Every four years, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) issues its Report Card for America's Infrastructure. Expressed in reader-friendly letter grades, the ratings document the current state of the country's major infrastructure assets, while also identifying needed improvements and contextualizing the relative health of these assets over time. Today, we talk to two experts--TTI's Edith Arámbula Mercado and the Texas Department of Transportation's Jamie Farris--about ASCE's 2025 report...
Jul 08, 2025•33 min•Season 4Ep. 3
April is National Distracted Driving Awareness Month. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that more than 40,000 Americans died on U.S. roadways in 2023. We talk with TTI safety experts Emily Martin and Srinivas Geedipally about how distracted driving can lead to tragedy and what we can do, as drivers and passengers, to make our travels safer for everyone.
Apr 29, 2025•32 min•Season 4Ep. 2
Tracing its origins to the Air Commerce Act of 1926, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) was established in 1967 as an independent agency inside the U.S. DOT charged with investigating why transportation accidents happen. In 1974, it became an independent federal agency separate from the DOT. Although largely focused on aviation, the agency also investigates roadway, marine, pipeline, and railroad accidents, as well as those involving commercial space. Today, we talk with Robert L. S...
Mar 25, 2025•37 min•Season 4Ep. 1
In 1950, the Texas A&M Board of Directors charged the Texas Transportation Institute (now the Texas A&M Transportation Institute, or TTI) to enlist the broad resources of the college across the spectrum of transportation research to benefit Texas, while also providing unique educational opportunities for students to study and work in the field. This agreement solidified the Cooperative Research Program between the then-Texas Highway Department (now the Texas Department of Transportation)...
Mar 04, 2025•48 min•Season 3Ep. 28
Folks are living longer thanks to medical breakthroughs and healthier lifestyles, and that means our overall U.S. population is skewing older. The Texas Demographic Center notes that the U.S. population aged 65 and older spiked between 2010 and 2020, the largest 10-year growth on record. That means more drivers on the road are older too, and statistics show that licensees over 70 jumped from 73 percent in 1997 to 87 percent in 2022. A year ago, Bernie Fette talked with TTI's Myunghoon Ko about t...
Feb 04, 2025•26 min•Season 3Ep. 27
Roundabouts and other innovative intersections offer a number of advantages over more traditional designs, including improved sustainability, reliability, and resilience--and astonishing benefits to traffic safety for drivers. Amanda Austin, the Texas Department of Transportation's (TxDOT's) lead in implementing these alternative designs, and TTI Research Engineer Marcus Brewer join us this episode to discuss them. For more information on TxDOT's work in this area, see the department's Innovativ...
Jan 21, 2025•40 min•Season 3Ep. 26
In June 2024, TTI's Roadside Safety and Physical Security Team crashed a Tesla Model 3 electric vehicle (EV) into a heavy-duty guardrail at 62 miles per hour. When the EV blew right through the barrier, researchers were stunned. TTI Senior Research Engineer Roger Bligh, whose 38 years of roadside safety barrier testing experience oversaw the test, joins guest host and TTI Agency Director Greg Winfree to discuss the results of the testing and the broader implications for standards governing the d...
Jan 06, 2025•24 min•Season 3Ep. 25
Administered by the U.S. Department of Transportation, the University Transportation Centers Program provides grants to college and university consortia across America. With an emphasis on innovating transportation technologies, educating the next generation of transportation professionals, and transferring technology to share lessons learned, the program leverages the best academic talent at U.S. institutions of higher learning to solve mobility and safety problems that affect all Americans. Dr...
Dec 17, 2024•41 min•Season 3Ep. 24
For more than two decades, TTI has championed young driver safety, preventing injury and saving lives through education, empowerment, and peer-led outreach. Supported by public- and private-sector sponsors, the Institute's Youth Transportation Safety (YTS) Program recently published Texas Trends, 2024 , which captures data regarding young driver attitudes, codifies ongoing crash and injury trends, and helps us better understand the causes behind more than 900 young driver traffic deaths each yea...
Dec 03, 2024•23 min•Season 3Ep. 23
International commerce depends on trucks crossing national borders regularly, reliably, and securely. Ports of entry like the bridges connecting the United States and Mexico in El Paso, Texas, are vital to both nations' economic vitality. But what happens when a major conduit like The Bridge of the Americas is closed for updating? Where does that traffic go? How can we keep those goods flowing without negatively impacting the surrounding community? We interview experts from TTI's Center for Inte...
Nov 12, 2024•31 min•Season 3Ep. 22
Texas A&M University's Department of Multidisciplinary Engineering offers an online master of engineering in engineering degree designed for engineering professionals interested in management. Led by the Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI), this program offers valuable real-world experience from qualified instructors in topics like working with city governments to help graduates become better managers or begin management careers. Two of the instructors, TTI's Brianne Glover and Jim ...
