PLANNING FOR PEDESTRIANS IN AN AUTOMATED AND CONNECTED FUTURE
SPEAKER:
PROFESSOR KELLY J. CLIFTON
Portland State University, U.S.A.
DATE:
23 OCTOBER 2018 (TUESDAY)
TIME:
19:00 - 20:00
VENUE:
LECTURE THEATRE P2, LG1/F, CHONG YUET MING PHYSICS BUILDING, THE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG
ORGANISED BY:
Institute of Transport Studies, The University of Hong Kong
ABSTRACT:
There is much interest of late in the promise of technologies to provide safe, efficient, and comfortable mobility. Most of this discussion has focused on autonomous and connected vehicles and the benefits for urban travel for passengers in automobiles and various forms of shared mobility options, including transit. With the exception of the potential to improve safety and reduce injuries and deaths, less attention has been paid to how these technologies will impact the pedestrians and the urban environmental conditions that support walking. As with most discussions of the future, this talk will begin with a focus on the past. The presentation will place walking, our oldest and most basic form of mobility, in its historic context and review the accommodations for pedestrians throughout history. Then, the talk will shift to the current state of knowledge about walking in the city and the opportunities and threats to this mode. Next, the potential implications of an automated and connected future on walking will be presented. The challenge for transport planning is to craft policies and interventions to preserve this important mode of transport among the introduction of new forms of mobility. The talk will conclude with a research program that can inform and promote this multimodal agenda.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER:
Dr. Clifton is a professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Portland State University. She holds an affiliate appointment in the Urban Studies and Planning Program and is a fellow in the Institute for Sustainable Solutions. Her research, teaching and service activities are focused on transportation and how human mobility is shaped by needs, activity demand, urban context, and technology. She is an internationally recognized expert on transport and land use interactions, travel behavior, pedestrian modeling, and equity in transportation policy. She bridges the fields of transportation engineering and planning and is known for qualitative and quantitative methodological research methods.
She is serving as an Hans Fischer Senior Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies at the Technical University of Munich until 2020, where she is working in the Modeling Spatial Mobility lab to incorporate pedestrian modeling into land use-transport interaction models and health impact assessments. She is the Co-chair for the World Symposium of Transport and Land Use Research to be held in Portland, OR in July 2020. Dr. Clifton was appointed as a Fulbright Scholar to Portugal in 2016-2017 and was a visiting scholar at the Instituto Superior Técnico in Lisbon.
To date, Dr. Clifton has served as Principal Investigator or co-Principal Investigator on funded research projects totaling nearly $5.8 million dollars. She has presented in over 150 academic and professional conferences and has over 50 publications in peer-reviewed journals.
Dr. Clifton has a PhD in Community and Regional Planning from the University of Texas at Austin, MS in Planning from the University of Arizona, and BS in Mechanical Engineering from West Virginia University.
In her free time, she enjoys listening to live music, outdoor recreation, cooking for others, traveling to world cities, and photographing street art.
