Transportation Policy Group (TPG)

is the policy research group at VTTI, which identifies and promotes research and outreach for local, regional, statewide, national, and international transportation policy initiatives. The TPG research projects have focused on community transportation initiatives, contract management, public outreach, transportation finance, intermodalism (passenger and freight), and strategic institutional issues in transportation policy. The TPG is also engaged in a variety of policy outreach efforts. In order to meet diverse research needs, the TPG collaborates with other research groups within VTTI and the larger Virginia Tech community.

Previous TPG Projects

The Impact of Privacy on Emerging Technology on Transportation Safety Applications

With funding from the Virginia Transportation Research Council (VTRC) and NSTSCE, the TPG examined the technology of transportation safety and various types of emerging technology and transportation applications. Privacy concerns have been raised about most technology that collects and processes personal information. This study examined the nature of the information usage, ways personal data are processed, possible misuse of personal data, and ways to mitigate concerns for privacy. The team included two subcontractors well versed in the legislative and legal implications. The project was helped by the addition of the Intelligent Transportation Society of America as a team member.

VDOT and Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation Bicycle Database Project

The TPG partnered with the Center for Geospatial Information Technology (CGIT) on a project designed to develop a data archive of planned bikeway and pedestrian path data. Historically, the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) has received existing and planned bikeway and pedestrian path data from various stakeholders submitted in a variety of formats (e.g., text descriptions, analog maps, digital files, etc.). The VDOT Transportation and Mobility Planning Division and the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation Planning expressed a need to consolidate, standardize, spatially enable (digitize), and integrate data associated with these documents into a statewide, seamless digital file compatible with a geographic information system (GIS). The TPG was awarded a subcontract that was used to fund the work of one doctoral graduate student for two years on a 10-hour per week assistantship. The graduate student was responsible for working with the CGIT to gather various documents and to consolidate the data into a standardized file format.