By Bryant Ficek, PE, PTOE
I just got back from attending the Institute of Transportation Engineers’ Annual Meeting. The Spack Consulting team attending this year’s meeting will be sharing our thoughts on the event over the next couple of weeks, but here are some initial thoughts about what we saw:
- Toronto is a great host city. Having never been here, I’ve enjoyed the opportunities to explore and get to know this City better.
- Quality events and activities. The activities before and after the programs during the day were an invaluable part of the meeting. It is at these social meetings that our team developed better connections/friendships with colleagues.
- There were a lot of good technical sessions. Autonomous Vehicles, Connected Vehicles and Smart Cities were some of the items that were discussed in detail – what’s the latest, how to prepare, what can be planned for, what can be built now were all questions that some really smart engineers are trying to answer. We’ll have a more extensive post on this later, but it’s safe to say the technology is here, better prepare.
- A great group of future engineers is coming up behind me. It’s exciting to see the smarts in the college students at the traffic bowl and the younger engineers soaking up all the information.
- Trip Generation is modernizing. This is another one we’ll talk more about later, but a quick pat on the back for Spack Consulting with the silver medal in providing information to ITE, coming in just behind Calgary in terms of hours of trip gen data provided. Check out TripGeneration.org to download our trip generation data.
- Technology is moving fast. Walking around the exhibitors really put the spotlight on new items, both software and hardware, that will help us in our jobs and help make traffic safer and more efficient.
- Get ready Minnesota. The 2018 annual meeting will be held in Minneapolis, Minnesota next year and we can expect a great turn-out, likely in the range of 1,500 traffic engineers and planners. Let’s be sure to show off our City right.
As mentioned, look for more from us regarding specific sessions in later posts. But this meeting has definitely been worth our time. We look forward to being involved heavily in next year’s meeting in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
