International Traffic and Transportation Experts Gather for PANAM Conference Sept. 26-29

This week Rensselaer is hosting the Pan-American Conference of Traffic and Transportation Engineering (PANAM), bringing together more than 300 industry, government, and academic experts from more than 20 countries to exchange ideas, experiences, and technologies related to transportation research and infrastructure design, traffic engineering modeling, transportation economics, and air quality.

"The conference brings together the top transportation researchers in Latin-American countries and the U.S. and is testimony to the breadth, depth, and vitality of transportation research and its ability to potentially change society and the economy," said Jose Holguin-Veras, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Rensselaer and chair of the conference.

Technical sessions will address an array of topics including citizen participation in urban transportation planning, crash database analysis, hydrogen fuel cell and hybrid-electric buses, and the effects of pollution from traffic sources on children.

Participants from across the United States and Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Spain, Portugal, Canada, France, and Germany are scheduled to participate in what is considered a premier transportation conference in Latin-America, being held in the United States for the first time. Since its inception in 1980, the biannual conference is regularly attended by transportation researchers, senior decision makers, and transportation professionals, including present and past Transportation Ministers from many countries in the Americas.

Keynote speakers include King Gee '75, associate administrator for infrastructure, United States Federal Highway Administration and Joseph Boardman, commissioner, New York State Department of Transportation. Also at the conference, Alumni Hall of Fame member Alan Voorhees '47 will receive a Lifetime Achievement Award.

Conference participants will tour Rensselaer's campus, including the Lighting Research Center, the Geotechnical Centrifuge Research Center, the School of Engineering's LITEC program, and the Intelligent Systems Lab. The conference will be held at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in downtown Albany.