UM Will Lead New Freight Transport Research Center

COLLEGE PARK, Md. -- The University of Maryland will lead a new, federally-funded research center designed to make freight transport more secure and efficient. The awarding of $700,000 to create the Center for Intermodal Freight Transportation Mobility and Security was announced on December 2 by Congressman Steny Hoyer and Nariman Farvardin, dean of the University of Maryland's A. James Clark School of Engineering. Congressman Hoyer secured the funding for the new center in the federal Omnibus Appropriations Act passed by the Congress on November 20.

"Ever since the September 11 terrorists attacks," said Hoyer, "the Congress has been working to identify weaknesses in our law enforcement, intelligence, and transportation and immigration infrastructure to secure them so that we can prevent another attack.

"This funding will allow the [new] center to do critical research in the technologies that can best secure our intermodal freight system while maintaining or improving operational and economic efficiency," said Hoyer, who represents Maryland's Fifth Congressional District and is the Democratic Congressional Whip.

Intermodal (ship to truck to train, etc.) freight systems play a central role in the transport of the $7 trillion worth of freight carried annually by the US transportation system. Intermodal shipping is both economically vital and, because of its numerous transitions, especially vulnerable to terrorists. The new center, which will be a collaboration between the university and the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, will develop new methods and technologies to reduce this vulnerability while improving the economics of intermodal freight systems.

"Congressman Hoyer recognized, early on, the important security and efficiency issues related to intermodal freight transport, which plays an ever-increasing part in our everyday lives," said Dean Farvardin. "When [he] needed to find experts to resolve these security and efficiency issues, we were ready. Because of the [university's] Maryland Transportation Initiative, we were a perfect match for Congressman Hoyer's mission."

The Maryland Transportation Initiative and its director Hani Mahmassani, a professor of civil & environmental engineering, bring together campus-wide resources and activities to conduct leading-edge, cross-disciplinary studies of intelligent transportation systems and the transportation sector. Existing MTI research includes a project to improve the tracking of freight, one to develop evacuation models for the city of Minneapolis and another designed to help Houston officials plan for and manage traffic during disasters.

The new Center for Intermodal Freight Transportation Mobility and Security will be part of the Maryland Transportation Initiative in the Clark School of Engineering. The center will focus on mobility and security issues associated with the transport of goods throughout the vital Washington, D.C. to New York to Boston corridor, research intended as a blueprint for the nation.

The new center's work will include developing technology to integrate sensing and tracking models of freight distribution as a basis for real-time decisions that result in better transportation management. Advanced methods of urban traffic control will be studied in conjunction with the needs of commercial vehicle traffic.

"The University of Maryland's Clark School of Engineering has for many years brought together experts in 'intelligent transportation systems' to research and implement new ways to improve the efficiency and safety of all forms of transportation," said Dean Farvardin. "The School's well established transportation research capabilities, as well as its major role in multiple Homeland Security initiatives, makes it the perfect setting for a new Center that focuses on improving the security and efficiency of high-risk intermodal freight."

"I am proud," said Congressman Hoyer "that the University of Maryland will be playing a crucial part in the government's efforts to make freight traffic and movement secure."

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