News
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.
12.07.2021
Jonelle Hanson joins RSG as Director
Jonelle Hanson, AICP, joins RSG as a Director and brings over 12 years of transportation planning experience in the public and private sectors. Her primary interests are in strategic mobility planning and long-range transportation planning. She is also researching the manufacturing of landing infrastructure for delivery using drones, or Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS). Jonelle's experience and expertise will allow us to continue to help clients plan for and adapt to rapidly changing traveler behavior.
11.21.2021
Population synthesis program developed by RSG receives Zephyr Software Badge
The Zephyr Foundation has awarded PopulationSim its “Zephyr Software Badge” after RSG Senior Director Joel Freedman nominated the program. The award was made after Zephyr's Software Badging process found that the population synthesis program is easy to use, useful to Zephyr's community of users, and contributed to a common problem space.
RSG originally developed the population synthesis program for the Oregon Department of Transportation and its partner agencies. It replaced multiple population synthesis tools being used throughout the state at the time. Unlike other population synthesis software products, PopulationSim handles multiple geographies and avoids algorithmic errors. Moreover, RSG built it using software engineering best practices. This reduces the likelihood of bugs and enhances its utility to users. RSG included PopulationSim in the Python-based ActivitySim modeling framework, which we also led the development of.
11.12.2021
RSG Director coauthors paper on active transportation and health
RSG Director Michelle Lee coauthored a peer-reviewed paper, titled “The 2019 Conference on Health and Active Transportation: Research Needs and Opportunities,” which was published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. The paper discusses expert conclusions from the December 2019 Conference on Health and Active Transportation (CHAT).
Active transportation, which includes activities like bicycling and walking, has well-known public health benefits. These modes, when replacing personal vehicle trips, can also reduce emissions. The COVID-19 pandemic revealed new opportunities for active transportation. At the same time, the pandemic highlighted societal inequities around transportation access and health.
Michelle and her fellow authors present a conceptual model, based on CHAT sessions, that could assist practitioners in overcoming barriers to the development and use of active transportation infrastructure. The paper also identifies crucial research gaps. Importantly, the paper emphasizes the importance of coupling additional research with plans for dissemination and implementation.
Click here to read an early access version of Michelle's article »