Welcome to the virtual presentation of Pittsburgh Intelligent Transportation Systems (PITTS) Lab – a research and teaching facility within the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department of the Swanson School of Engineering, at the University of Pittsburgh. PITTS Lab is located in the region with vigorous transportation activity in the most populous metropolitan area in Western Pennsylvania. Over the recent years Pittsburgh was transformed from an iconic steel town to an urban innovation hub hosting some of the major Connected-Automated Vehicle companies. With its historically important role as a Western Pennsylvania’s railway hub, at the confluence of Allegheny and Monongahela rivers, and with its variety of urban transportation modes (the city has a funicular system too!!) Pittsburgh represents a living lab and diverse environment for researching transportation problems and improving the transportation system while preserving city’s livability.

PITTS Lab’s research interests include various modes (private vehicles, public transportation, pedestrians, etc.) and various aspects of transportation (mobility, accessibility, safety, environment, etc.). Special emphasis is given to transportation efficiency at the times when the application of advanced technologies (e.g. Intelligent Transportation Systems) has priority in the national transportation policies over expansion of the existing infrastructure. In terms of the transportation sub-disciplines PITTS researchers address traffic operations and management, intelligent transportation systems, traffic simulation, transportation planning, urban air transportation and management, and others. The major PITTS’ research emphasis is on Adaptive Traffic Operations and Management with particular interest in Adaptive Traffic Signal Control (ATSC) systems. While ATSC systems have been core of the research interests of the lab’s leadership, the PITTS Lab is interested in a variety of others traffic operations and management studies. Ability to adapt to changes is a life-story of the entire human civilization. Transportation, as one of the primary human activities, whose goal is to move people, goods and information in space and time, has adapted along with our society. PITTS Lab, in a multitude of similar labs and facilities, takes an angle where adaptiveness of the transportation system (as an ability to adapt to exogenous and endogenous factors that are a function of time) is given primary emphasis when considering transportation’s past, present, and future.

The core of the PITTS Lab is a Traffic-Management-Center-like facility that is used both for research and instructional activities. Equipped with the state-of-the-art software, hardware, and communications the lab serves local, regional, and international partners in developing new methods and tools in controlling, managing, and monitoring transportation infrastructure. Some of those partners are: City of Pittsburgh and Allegheny County (Local); Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, Philadelphia, New Jersey Department of Transportation, (regional); National Academy of Sciences, National Science Foundation, Federal Highway Administration (national); European Cooperation in Science and Technology, Roads and Maritime Services (Australia), (international). A long list of PITTS' university partners include the University of Utah, University of Virginia, Northwestern University, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, University of Belgrade, Aalto University, North Carolina State University, University of Florida, Florida International University, Florida Atlantic University, University of Maryland, University of Nevada Reno, University of Minnesota, University of Washington, University of Delaware, New Mexico State University, University of Idaho, Technical University Munich, Graz University of Technology, etc.

A. Stevanovic
PITTS Lab Director