Oct 29, 2024•25 min•Season 3Ep. 21
On September 17, 2024, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine released a report following a study of freight trains longer than 7,500 feet and their impacts on local communities. Requested by the U.S. Congress, the report recommends empowering regulatory agencies to address challenges such as safety concerns and traffic delays due to blocked crossings. Our host, TTI's Allan Rutter, served as one of twelve members on the consensus study panel that produced the report. He tal...
Oct 15, 2024•36 min•Season 3Ep. 20
The Washington Post recently reported that electric vehicles (EVs) now outnumber gas-powered cars in Norway, the first country to claim that distinction. The U.S. Joint Office of Energy and Transportation --a shared agency of the U.S. Departments of Energy and Transportation--was created in 2021 under the bipartisan infrastructure law to help facilitate the adoption of electric vehicles across the United States. Gabriel Klein, executive director of the Joint Office, and Joe Zietsman, deputy dire...
Sep 24, 2024•50 min•Season 3Ep. 19
With National Truck Driver Appreciation Week (Sept. 15-21) just around the corner, it seemed a good time to revisit our interview with Mark Willis from almost exactly one year ago. This is the week in which the trucking industry celebrates the contributions of roughly 3.5 million professional truck drivers nationwide, who deliver the essential goods our families rely on, from food to fuel to medicine to clothing. Mark is host of the afternoon show on Road Dog Trucking, channel 146 on SiriusXM, a...
Sep 10, 2024•25 min•Season 3Ep. 18
This 89th episode of Thinking Transportation is a landmark event. Host Bernie Fette, who is retiring from service to the state of Texas after more than 30 years, is passing the podcast hosting baton to Allan Rutter, TTI's Freight Practice Leader. Included in his decades of transportation-related employment, Allan served as Federal Railroad Administrator under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2004. Allan interviews Bernie about his many years of experience as a journalist, media expert, podc...
Aug 27, 2024•35 min•Season 3Ep. 17
Factors that determine speed limits on a given roadway have a lot to do with physical conditions along the route, but how fast drivers want to go figures into the equation, too.
Aug 15, 2024•30 min•Season 3Ep. 16
When special events set new records for attendance, they tend to do the same for roadway gridlock. To ensure success, experts rely on the right mix of traffic planning and outreach.
Jul 30, 2024•25 min•Season 3Ep. 15
Building a new highway involves a complex and painstaking process, one that begins years before the folks in hard hats and orange vests arrive on the scene.
Jul 16, 2024•29 min•Season 3Ep. 14
We rely upon waterborne shipping for most of the products we buy and use every day. We hardly give that reliance any thought at all – until something goes wrong.
Jun 25, 2024•26 min•Season 3Ep. 13
It’s not enough to know that traffic is bad and getting worse. We also need to know where, when, and why. TTI Senior Research Scientist and urban mobility expert David Schrank joins us to discuss the "how" of answering those questions.
Jun 11, 2024•33 min•Season 3Ep. 12
As the 2024 hurricane season approaches again, climate experts across the United States are predicting an especially active season, driven largely by higher-than-average sea surface temperatures. This makes ever more important the research and planning that begins long before extreme weather strikes, and continues long after the storm has passed.
May 28, 2024•20 min•Season 3Ep. 11
As car makers focus on protecting drivers and passengers, do their computer-based innovations really make us safer, or might they in some cases compromise our safety?
May 14, 2024•37 min•Season 3Ep. 10
FHWA Administrator Shailen Bhatt and TTI Agency Director Greg Winfree reflect upon a wide range of mobility challenges and opportunities, with references to Star Wars, Dick Tracy and hair styles.
Apr 30, 2024•46 min•Season 3Ep. 9
Artificial intelligence seeks to replicate the analytical and creative capabilities of the human brain. Perhaps that lofty ambition helps to explain why so many humans are leery of the idea.
Apr 16, 2024•32 min•Season 3Ep. 8
Cities working to become leaders in clean transportation are electrifying their bus fleets, and learning that the road to success can be a bumpy one.
Apr 02, 2024•29 min•Season 3Ep. 7
The former leader of TRB may have stepped away from full-time employment, but he hasn’t stepped away entirely from the industry he has helped to guide for half a century.
Mar 19, 2024•46 min•Season 3Ep. 6
Every road construction project involves the hidden element of utilities in the right of way. That work isn’t necessarily as visible, but it’s every bit as consequential.
Mar 05, 2024•27 min•Season 3Ep. 5
The transit industry is better equipped to work through a public health crisis than it was before COVID-19. And even as it faces persistent challenges, public transportation continues to play a central role in everyday mobility.
Feb 22, 2024•32 min•Season 3Ep. 4
Drivers over age 80 are more prone to serious and deadly crashes. As this population segment grows, researchers are working toward fresh countermeasures.
Feb 06, 2024•26 min•Season 3Ep. 3
Attitudes and behaviors related to driving reveal our traffic safety culture. Like other forms of culture, it has a way of changing over time— and not always for the better.
Jan 23, 2024•26 min•Season 3Ep. 2
