Professor Joseph Sussman of MIT’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) has been elected to the Intelligent Transportation Society of America Hall of Fame.
Sussman’s involvement with the Intelligent Transportation Society movement dates back to the late 1980s — before the official organization’s launch in 1991. Sussman will be honored during the Intelligent Transportation Society of America (ITS America) 25th anniversary reception on Tuesday, June 2, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
ITS America is regarded as the nation’s largest organization dedicated to progressing the research, development, and deployment of intelligent transportation systems (ITS), paving the way for improvement of society’s transportation systems. Its membership includes more than 450 agencies, private sector companies, and prestigious academic and research institutions.
Elections to the ITS America Hall of Fame are made annually, and are rooted in recipients’ proven leadership in the transportation technology arena. One requirement is that each individual must be an advocate and demonstrator of technology’s role in transportation. According to the society’s website, recipients personify achievement in the ultimate standards for a leader in the ITS field.
Sussman has been a faculty member in CEE for 43 years. In 2006, he initiated the transportation systems focus area for the MIT-Portugal Program, a five-year program consisting of education and research. His MIT-Portugal work includes participation in the development and teaching, in collaboration with three Portuguese universities, of a new international MS in transportation systems and in research in ITS.
Sussman has also worked on ITS to help build a U.S. national program. He served as the first Distinguished University Scholar at ITS America from 1991-92, and was the only academic member among the core group of five who wrote the first ITS America strategic plan, a 20-year plan for research, development, testing, and deployment. He has worked on the development of an “intelligent corridor” in Bangkok; a comparison of ITS programs in Western Europe, Japan, and the U.S.; commercial vehicle operations; building regional architectures in Massachusetts; and emergency response and institutional issues concerning ITS and the provision of “flexibility” in surface transportation through intelligent technologies. He was the program chair of the ITS America annual meeting in 2000; he served several terms on the ITS America board; and he has conducted short courses in ITS for practicing professionals in the U. S. and abroad. Currently, he serves as the chairman of the Intelligent Transportation Systems Program Advisory Committee for the U.S. Department of Transportation, advising the department on all facets of its Intelligent Transportation Systems Program.
