Originally housed in Research Triangle Park, ITRE settled into its present home, after several moves, in 1996 on the NC State University Centennial Campus in Raleigh, a 1,334-acre, $340 million dollar enclave of university, corporate and government research and development facilities and businesses. This move brought ITRE closer to the NC State Main Campus and has been beneficial in the collaboration with university professors, researchers and students in research and education efforts.
Over the course of the years, ITRE has worked to streamline its organization into a more effective and efficient working body. ITRE is currently organized into six distinct groups, each with a separate director that reports to the ITRE director. The entire staff numbers over 40 full-time employees and numerous graduate research students. ITRE is comprised of the following six groups. (As of the posting of this page during our 25th Anniversary, in 2003)
The Center for Transportation and the Environment (CTE), a USDOT University Transportation Center that facilitates constructive interaction between state transportation departments and environmental advocacy groups, and seeks to mitigate the impacts of surface transportation on the natural and human environment. CTE accomplishes this task through Web teleconferences, research programs, Context Sensitive Design training and the biennial International Conference on Ecology and Transportation (ICOET).
The Highway Systems Group offers work zone safety and traffic engineering research and training to a wide range of state and national clients.The Highway Systems Group has provided support for NCDOT employees through programs such as the Highway Engineering Concepts (HEC) course and the Fundamental Engineering Principles (FEP) program. In addition, the Policy and Traffic Operations program was created within the group to research and develop innovative approaches to planning, financing, and operating transportation facilities.
The Municipal Technical Services Program, formed from the Geographic Information Systems Group (GIS) and the Infrastructure Management Group, supplies services to local and municipal governments including extensive technological training courses and developed customized user applications and applied research projects. Working with the Division of Highways of the North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT), the group developed and implemented an Infrastructure Management System for the state's 60,000 miles of paved highways.
The North Carolina Local Technical Assistance Program (NC LTAP) offers four primary types of assistance - training workshops, technical materials, technical information services and quarterly newsletters. The North Carolina Technology Transfer Center is one of 59 LTAP centers nationwide (one in each state, including Puerto Rico and several Native American centers). LTAP also conducts The Roads Scholar and Advanced Roads Scholar Programs. These popular training sessions are for local government agencies seeking low cost, high quality training for their employees in order to keep their roadways safe and properly maintained.
The Public Transportation Group (PTG) has achieved national stature as the only university research program focusing onthe operations of multi-modal transit systems. This group supports planning, policy and implementation of all public transportation modes, and has extensive experience in Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) research. Activities focus on transportation modes such as urban fixed-route and paratransit, rural demand-responsive transit, passenger rail, bicycle and pedestrian, taxicab and livery.
The Pupil Transportation Group is the only one of its kind in the country dedicated to addressing pupil transportation issues. By applying transportation engineering principles and technology to the operation and management of school buses, safer and more efficient transportation for school children is becoming a reality. One entity of the Pupil Transportation Group is the School Transportation Group, which conducts nationally recognized research on technology, policy, and planning to improve the safety, security, and efficiency in school-related transportation. In addition to the above work groups, ITRE staff provides in-house support services consisting of computer and technology assistance, Web design, graphics, publishing and editing solutions, marketing support, secretarial support, contracts processing, and accounting services.
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