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In the nineteen fifties and sixties, students of transportation focused on building infrastructure and applied lessons from the physical sciences to designing mobility. Mobility was facilely linked to the engines of economic growth and expanding GDP. In time, that perspective was replaced by a focus on transportation systems and networks. There was a newfound emphasis on environmental impacts, land use, and intermodal freight. There was also a growing concern on unpriced externalities. Today, Joseph Sussman explains, with many of those problems still unsolved, transportation has entered a new phase-- a period of immense complexity or CLIOS, which stands for complex, large scale, interconnected, open and sociotechical is an acronym that is becoming the mantra of transportation engineers. While it is not as far-reaching as "chaos" to a physicist, it is an approach with far-reaching consequences for the transportation field.

To participate in “Complexity 101” engineers must take account of stochastic systems, difficulties relating cause and effect, and non-linear behaviors. They must also recognize complex feedback loops between macro and micro issues; time scale anomalies, and evaluative complexity brought by new stakeholders. Sussman observes,

From the MIT News Office:

Research has shown that talking on a phone while driving, even with a hands-free cell phone, causes as much of an impairment to driving ability as being drunk. And yet, says U.S. Secretary of Transportation
Ray LaHood, while the nation has successfully cracked down on drunk driving, when it comes to cell phone use in cars, nearly everybody does it.

This dangerous “epidemic” must stop, he said, and he hopes that smart people like the students at MIT will come up with ways — technological, social or political — to help curb the phenomenon, which kills thousands of people every year and causes many thousands more injuries.

To emphasize the point, LaHood invited a local couple, Jerry Cibley and Jeri Katz of Foxborough, Massachusetts, to come to his talk to share their experience: Three years ago, Jerry was talking on the phone to his son Jordan, who was driving at the time; Jordan dropped the phone during the conversation, bent down to pick it up, and slammed into a tree. He was killed instantly.

In calling for students to help find solutions to the problem, LaHood

Our conversations on sustainable transportation typically begin with a review of vehicle efficiencies, and end with the characteristics of fuel, energy sources, and life cycle. In a remarkably novel approach to sustainable transportation, Krystyn Van Vliet discusses how other things matter too- namely the materials we build our bridges from, the infrastructure of the road, and of course, the tires we drive on. They are all parts of the sustainable equation. For the U.S. to achieve the reductions in C02 consistent with the 2050 Kyoto protocols, a substantial portion of that must be made by reducing the CO2 from the construction of highways and bridges.

Vliet tell us that traditionally, materials used to build transportation infrastructures are high volume ones that are critical for their performance, but also for human life- they are grossly overdesigned in case of failure. Once the materials are proven and accepted- there is a long road to changing them- not unlike the road of the FDA approving a new drug. Van Vliet adds: “ Since the materials are used in such large volumes why has there been relatively so little innovation in them?

From the MIT News Office:

NASA Administrator Charles F. Bolden Jr. defended President Barack Obama’s controversial plans for the U.S. space agency’s future and touted the president’s plan to invest billions of dollars in basic science research.

Some in Congress have criticized Obama’s proposal to cancel the Constellation program, which would have sent humans to the moon by 2020, saying such a move will effectively cede U.S. space leadership to other nations. But Bolden noted that the White House’s plan would also invest an additional $6 billion in NASA over the next five years, including a 60-percent increase in earth sciences research funding, as well as a 20-percent increase in planetary sciences research. Such an expansion could revitalize NASA’s ties with institutions like MIT, which has played an instrumental role in the agency since NASA was founded in 1958.

Bolden said NASA was going through what he called a “difficult, but very interesting” period. As a former astronaut who completed four space flights, Bolden expressed sadness about the prospect of ending NASA’s space-shuttle fleet, admitting he is “emotionally attached” to the shuttle program. But he insisted that NASA is

Knowing more about the environmental impacts of aviation is increasingly essential, but according to
Ian Waitz, it is also an area where uncertainties abound. One thing we know for sure is that the airplanes developed today will be flying for next 30 years, as the fleet dynamics are very stable, due to the extraordinary costs and lead-time to design and build. Meanwhile, an increasingly affluent population will travel more, and more of that travel will take place on today’s airplanes.

Waitz and his students have been developing state-of-the art modeling impacts, and advising the Federal Aviation Agency (FAA). He characterizes the environmental impacts of aviation into three broad categories. The most omnipotent impact, noise pollution, is associated with quality-of -life issues, health, and property loss. Waitz observes that noise pollution is observed by the public, typically at levels of 55 to 70 decibels. It is estimated to cost about half a billion dollars in property losses within the United States. The aviation industry is able to mitigate some of this burden on homeowners from a dedicated tax on ticket revenue.

A second environmental impact results from gaseous pollutants

Firefighters need to take special cautions when dealing with a strip mall inferno.

Jim Pharr investigates doughnut burn patterns and the pooling of liquids to find ignitable liquids.