applied Energy. Their paper will be the subject of a webinar on April 13, 2023, at 1:00 p.m. ET (10:00 a.m. PT).
The team studied larger turbines' effects on micro-siting, power, energy density, and noise. They used desktop software to model larger turbines on two wind development sites and three turbine models representing past, present, and future periods for three manufacturers. The study aimed to maximize the number of turbines and total power output within each site's constraints.
The findings suggest that future larger turbines will lead to fewer turbines per land unit and lower community sound levels, but with increased capacity and energy output.
Key results include:
- Future turbines are over 60% taller, with 60% fewer turbines fitting in the same land area.
- Despite fewer turbines, future turbine-based projects have higher capacities and higher annual energy output per land area.
- Community sound levels at homes will be significantly lower, despite louder turbines.
- Lower sound levels affect homes near projects and those close to turbines on hosting parcels.
- Wider adoption of taller, high-capacity turbines will likely yield numerous benefits in the future.
03.27.2023
Kevin Johnson joins RSG as Director
Kevin Johnson joins RSG as a Director and brings over 17 years of experience managing large multimodal transportation planning projects.
Kevin has worked primarily on big data and travel modeling projects, integrating big data into the model validation process to improve the accuracy of forecasts.
“Solving complex problems for clients through innovative travel behavior modeling has been at the core of my professional work to date,” said Kevin. “I’m excited to continue my career at RSG where I hope to contribute to work advancing the state of the practice of model development and application.”
Kevin's experience delivering models and datasets that improve project outcomes will help RSG continue to deliver client-focused solutions in the travel model development and passive mobility data analytics spaces.
02.15.2023
Tim Young named Chief Technology Officer
RSG has appointed Tim Young as our new Chief Technology Officer (CTO). This newly created position, which replaces the Chief Information Officer (CIO) role, recognizes and elevates the importance of RSG's technical, software, and data science services and offerings.
As CTO, Tim will help us continue to deliver a client-oriented approach to solving complex problems, ensuring alignment between RSG's technological resources and the shifting needs of our clients. “With the ever-changing marketplace, it will be critical for us to make informed and strategic decisions about the future,” said Tim. “I'm thrilled to lead the team that will help RSG meet the evolving technological needs of our clients.”
RSG is an industry leader in the technological product and services space. In addition to developing rMove™, the world's most accurate approach for location-aware market research, RSG has developed or been integral to the creation of several open-source applications. These tools include ActivitySim, STOPS (Simplified Trips-on-Project Software), and VisionEval, among others.
01.17.2023
Jeremy Wilhelm joins RSG as Director
Jeremy Wilhelm joins RSG as a Director and brings over 15 years of experience as a project manager with a focus on data analysis and consensus-building.
Jeremy has directed work on transportation and mobility, education, and public health projects, most notably in the household travel survey space.
“Joining RSG feels like a natural continuation of my educational and professional path,” said Jeremy. “I’m excited to help RSG build on its reputation for conducting high-quality research and delivering impactful, insightful tools.”
Jeremy's proven track record of turning survey results into practical solutions that unite stakeholders around shared goals will help RSG continue to deliver exceptional survey-based research services to our clients.
01.12.2023
FTA's STOPS receives Zephyr Award
The Federal Transit Administration's Simplified Trips-on-Project Software (STOPS) was this year's recipient of the Zephyr Foundation's Impactful Research Award. This award recognizes a research project that has had the most relatively recent impact on bettering the travel analysis field for the public good.
RSG worked with FTA to develop STOPS, which streamlines the development of ridership forecasts. These forecasts are a key element of project evaluation. The STOPS forecasting system utilizes information from the Census Transportation Planning Package. Planners can code project changes to General Transit Feed Specification files and then run the software to determine future ridership for the project as a whole and for each station.
RSG is proud to have been a participant in the creation of STOPS and congratulates FTA on this significant accomplishment.
06.28.2022
RSG Director published in Transportation Research Record
RSG Director Dana Lodico, PE, INCE Bd. Cert. authored an article on traffic noise modeling of short safety barriers that was recently published in the Transportation Research Record.
Dana's article looked at existing modeling methods for their ability to calculate the noise reduction of short barriers. These barriers are commonly constructed along highways for safety reasons. However, their noise reduction potential requires the identification of noise modeling techniques to ensure that such models can accurately predict noise reduction in the surrounding community.
The article documents the findings of Dana's research, which were also presented at the 2022 TRB Annual Meeting. These findings include the observation that shorter sound walls (3 to 6 feet in height) may be an option to reduce noise in surrounding communities in cases where taller sound walls are considered cost-prohibitive under current FHWA policy.
04.19.2022
RSG Director published in National Council of Acoustical Consultants Newsletter
RSG Director Dana Lodico, PE, INCE Bd. Cert. authored an article on product noise rating (PNR) that was recently published in the National Council of Acoustical Consultants (NCAC) Newsletter.
PNR has been in development for nearly two decades. It would allow consumers to quickly and easily assess a product's sound (or lack thereof). The work on a PNR system started with volunteers for the Institute of Noise Control Engineering (INCE-USA).
