KNOXVILLE – A UT Knoxville transportation safety center is celebrating 15 years leading a regional research network and the introduction of a first-of-its-kind academic journal.
Congressman John J. Duncan Jr. will take part in an event to celebrate the achievements of the Southeastern Transportation Center (STC), which is administered by UT Knoxville’s Center for Transportation Research, at 4:30 p.m. on April 14. The event will be held at the Howard H. Baker Jr. Center for Public Policy.
The STC has brought UT Knoxville more than $16 million in funding, which is among the largest research grants received by the university. Created by the U.S. Department of Transportation in 1987 as part of its University Transportation Centers program, the center moved under UT Knoxville’s leadership in 1995. Its goal is to advance research, training and workforce development, and technology transfer in the field of transportation.
“We are pleased to support the university’s mission of research, education and outreach through our work with the Southeastern Transportation Center,” said STC Director Stephen H. Richards. “The STC is especially proud to be one of the 10 original U.S. DOT University Transportation Centers.”
As part of its 15th anniversary at UT Knoxville, the STC has created a new scholarly journal, the Journal of Transportation Safety & Security. It is the first peer-reviewed journal dedicated to these issues, and was a cornerstone of the center’s renewed funding in 2006. It will examine issues ranging from vehicle crashworthiness to the ethics of red light cameras along with transportation security issues that currently are not addressed in other academic publications.
The STC is a consortium of university research centers around the Southeast. It was originally founded in 1987, and includes UT Knoxville, the Universities of Kentucky, Florida, South Florida and North Carolina–Chapel Hill, along with North Carolina State, North Carolina A&T, Vanderbilt and Georgia Tech.
The event also highlights the establishment of the driving simulator laboratory. The U.S. DOT and UT Knoxville have jointly funded the new lab, which STC organizers plan to use to study not only traffic safety issues but also driver behaviors and scenarios. The lab will attract multidisciplinary teams from around the region for collaborative research projects.
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Contact:
Jay Mayfield (865-974-9409, jay.mayfield@tennessee.edu)
Lissa Gay (865-974-8760, lissa@utk.edu)