Thousands of transportation enthusiasts attended TRB 2013
Ben and I attended the Transportation Research Board’s annual conference in Washington DC last week. If you’ve been there you know it is a madhouse of nearly 10,000 traffic and transportation nuts running around from session to session and in between visiting vendor booths to see the latest in industry technological advances.
The MS2 booth at TRB
Our booth was positioned right next to the most intriguing display of the show – Mandli’s enormous monster data collection Hummer all tricked out with various sensors, laser scanners, computers and video screens. The traffic Mandli generated helped us show our transportation database system to prospective new clients, so that was a bonus for MS2.
We had a great show, met numerous current clients and enjoyed the atmosphere. We’ll be back again next year. Look for us (we’ll be next to Mandli again!) if you attend in 2014.
Will your agency be collecting vehicle travel time data as part of your congestion management process (CMP)? Once you collect the data, you will end up with a very large file of data that needs a home. So where will you put it? MS2 solves this problem with our cloud-based travel time database system.
Here’s a very short video describing MS2′s cloud-based travel time database system.
Users can quickly and easily define and edit study corridors including the desired segmentation for any time period within an agency’s network that has existing travel time data. The system provides the following for each corridor:
- Corridor description and general attributes (speed limit, traffic volume, etc.)
- Corridor control/segmentation points (e.g. intersections)
- Calculated travel time statistics
- Speed profiles and travel time-space trajectories
- Operation and environmental statistics
- Dynamic GIS layers displayed on the Google Maps component illustrating a number of statistics including Average Speed, Travel Time Index (TTI), and Stop Delay
Call Ben or Lev at 734.995.0200 if your agency needs a dynamic analytical tool to manage vehicle travel time data.
East Quad, University of Michigan
Excuse us for boasting!
We couldn’t be more proud of the relationship we have developed over the years providing civil engineering services to the University of Michigan. It’s long-term professional relationships like these that distinguish MCLLC from other civil engineering firms in southeast Michigan.
The University recently announced over $1 billion of current and future construction projects on their Ann Arbor campus. News reports specifically mentioned nine major current or proposed projects; on five of these MCLLC provided either site development civil engineering or 3-D laser scanning services. We did topographic surveying near the new entrance to Crisler Arena; we provided extensive site civil engineering services at the Institute for Social Research and at the GG Brown Memorial Laboratory. We also provided topographic land survey services for the renovation project at the Wall Street parking garage.
Our services were provided either directly to the University Architect’s office or the Office of Architecture Engineering and Construction or indirectly through the University’s lead architectural firms. In each case our work has been done promptly and on budget.
Providing reliable, accurate civil engineering and site surveying services is the foundation of our business. Long-term relationships with important, high visibility clients like the University of Michigan are a result of those efforts.
Here’s the list of community colleges and the links to their 5-year plans and capital priority requests:
Community Colleges: Internet Link:
The Michigan State Bidget Office today unveiled a new plan to allow the public to access community college and university annual 5-year plans and capital outlay priority requests. Architects, engineers and contractors seek these plans of proposed future projects and follow their development.
In past years, each publicly funded Michigan community college and university had to send hard copies of these plans to the Budget Office. There the plans would be categorized and sent to the legislature for possible funding. Then the plans would be boxed and stacked and kept on hand. Now the state has changed the rules and requires that each college and university post their plans on a publicly accessible website.
We thought you’d like to see that list so here is as of February 1, 2012. Listed below are the links to the state Universities. Please go to the following post to see the community college links.
Please note that if the links are broken or otherwise do not resolve, the problem is with the college or university, not the State Budget Office. Where it says “hardcopy submitted” we guess that institution of higher education didn’t read the directions.
FY 2013 FIVE-YEAR CAPITAL OUTLAY PLANS
Five-year capital outlay plans are required annually from universities and community colleges per the Management and Budget Act, Public Act 431 of 1984, Section 242, as amended. The FY 2013 plans cover the planning period of FY 2013 – FY 2017. Per State Budget Office instructions issued on September 1, 2011, institutions may now post their Five-Year capital outlay plans in a searchable electronic format on a publicly viewable location on their internet site. Institutions are to archive these plans on the site for a period of no less than three years. The link to the applicable internet site was provided to the State Budget Office by the institution and any technical questions regarding the link should be directed to the institution.
Universities: Internet Link:
Community Colleges: Internet Link:
