TransportationCamp NYC 2020 returned to C2SMART and NYU Tandon to foster open conversations on mobility and collaborate to address the radical changes experienced by transportation globally. Transportation Camp is an unconference–unlike a traditional conference, the specific session topics were determined by participants, which provided each attendee an opportunity to lead and shape the event.

This year’s TransportationCamp was co-directed by Jingqin Gao, postdoctorate associate, and Suzana Duran Bernardes, a current doctoral student in the Transportation Planning and Engineering program. The conference was held virtually using the Whova web conference platform and Zoom sessions. The Gather Town website was used as the platform for the pre-event, lunch and happy hour networking. Meera Joshi, general manager and principal of Sam Schwartz Engineering and former Commissioner for NYC Taxi and Limousine Commission, was the keynote speaker for this year’s event, and her keynote was recorded for later viewing.

TCamp also awarded an inaugural $500 scholarship to one undergraduate student and one graduate student. The scholarship, sponsored by Sam Schwartz Engineering and VHB on the day of the event. Based on a blind essay reading, Nicholas Hudanich, C2SMART student researcher, and Abhinav Bhattacharya, a doctoral student in the Transportation Planning and Engineering program, won the undergraduate and the graduate student prize respectively.

As usual, the NYU ITE Student Chapter volunteered to support Transportation Camp, guiding attendees to make the event as interactive as possible, running session proposals, and troubleshooting technical issues.

Visit the TransportationCamp website to learn more and plan for next year’s event.

Event Details:

October 17th, 10:00AM-5:00PM

Via Whova app/Gather Town/Zoom

Abhinav Bhattacharyya is a doctoral candidate and researcher at NYU’s C2SMART Research Center. His work focuses on transportation safety, pertaining to new technologies that have come up in the last decade. His interests also lie in survey methods, and how they can be leveraged in combination with other data sources, to inform better transport policy decisions. Previously, Abhinav completed an MS in transportation engineering at the University of California, Berkeley where he worked on developing behavioral models in order to intervene on people’s decision-making when it came to travel modes. You can read Abhinav’s entry here.

Nicholas Hudanich is a sophomore undergraduate at New York University, pursuing a major in Civil Engineering and plans to major in Highway and Traffic Engineering. Nick is a researcher and a part of the website/communications team at C2SMART. Nick has contributed to transit research projects such as the MTA Jay Street Accessible Stations Pilot, and the monthly COVID-19 Blog Posts. He is a member of NYU’s ITE Traffic Bowl Team (2020 National Semifinalists) and is also an avid Geocaching, a GPS-coordinate-based global treasure hunt. You can read Nicholas’s entry here.