The Southeastern Transportation Research, Innovation, Development & Education Center (STRIDE) is the
2016 Region 4 (Southeast) U.S. Department of Transportation University Transportation Center headquartered at the University of Florida Transportation Institute.
Research Projects
Featured Research: Transportation Workforce Development for State DOTs to Address Congestion for the Southeast Region
Dr. Ruth Steiner of the University of Florida is leading a project that aims to understand transportation workforce development needs in the Southeastern U.S. as it relates to congestion mitigation. To address these needs, qualified and trained staff with the required knowledge, skills, and abilities are needed. If the transportation workforce is not built and maintained, transportation professionals will not be able to effectively plan, design, manage, and operate an efficient multimodal transportation network to mitigate congestion. Read more.

Featured Research: Mobility-on-Demand Transit for Smart, Sustainable Cities
Dr. Xilei Zhao of the University of Florida is leading a project that is looking at how Mobility-on-Demand (MOD) transit systems can contribute to building smart, sustainable, and equitable cities in the U.S. Given their short history, little is known about their spatiotemporal usage patterns such as how they shape traveler behavior and attitudes and how can these new mobility options be integrated into the existing transit network. Read more.
Micromobility includes shared mobility options such as these e-bikes.
This image of corridor arterials and a freeway interchange shows the eastbound right and westbound left movements that feed the freeway southbound.
Featured Research: Creating a Cooperative Signal Control Tool with Freeway Operations & Ramp Metering to Control Congestion
Dr. Ali Hajbabaie of North Carolina State University (NCSU) is leading a project that aims to reduce congestion along freeway and arterial facilities. Specifically, the research will focus on traffic congestion at the intersection of arterial corridors and freeway facilities by controlling the movements that feed the freeway from the adjacent traffic signals on the arterial and/or interchange. Read more.
Featured Research: Automatic Safety Diagnosis in Connected Vehicle Environment
Dr. Shuang Tu of Jackson State University is leading a project that aims to create a near-crash diagnostic system that will be able to identify conflicts and generate warnings to drivers by processing BSMs in the connected vehicle environment. Dr. Tu hopes to be able to apply Big Data techniques to determine the type of information that can be stored, extracted, and processed from the BSMs for real-time, near-crash diagnosis. He also plans to evaluate individual driver behavior and incorporating that element as an anomaly detection technique into the BSM analysis. Read more.
Connected vehicles are equipped with technology that allows them to communicate with other vehicles and infrastructure alongside a road, city, or highway.
Research Products
Identifying Innovative Mobility Services that Improve Access to Healthcare
Transportation barriers prevent millions of people from accessing healthcare every year. Dr. Noreen McDonald and Dr. Mary Wolfe at UNC researched how shared mobility services, such as ridehailing, are providing new solutions to this persistent problem. Their taxonomy of innovative mobility services can help transit providers develop new partnerships and health care providers identify alternative transportation options for their patients.
Mixed Right-of-Way (Bus) Cluster Peer Agencies
Helping Transit Agencies Understand Changes in Transit Ridership
Transit ridership has decreased steadily but the reasons for this decrease vary widely. Transit agencies hoping to understand changes in their own transit ridership can use the cluster analysis developed by Dr. Kari Watkins at Georgia Tech to find peer agencies with similar characteristics in an effort to develop benchmarks and improve their services.

Improving Pedestrian and Bicycle Safety at Continuous Flow Intersections
Continuous Flow Intersections (CFIs), also known as Displaced Left-turn intersections (DLTs) have grown in popularity, but can create challenges to pedestrians and bicyclists. Dr. Nagui Rouphail at NCSU and his team developed 24 microsimulations to help engineers identify which designs will minimize delays and, in turn, promote safer pedestrian and bicyclist behavior at these intersections. The simulations were conducted in the VISSIM software.
Schematic of Offset Crossing
To access the Bike/Ped Clearinghouse, visit: https://www.scltap.org/bike-ped/

