Winter 2011, Volume 4, Issue 1

1. ABJ00 Winter 2011, Volume 4, Issue 1 • In This Issue … • NSF’s Data Management Plan Requirements - Who We Are • ABJ00 Leadership Changes - Upcoming Events • Data sets wanted … Clean and Dirty • NSF’s Data Management Plan Requirements • Dr. Shinya Kikuchi, Chair, ABJ70Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) • NSF requires that proposals submitted after January 18, 2011 must include a supplementary document of no more than two pages labeled “Data Management Plan”. This supplementary document should describe how the proposal will conform to NSF policy on the dissemination and sharing of research results. Based on the web site regarding Data Management Plan (http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/policydocs/pappguide/nsf11001/gpg_2.jsp#dmp), the plan must describe the following four items. • the types of data, samples, physical collections, software, curriculum materials, and other materials to be produced in the course of the project; • the standards to be used for data and metadata format and content (where existing standards are absent or deemed inadequate, this should be documented along with any proposed solutions or remedies); • policies for access and sharing including provisions for appropriate protection of privacy, confidentiality, security, intellectual property, or other rights or requirements; • policies and provisions for re-use, re-distribution, and the production of derivatives; and plans for archiving data, samples, and other research products, and for preservation of access to them • The Data Management Plan is will be subject to peer review and will be reviewed under the merit review. This new requirement underscores the importance of managing data in any scientific research. Credibility of research results hinges on the integrity of data collection, data handling and use, data preservation, and data sharing mechanisms. These requirements are important considerations when managing data by the committees of the Data Section. Congratulations and thanks to ABJ committee chairs, staff, members and friends for many productive meetings and sessions at the 2011 Annual Meeting!

2. ABJ Leadership Changes Dr. Harvey Miller, University of Utah Co-Chair, ABJ60 Geographic Information Science and Applications After serving two terms as co-chair of ABJ60, Harv is “retiring” to become co-chair of the section’s Research Subcommittee (you can’t leave, Harv!) In addition to his leadership of the “GIS” Committee, Harv organized many interesting and well attended workshops and sessions, led the GIS Research Roadmap effort, served on the Committee on Multimodal Transportation Requirements for Spatial Information Infrastructure, Committee on Visualization in Transportation and is currently leading a workshop on GIS and Livability to be held this May in D.C. Thanks for your friendship and inspiring years leadership of ABJ60! Dr. Tamer Al-Diraby, University of Toronto Chair, Metadata Subcommittee Join me in welcoming Tamer as the new chair of the section’s metadata subcommittee. Tamer’s research areas include: Infrastructure management systems with emphasis on the role of construction management in sustainable infrastructure development; Data exchange standards and distributed computing in construction; Project planning and management with emphasis on Constructability, safety and information management; Business aspects of construction management: construction marketing and finance, risk analysis and decision making, strategic planning. I’m a little late – Tamer has already infused new ideas and had a very successful annual meeting. Thanks Tamer! Dr. Steve Polzin, CUTR, University of South Florida Chair, ABJ10 National Transportation Data Requirements Please join me in welcoming Steve to the section. Steve currently serves as a member of the policy study committee Strategies for Improved Passenger and Freight Travel Information, chairs the NRC-approved Using National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) Data for Transportation Decision Making workshop planning committee, and is a member of the NRC-approved Using Census Data for Transportation Applications conference planning committee.  He has been an invited speaker on committee sponsored annual sessions for the past three years and has served on numerous policy and conference activities related to the committee.    Cathy McGhee, Virginia Transportation Research Council , Chair Yinhai Wang, University of Washington, Vice Chair ABJ25T Task Force on the Traffic Monitoring Conferences Let’s welcome Cathy and Yinhai as they join the section to plan the next NATMEC (summer 2012)

3. Datasets Data sets wanted – Clean … and Dirty • Clean … “The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) intends to make multiple awards to obtain existing well-documented, quality data sets available from recent or ongoing operations, field tests, or simulations of emerging technologies supporting mobility, environment, transit, freight, weather, and other surface transportation research. FHWA intends to award multiple contracts and/or cooperative agreements to organizations who have existing data sets, to fund the following tasks: data clean up of existing data sets, data integration, documentation of data set contents and formats, addition of meta-data to the data set, and provision of data sets in final form to FHWA. Under these planned multiple awards, the Contractor shall clean up their existing data sets to meet the requirements to be specified in the solicitation, then provide the data sets to FHWA under open data principles, i.e. the terms of the Open Data Commons Attribution License. FHWA intends to make the data sets available to the public for researchers to use in support of dynamic mobility applications development. The objective of this procurement is to provide funding for data clean up and integration of existing data sets to ensure data sets are provided to FHWA in a consistent and usable format for researchers to utilize in the future. The solicitation was released 2/5/11 and available electronically at www.grants.gov under Solicitation Number DTFH61-11-RA-00004. Application due date is March 15, 2011. Estimated award date is on or about May 31, 2011. Awardee will prepare their existing data set for delivery to FHWA, including any necessary data cleaning, integration, organization, and documentation.” • Link to Full Announcement • http://apply07.grants.gov/apply/opportunities/instructions/oppDTFH61-11-RA-00004-cfda20.200-instructions.pdf Dirty … The Artifical Intelligence Committee (ABJ 70, Shinya Kikuchi, Chair), is looking for a significant quantity of data which they can exploit, e.g. traffic data, demand data, behavioral data, demographic data, etc.  They are looking for somewhat messy incomplete data to test different AI approaches and compare them. ABJ70 is contacting other data section committees for help, and proposing a workshop fir AM 12 in partnership with the Statistics Committee (ABJ80, Simon Washington, Chair) and the Urban Data Committee (ABJ30, Kate Lawson, Chair).    Matt Karloftis, member of ABJ70 and ABJ80 is spearheading the effort (thanks Matt!) • Title: • Artificial or real intelligence? How AI approaches stack up against classical statistical approaches using Benchmark Transportation Datasets • Abstract-Theme: • Transportation research has, for a long time, been hampered by the lack of 'benchmark' datasets upon which different methodological approaches can be tested and evaluated. Further, transportation researchers and practitioners alike have been confused as to the 'preferred' approach for analyzing a given dataset. The aim of this workshop is to shed some light on the differences and similarities between statistical and AI approaches for analyzing transportation data sets and offer some insights regarding their use, their advantages and disadvantages. Four case studies from different areas of transportation research are presented (including road safety, traffic forecasting, pavement modeling and freight movement) and the issues involved with the analyses of such data are discussed.

