DOT’s Foxx, Ferro Among Featured Speakers at Transportation Research Board’s Meeting
This story appears in the Jan. 6 print edition of Transport Topics.
Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx and Anne Ferro, head of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, are scheduled to address at the Transportation Research Board annual meeting later this month.
The 93rd TRB gathering, scheduled for Jan. 12-16, will mark the final time after nearly six decades the event takes place in the same three hotels in the Woodley Park neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Beginning in 2015, the gathering will move to the city’s convention center across town.
TRB bills the conference as the “single largest gathering of transportation practitioners and researchers in the world.” There are about 4,500 presentations at 800 individual sessions covering all modes of transportation. Representatives from more than 70 countries are registered to attend the meeting, TRB said.
Foxx will be the featured speaker at the chairman’s luncheon on Jan. 15. TRB said about 750 global transportation leaders will be together in one room for the luncheon. This will be the first TRB meeting since Foxx was confirmed as secretary.
A day before, Ferro is scheduled to give the keynote address to kick off a session updating FMCSA’s activities and priorities. Presentations from staffers will focus on agency actions mandated by the MAP-21 transportation funding law, the Compliance, Safety, Accountability program, fatigue management and driver health.
Also on Jan. 14, funding and financing at the state level will be the focus of a three-part “State Department of Transportation CEO Roundtable;” 13 state DOT chiefs are scheduled to attend.
TRB said automated driving and connected vehicles, as well as preparing for extreme weather events within the transportation sector, are among the highlighted topics of this year’s conference.
For the second straight year, a special session has been set up to highlight the transportation challenges and research opportunities associated with Superstorm Sandy. Participants in the Jan. 12 event include members of President Obama’s “Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force” and transportation officials from New York and New Jersey, which were among the states hardest hit by Sandy.
The conference also will feature a special session on Jan. 13 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials.
