Editorial: Welcome to TRB

This Editorial appears in the Jan. 9 print edition of Transport Topics. Click here to subscribe today.

Twelve thousand people from around the world are so devoted to transportation, in all of its many forms, that they are traveling to Washington, D.C., this week to participate in the 96th annual meeting of the Transportation Research Board.

The board is a part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, and the big meeting Jan. 8-12 is a fine example of the useful learning that makes for a better society. After the screaming political free-for-all of 2016, some might call the 5,000 presentations at 800 TRB sessions boring, but it is really painstaking attention to detail so transportation networks can run efficiently and safely.

There is virtue in people gathering voluntarily to seriously better their profession — and all without the yelling of insults.

There is a substantial presence from the U.S. Department of Transportation and from state DOTs. Officials from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Federal Highway Administration will be there, along with representatives from other modes.

A session of particular note concerns autonomous trucks, featuring American Trucking Associations President Chris Spear and Anthony Levandowski of Otto, a division of Uber. During ATA’s Management Conference & Exhibition, Levandowski spoke about his quest for driverless trucks in the future and introducing Uber’s car-based techniques to freight transportation today.

A related session will address how to regulate such vehicles.

There are numerous topics in transport that we’ll be trying to learn about, including:

Classics such as truck size-and-weight limits, military transportation, safety and vehicle emissions of nitrogen oxides, particulate matter and carbon dioxide remain always under scrutiny.

Collecting and organizing information has been important since at least the Library of Alexandria in ancient Egypt, and the interest continues at TRB with a session on collecting freight data; where to get it and wouldn’t it be great if the Census Bureau resumed its activities in this area.

Intermodal shipping usually receives attention, including technologies on how to manage it, the handoffs between modes and, of course, who should regulate it and how.

There’s even a Freight Day with a four-part exploration of pickup-and-delivery work, supply chain technology, moving food through cities and truck platooning.

We welcome the TRB participants to town and wish them well in their important work.