Director: Edward Beimborn, PhD, Associate Director: Alan Horowitz, PhD , Professors of Civil Engineering
Associate: Michael Greenwald, Assistant Professor of Urban Planning

The Center for Urban Transportation (CUTS)

Current and Recent Research

Transportation/Land Use/Behaviors
Investigator: Zhong-Ren Peng, PhD, School of Architecture & Urban Planning
Collaborators: Edward Beimborn, PhD; Alan Horowitz, PhD, Professor of Civil Engineering, UWM-CEAS

Peng's research focus is on improving models used to analyze the interaction of transportation and land use. Four projects recently completed are: "Evaluation of the Benefits of Automated Vehicle Location Systems" (Wisconsin Department of Transportation) and "Development of an Integrated Land Use, Travel Behavior and Air Quality Model" (UWM Graduate School) and Transit Trip Planning System: A Pilot Project on System Design and Evaluation (Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development). He is currently doing research on two grants from the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, ITS Benefits Analysis Methods (with Professor Edward Beimborn) and ITS System evaluation and Technology Development (with Professor Alan Horowitz) His research identifies methods for integrating the behaviors of the decision-makers such as commuters, developers, and travelers into statistical models. With funding from the Wisconsin Employment Transportation Assistance Program,  The Metro Trip Planner for the City of Waukesha has been launched . Peng is also completed a similar trip planner for the Milwaukee County Transit System. Peng and colleagues in the engineering school were awarded an RGI grant from the UWM Graduate School to study the creation of unmanned vehicles to regulate transportation. He also received the prestigious UWM Graduate School UWM Foundation Research Award and published the book Internet GIS. Abstract follows

Internet GIS addresses a suite of emerging new technologies aimed at making Geographic Information Systems (GIS) more mobile, powerful, and flexible, as well as better able to share and communicate geographic information. This groundbreaking book is the first of its kind to thoroughly cover basic Internet GIS issues—such as the state-of-the-art technology, implementation, applications, and data, as well as the future trend of the Internet GIS—in preparation for using and getting the most out of newly available, off-the-shelf Internet GIS software packages. 

Internet GIS introduces the concepts, theories, technologies, and applications of Internet GIS, illustrates available software packages, provides an applicable framework for Internet GIS applications, and demonstrates real-world applications This book provides a systematic introduction of Internet GIS technologies from a vendor-neutral perspective.  It covers many different aspects of Internet GIS, including basic conceptual models of Internet GIS and its underlying distributed component frameworks, and different GIS architectures and working mechanisms of different Internet GIS models, etc .It also covers various on-line applications, metadata, recent open standard initiatives, the emerging future trends, and methods for ensuring that current systems will be compatible with future trends

Professor Goodchild, a member of the National Academy of Sciences commented in the book's Foreword that "this new book is by far the most comprehensive treatment of a topic that grows increasingly complex every year." "It provides a very useful guide and reference to help the reader in navigating the field, and to help the user get the best out of what currently exists, and what is likely to exist in the next few years."

Investigator: Michael Greenwald, PhD, School of Architecture & Urban Planning
Collaborators: Edward Beimborn, PhD, Director CUTS, College of Engineering and Applied Sciences

Two projects, recently completed, are: "Development of Improved Methods for Transit Service Market Analysis, "sponsored by U.S. Dept. of Transportation, Federal Transportation Administration and "Use of Benchmarking Techniques for Comparisons between Transit Services in Great Cities."