The PNR system developed through INCE-USA's work is ready. However, lack of funding has constrained deployment to date.
03.14.2022
RSG Principal receives Outstanding Industry Contributor Award
The Zephyr Foundation has given RSG Principal Johanna Zmud, PhD, its Outstanding Industry Contributor Award. This annual award recognizes an individual who selflessly contributes to the travel demand modeling industry through their work.
Johanna has been at the forefront of applying survey science to the gathering of data on past, current, and future travel behavior to understand important phenomena, such as transportation mode choice, and to ascertain developing trends, such as propensity to use automated vehicles. Her recent research has examined how technology-enabled mobility impacts society. She has also researched the implications for transportation providers and agencies.
Zephyr Foundation is a 501(c)(3) organization. Its mission is to advance rigorous transportation and land-use decision-making for the public good. It does this by advocating for and supporting improved travel analysis and facilitating its implementation.
Click here to read about Johanna's Outstanding Industry Contributor Award »
03.03.2022
Wind turbine shadow flicker paper coauthored by RSGers is subject of webinar
RSG Principal Ken Kaliski and Senior Analyst Ryan Haac both coauthored a peer-reviewed paper, titled “In the shadow of wind energy: Predicting community exposure and annoyance to wind turbine shadow flicker in the United States,” which was published in the Energy Research & Social Science journal. The paper is also the subject of a webinar on March 11, 2022, at 3:00 p.m. ET (12:00 p.m. PT). The webinar is free and open to the public.
Ken and Ryan worked with their paper's coauthors from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Vermont Environmental Research Associates, Inc. to model shadow flicker (SF) exposure. SF is the effect of sunlight passing through moving wind turbine blades, which can lead to annoyance among those exposed.
The team modeled shadow flicker exposure at nearly 35,000 US residences across 61 wind projects and surveyed 747 people. The results shed light on what contributed to perceived shadow flicker and annoyance. The team did not find a significant correlation between shadow flicker annoyance and exposure. Instead, the team's model identified a greater correlation with other factors among respondents. These included a person's level of education, age, perception of how wind turbines look, and annoyance at other human-caused sounds.
Research of this nature is increasingly important as the renewable energy market expands. By 2035, the installed capacity of wind energy in the United States will be 600 gigawatts (GW), up from 110 GW now. This will require thousands of new wind projects. To understand how those projects will affect nearby communities, additional research like that undertaken by RSGers for this paper will be necessary to better understand wind turbine shadow flicker exposure.
02.04.2022
SWaM certification awarded to RSG in Virginia
RSG is a certified Small, Women-owned, and Minority (SWaM) firm in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The certification was granted on February 2, 2022, by the Virginia Department of Small Business and Supplier Diversity.
RSG is eager to continue to offer our innovative consulting services and expertise to entities in Virginia through this important program. Through the SWaM program, RSG is authorized to provide traffic and transportation consulting services as a small business.
The Commonwealth of Virginia defines a “small business” as one that is at least 51% independently owned and controlled by one or more individuals who are US citizens or legal resident aliens, and together with affiliates, has 250 or fewer employees, or average annual gross receipts of $10 million or less averaged over the previous three years. Additional information about RSG's certification is available in the SWaM directory.
RSG SWaM Certification Number: 682999
Small Start Date: 02-02-2022
SWaM Expiration Date: 02-02-2027
NIGP Description and Code: Traffic Consulting (91894) & Transportation Consulting (91896)
01.19.2022
RSG Principal named ITS Senior Fellow
The Institute of Transportation Studies (ITS) at the University of California, Berkeley named RSG Principal Johanna Zmud, PhD, as an ITS Senior Fellow for 2022. Johanna is one of only five Senior Fellows selected this year. The award recognizes her extraordinary contributions and dedication to the transportation field.
As a Principal at RSG, Johanna supports clients' needs around transportation technology and emerging mobility. She has cofounded several firms and worked in both the public and private sectors on travel behavior and transportation research.
As an ITS Senior Fellow, Johanna will continue her important work at RSG while shaping the industry conversation. Senior Fellows can collaborate with ITS faculty, staff, and students to improve transportation education, research, and practice.
01.18.2022
Jim Brogan joins RSG as Vice President
Jim Brogan, PMP, joins RSG as a Vice President and brings over 25 years of experience in multimodal planning, operations, strategic planning, transit planning, and investment support at the national, state, and local levels.
Jim has helped state DOTs, MPOs, ports, railroads, transit agencies, and regional coalitions across the country more effectively identify and address multimodal issues within their planning and investment activities.
Jim's strategic mindset and emphasis on improving outcomes will empower RSG to continue to deliver unparalleled transportation and mobility insights to clients in both new and established markets.
12.14.2021
Kyeongsu Kim joins RSG as Director
Kyeongsu Kim, PhD, joins RSG as a Director and brings over 15 years of experience in travel demand modeling and data analytics. Kyeongsu has led numerous innovative data analytics and modeling projects and has a proven track record that exceeds client expectations. Importantly, his analytical and project management skills will allow us to continue to bridge the project delivery gap between consultants and government agencies.