New technologies continually arise that could be useful to local transportation agencies. Yet, technology often changes faster than agencies can react and the results of research may be slow to be implemented into practice. Many transportation agencies do not have the business processes and organizational structures in place that allow rapid adoption and deployment of relevant technologies. Furthermore, many barriers outside the control of transportation agencies affect the ability to advance technologies from research to deployment.
This talk will discuss work performed for the National Cooperative Highway Research Program and the Transportation Research Board in the U.S. It will explore what the research team discovered about which barriers and obstacles prevent more rapid technology adoption by transportation agencies and will present a process (the Systematic Technology Reconnaissance, Evaluation, and Adoption Methodology or STREAM) developed by the researchers. STREAM is designed to help local agencies compare candidate technologies on the basis of their likely effects on agency goals, including consideration of barriers to implementation. The intent is to help agency efforts to identify, assess, shape, and adopt new and emerging technologies to achieve long-term system performance objectives when much still remains uncertain or unknown.
Programme seminar
Chairman: Prof. Vincent Marchau
12.30 – 12.45 Lunch and opening
12.45 – 13.30 Prof. Steven Popper (RAND Senior Economist and Professor of Science and Technology Policy in the Pardee RAND Graduate School): Expediting Future Technologies for Enhancing Transportation System Performance
13.30 – 14.00 Discussion
Location
TU Delft, TPM, Jaffalaan 5, Classroom H
Registration
Participation is free, registration is required: CLICK HERE.
STEVEN W. POPPER is a RAND Senior Economist and Professor of Science and Technology Policy in the Pardee RAND Graduate School. His work on economic transition led to an invitation by President Vaclav Havel to advise the government of Czechoslovakia, participation in an OECD delegation on the first foreign visit to one of the secret cities of the former Soviet Union, and consultation to the World Bank on issues of industrial restructuring in Hungary and in Mexico. Dr. Popper’s work on micro level transition focuses on innovation. From 1996 to 2001 he was the Associate Director of the Science and Technology Policy Institute which provided research and analytic support to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and other agencies of the executive branch. His S&TPI work included principal authorship of the Fourth U.S. National Critical Technologies Review, advice on federal R&D portfolio decisionmaking for the National Science Board, and authorship of Presidential transition documents on S&T issues of national importance. Dr. Popper’s work on strategy development and foresight has focused on the problem of planning under conditions of deep uncertainty, a subject he has taught at the Pardee RAND Graduate School, the India School of Business in Hyderabad and the Shanghai Climate Institute. He is co-developer of the Robust Decision Making approach, a methodological framework for analytical decision support which has been applied to a widening set of strategic policy issues in fields as varied as energy, counter-terrorism, water management, sovereign debt management, fiscal policy, military force planning and business strategy. His recent projects include analytical support to the Guangzhou Economic and Technology Development District in China in framing a regional innovation-based economic strategy and a similar effort for the government of Mexico City which inspired the recent Urban Forum: “CoRe | The Heart of the City” series of workshops focused on urban re-imagining as a tool to spark innovative activity. He currently is engaged in similar policy projects employing various foresight and decision methods for sponsors ranging from the U.S. Department of Defense to the National Safety Council.
Dr. Popper has conducted research for, and has served as consultant to, several non-U.S. governments as well as multilateral international organizations such as OECD and the World Bank on issues of technology planning, industrial restructuring, and regional technology and economic development. He has been elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, served as chair of the AAAS Industrial Science and Technology section and is the founding chair for education and training of the Society for Decision Making under Deep Uncertainty.
