Speaker: Dr. Joseph M. Sussman, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Engineering Systems, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

While the field of transportation is a venerable one, recent years have seen substantial changes. A variety of new technologies have presented opportunities and challenges for the transportation field Further, economic forces such as the global economy and regional competitiveness added to the complexities of issues transportation professionals face. Also, environmental and other resource constraints have created yet another layer of requirements for the transportation system of the future.

All of this suggests the need for a new generation of transportation professionals, who can deal with issues of technology, systems and institutions in an effective and imaginative way. This talk focused on the capabilities the new transportation professional must have, how that person can be educated by our nation's universities and challenges that organizations and institutions in the public and private sector face in effectively utilizing the capabilities of such individuals. Examples from fields such as intelligent transportation systems and high-speed ground transportation were used to illustrate the concepts described above.

Dr. Joseph M. Sussman is the JR East Professor in the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering & the Engineering Systems Division at MIT, where he has served as a faculty member for 33 years. He is the author of "Introduction to Transportation Systems", a graduate text published in 2000 by Artech House of Boston and London. Dr. Sussman specializes in the study of "Complex, Large-Scale, Integrated, Open Systems" (CLIOS), working in many applications areas. His research in railroads focuses on service reliability, rail operations, maintenance, high-speed rail (HSR), and risk assessment; he has had a major impact on the railroad industry, and has several prize-winning papers.

He currently participates in the Mexico City project on transportation and the environment, the Lean Sustainment Initiative, dealing with the U.S. Air Force's maintenance and distribution system, the NSF Mid-America Earthquake Center, working on vulnerability of transportation networks to earthquakes, and MIT' s Cooperative Mobility Program. Dr. Sussman writes a column entitled "Thoughts on ITS" for the ITS Quarterly, and was the program chair of the ITS America Annual Meeting in 2000.