4. ABJ00 Who we are … ABJ00Section - Data and Information Systems Reg Souleyrette, Chair Iowa State UniversityThomas M. PalmerleeAssociate Director, Technical Activities DivisionTransportation Research BoardMatt Miller Senior Program Associate Transportation Research Board Committees ABJ10National Transportation Data Requirements and Programs Steve Polzin, Chair Center for Urban Transportation Research, Univ. of S. Florida ABJ20Statewide Transportation Data and Information Systems Jack R. Stickel , Chair Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities ABJ25TTask Force on the Traffic Monitoring Conferences Cathy McGhee, Chair Yinhai Wang, Vice Chair ABJ30Urban Transportation Data and Information Systems Catherine T. Lawson , Chair University at Albany ABJ35Highway Traffic Monitoring Peter L. Keen , Chair Digital Traffic Systems, Inc. (DTS) ABJ40Travel Survey Methods Guy Rousseau , Chair Atlanta Regional Commission ABJ50Information Systems and Technology Frances D. Harrison , Chair Spy Pond Partners, LLC ABJ60Geographic Information Science and Applications Cesar A. Quiroga, Chair Texas Transportation Institute (TTI)ABJ70Artificial Intelligence and Advanced Computing Applications Shinya Kikuchi, Chair Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech)ABJ80Committee on Statistical Methods Simon P. Washington, Chair U.C. Berkeley ABJ90Freight Transportation Data Scott R. Drumm, Chair Port of Portland, Oregon ABJ95Visualization in Transportation Michael Anthony Manore, Chair Vispective Management Consulting, LLC Subcommittees Research Subcommittee James P. Hall, Co-Chair University of Illinois, Springfield Harvey J. Miller, Co-Chair University of Utah Metadata SubcommitteeTamer Al-Diraby, ChairUniversity of Toronto At Large Members Thomas Bolle USDOT/RITA Edward J. ChristopherFederal Highway Administration (FHWA) Jonette R. KreideweisMinnesota Department of Transportation Ellen M. OmanWashington State Department of Transportation Joseph L. SchoferNorthwestern University Johanna Zmud, Past Chair NuStats For more information about ABJ00, please contact Reg Souleyrette, chair (reg@iastate.edu) or Tom Palmerlee, TRB (tpalmerlee@nas.edu)

5. ABJ Upcoming Events Freight Transportation Data Committee (ABJ90) April 21-22, 2011; Keck Center, Washington, DC; A working group meeting will be held to look at future directions.  The intent is to get younger members involved and to move forward on their freight data research road map meeting.  Transportation Asset Management and Sustainability April 4-6, 2011; San Diego GIS and Livability May 5-6, 2011; Washington D.C. Keck Center Planning Applications ConferenceMay 8-12, 2011; Reno Using National Household Travel Survey Data for Transportation Decision Making Workshop June 6-7, 2011; Keck Center, Washington, D.C. Committees meeting following the conference on June 8: ABJ10 (National); ABJ20 (Statewide) ABJ40 Travel Surveys; ABJ70(Artificial Intelligence) Midyear meeting Boston July 10-12, 2011; Committees meeting there: ABJ00 (Data Section); ABJ30(Urban); ABJ35 (Traffic Monitoring); ABJ50 (Information Systems); ABJ90 (Freight ) 2011 International Visualization in Transportation Symposium August 20-23 2011; Chicago http://www.trbvis.org/SYMPOSIUM-2011/Overview.html Performance Measures & Livable Communities September 7-8, 2011; Austin Using Census Data for Transportation Applications October 25-27, 2011; Irvine Improving Safety Programs through University-Agency Partnerships Conference November 2-3, 2011 Washington, D.C. 9th International Conference on Transport Survey Methods November 14-18, 2011; Chile Data Needs for State and MPO Decision Making Dec 5-7, 2011; Irvine NATMEC 2012 June 4-7, 2012; Dallas Data Section priority issues 1)  privacy and confidentiality developments and their implication on the transportation community 2) impact of transportation on the economy, which includes, but not limited to a. Congestion, as is the focus of the recent 1201 proposed rule b. Domestic transportation of international trade • Useful links • Section Google Group • Section Newsletter archive • Temporary Section Website/data archive • Data Section Spring Conference Call • Date/Time TBA • (877)339-0018, Access *360-7711* • Consider plans for Mid Year Meetings • Discuss Data Section priority issues • Share updates from section members