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Featured Research of the Month! ROBERT L. BERTINI, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR 
The automobile was king in the San Francisco suburb of Millbrae where Robert Bertini grew up. You drove to get just about anywhere. But on a family trip to Italy at age 14, Bertini was fascinated to see the ease with which people used other ways to get around: buses, trains, ferries, motorscooters, planes, and of course walking. The trip sparked a lifelong interest in transportation, and today Associate Professor Bertini is actively working with industries and public agencies to improve transportations systems. Bertini is the head of the Intelligent Transportation Systems Laboratory. The lab collects and interprets traffic data from 500 road sensors placed throughout the Portland metropolitan area. Information from the lab can be used for everything from timing traffic signals to building roads and planning for mass transit. Bertini is also the director or OTREC, the Oregon Transportation Research and Education Consortium. It’s a partnership between Portland State, University of Oregon, Oregon State, and Oregon Institute of Technology to stimulate research, educate future transportation professionals, and help transfer research results where they’re needed. “The transportation filed is fundamentally about people. It directly affects everyone, so I feel very motivated to help make it safer, more accessible, and more environmentally friendly,” Bertini says. |
