Summit on Transforming Transportation: Economies and Communities

Summit Presentations

Many thanks to those who participated in the summit and for making it a success.

View the presentations of over fifty presenters who spoke at the summit.

Videos of the presentations will be available shortly.

April 7 – 9, 2011
Westin Book Cadillac Hotel, Detroit, Michigan

In April 2011, business and labor leaders, policymakers, innovators, and research scholars from the U.S. and abroad will convene in Detroit. Their mission will be to advance knowledge, systems, and solutions that can transform the future of transportation and revitalize economies and communities in Michigan and beyond. The program will combine high level plenary sessions with focused, collaborative working sessions, an open poster session, many opportunities for sharing work, and local social and cultural visits in Detroit.

For this inaugural summit, TTRCC has joined forces with UM-SMART's Annual Summit

Program

View Detailed Program

View summit presentations

Innovation Agenda

Innovation strands will explore:

Strands

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Who is Making this Happen?

The summit is hosted by the Transforming Transportation Research Corridor Consortium (TTRCC), comprising Michigan University Research Corridor institutions, Michigan State University, Wayne State University, and the University of Michigan in partnership with Michigan-based representatives from all sectors. The consortium was established to help us understand and advance transportation’s role within the profoundly shifting contexts of the transportation industry, the economy, and our communities. We seek to accelerate implementation of innovative transportation solutions and systems at the intersection of technology, livability, labor, supply chain, economic and environmental sustainability, social equity, and public policy.

Why is This Needed?

Transforming transportation requires fundamental realignment of an industry and a culture that has served in the past as the basis of state and local economies. Transportation industries have supported generations of workers and characterized the core identity of many communities and regions, particularly in Michigan. As these industries, technologies, and cultures change, leaders from all sectors will need a systematic, multi-disciplinary program of applied research that can provide evidence-based insights and strategies to address these profound changes and inform policy and practice on into the future. The TTRCC has emerged to fill a major gap in systematic research on transforming the future of transportation.

What is the Goal?

A key outcome of the summit will be to advance applied research, starting with a cross-discipline, cross-sector “Research and Action Agenda for the Transformation of Transportation in Michigan and Beyond.” Inspired and informed by high level, integrative plenary sessions, attendees will work together in focused and collaborative settings that are conducive to identifying key research and action questions and opportunities. City and community leaders, business leaders, and entrepreneurs will bring their challenges and innovations, along with ideas about the data and conceptual frameworks that could support the advancement of their transformational efforts. Research scholars will bring their knowledge, networks, and analytical tools, as well as some ideas about how to apply them to understanding and addressing these transportation related challenges and opportunities. This rich interaction will form the basis of the Research and Action Agenda, to be completed and distributed to participants shortly after the summit.

Outcomes will not be limited to the Research Agenda. Solid results from the summit will also include:

  • key research and action questions related to the strands and beyond
  • transportation-related opportunities in Michigan and among worldwide partners
  • specific research projects and partnerships
  • new educational opportunities and programs focused on transportation
  • new partnerships for action in Michigan and elsewhere
  • additional collaborators who should be invited to participate
  • innovative business ideas and models
  • topic specific networks for action
  • identification of ways to continue the work of the strands after the summit

*Note: The SMART Summit, hosted annually at the University of Michigan, and TTRCC have merged this year to create the Transforming Transportation Summit. For background and video footage of previous SMART summits, see http://www.um-smart.org/resources/enews_events.php.