UMass-Lowell Students Win 2021 Transportation Tech Tournament

The student team from University of Massachusetts-Lowell took top honors at the 2021 Transportation Technology Tournament. Their winning presentation can be found here.

The annual Transportation Technology Tournament challenges student teams to solve real-world transportation problems by leveraging existing infrastructure and maximizing the use of operations and Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) strategies. The tournament seeks to build on transportation curriculums by teaching problem solving, communications, and team building skills with students with a variety of educational backgrounds.

The winning team from UMass-Lowell featured students from both civil engineering and computer science programs who proposed equipping existing traffic video cameras with automated data collection and incident detection features.

“The 2021 winning team sets the example of why we hold this tournament each year,” said Adam Hopps, NOCoE’s interim managing director. “The team focused on leveraging existing infrastructure, using knowledge from multiple disciplines, and did an excellent job communicating their solution to the judges.”

Finalists delivered a 10-minute presentation to the panel of judges from the public and private sectors and academia. Judges ask detailed and pointed questions to challenge the teams on their solution’s cost, lifecycle benefits, maintenance, and overall feasibility. 

The 2020 winning team from the University of Michigan featured a suite of multimodal solutions for curbside management in the downtown Ann Arbor, MI.

“We continue to see our student teams develop multimodal solutions to improve the safety of the traveling public and maximize the use of emerging technologies,” Hopps added. “The trainings and education provided by the ITS JPO PCB program equip our student participants to tackle these challenges and propose solutions that are often ready for implementation.”