To view a recorded webinar on the Bike/Ped Clearinghouse, click here.
South Carolina Bicycle & Pedestrian Clearinghouse
Led by Dr. Dimitra Michalaka, along with Dr. Jeff Davis and Dr. Kweku Brown, all faculty members at The Citadel, this STRIDE-funded project created a clearinghouse for bicycle and pedestrian resources to support infrastructure planning, design, and operations for South Carolina’s transportation and planning agencies, including engineering consultants. The clearinghouse was created in collaboration with South Carolina’s Department of Transportation and the state's Local Technical Assistance Program.
Carolina Tracker: A COVID-19 Recovery Resource
Dr. Noreen McDonald, along with other colleagues at UNC, worked to create a platform that makes publicly available economic data accessible to help inform policymakers’ decisions on the state’s economic recovery. They have launched a website called Carolina Tracker: A Resource for Recovery, which includes a dashboard to track indicators across different domains such as employment and the economy, travel patterns, real estate, and society. Read more.
Get to Know Our Researchers
Researcher Spotlight @ UF
Dr. Mehri "Mehrsa” Mohebbi
Dr. Mehri “Mehrsa” Mohebbi is a research faculty at the University of Florida Transportation Institute leading the Equity in Transportation Initiative. Dr. Mohebbi is currently working on STRIDE Project C4 (Transportation Workforce Development for State DOTs to Address Congestion for the Southeast Region), led by Dr. Ruth Steiner of the University of Florida. Read more.
Researcher Spotlight @ NCSU
Dr. Ali Hajbabaie
Dr. Ali Hajbabaie is an assistant professor in the Department of Civil, Construction, & Environmental Engineering at North Carolina State University (NCSU) who specializes in traffic operations and control. He and his team develop distributed optimization algorithms for real-time traffic control in transportation networks focusing on traffic signal control, speed harmonization, traffic metering, and traffic assignment. Read more.
Education
Student Spotlight @ UF
Luan Guilherme Staichak Carvalho, Ph.D. Student
Luan Guilherme Staichak Carvalho is a doctoral student affiliated with the University of Florida Transportation Institute who specializes in machine learning and mathematical optimization. As novel technologies such as connected and autonomous vehicles emerge, Staichak Carvalho is applying this knowledge to the optimization of urban intersections. Read more about Luan and his research here.
Student Spotlight @ FIU
Mosammat Tahnin Tariq, Ph.D. Student
Mosammat Tahnin Tariq is a doctoral student in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Florida International University working on developing signal timing strategies during non-recurrent congestion in the arterial network by using advanced analytics and emerging data sources. Tariq is motivated by the challenge of improving the performance of transportation systems because of the dynamic nature of traffic flow and the complexity of the overall transportation network. Read more about Tahnin and her research here.
Student Spotlight @ UNC
Lindsay Martin Oluyede, Ph.D. Candidate
Lindsay Martin Oluyede is a doctoral candidate at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill specializing in transportation decision-making. She became interested in transportation equity and inclusive transportation decision-making while working at the consulting firm ICF after completing a master’s degree in urban and regional planning at Virginia Institute of Technology. Read more about Lindsay and her research here.
STRIDE Funds Master's Capstone Projects at UNC Chapel Hill
The STRIDE Center provided funding for capstone projects at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The projects were very diverse and included developing a bike plan for a local town, creating an interactive data dashboard on travel behavior in the U.S., and analyzing a local transit system’s efforts to use ride-hailing for first-mile access. Read more.
Technology Transfer
K-12 Updates
Citadel Professor Teaches Summer Virtual Tour of Engineering
Dr. Michalaka of The Citadel, taught a “Tour of Engineering” program as part of the virtual summer camp organized by the South Carolina Governor’s School of Science and Mathematics (SCGSSM). Read more.
Tennessee Tech Develops Online Training for High School Teachers
Tennessee Tech University developed and implemented a 20-hour, online STEM-in-Motion teacher training during the summer of 2020. Read more.
STRIDE & UF Innovation Station Introduce Students to Transportation
Engineering
Students at Booker Middle School in Sarasota County learned about transportation engineering and career opportunities, and participated in an online activity testing their reaction time. Read more.
STRIDE Mentors Future City Engineering Club
UF STRIDE staff mentored Howard Bishop Middle School students in Gainesville, FL remotely as they designed a 3D model of a lunar city in preparation for the regional Future City competition. Students conducted Zoom interviews with UF engineering students researching space transportation and materials. Read more.
Other News
Congratulations to UAB doctoral student Brandy McKinney in receiving the National Alumni Society 2020 Distinguished Alumni Scholarship. McKinney is working with Dr. Virginia Sisiopiku. Read more.
Congratulations to UFTI affiliate and lead of the Data Analytics Group Dr. Sanjay Ranka for winning the Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Technical Committee on Cloud Computing Impact Award. This award recognizes senior researchers or educators for significant contributions in the field of cloud computing. 
STRIDE Partners
University of Florida Transportation Institute (UFTI)
Southeastern Transportation Research, Innovation, Development & Education Center (STRIDE)