The US Department of Transportation (USDOT) has chosen a research consortium led by the New York University (NYU) Tandon School of Engineering for the Tier 1 University Transportation Center (UTC) in New York City, which will focus the mobility challenges facing urban areas.

The consortium will be led by NYU Tandon Department of Civil and Urban Engineering professor Kaan Ozbay.

The new research and education centre will receive a $7m grant over the next five year period from USDOT and additional funds will be added in the five year period that will increase the budget to $10.5m.

New York University Dean Katepalli Sreenivasan said: “We are excited to announce this vital urban research initiative, an example of other major research centers that NYU Tandon will be launching in Downtown Brooklyn.

“As one of the great cities of the world, New York provides an ideal laboratory to develop research that can help transportation decision-makers create better lives for citizens.

“We are confident that this center will provide major impetus to advancing several forms of transportation technologies and to positively impacting the lives of nearly every person in cities of various sizes around the US.”

NYU will be joined by other universities such as University of Washington at Seattle, University of Texas El Paso, Rutgers University, and City University of New York to use their home cities as living laboratories.

The consortium will be conducting a study on the transportation problems and field-test new solutions in close collaboration with transportation users, government agencies, policy makers, private companies, and entrepreneurs.

"As one of the great cities of the world, New York provides an ideal laboratory to develop research that can help transportation decision-makers create better lives for citizens."

The new center will be termed as Connected Cities for Smart Mobility toward Accessible and Resilient Transportation (C2SMART).

It aims to accelerate transportation opportunities arising from unprecedented recent advances in communication and smart technologies.

University researchers will work with public and private partners located across various cities including New York City, Seattle, New Brunswick, New Jersey, and El Paso, Texas.

Image: New University Research to focus on traffic mobility challenges. Photo: courtesy of NYU School of Engineering.