News and Events
April 2024: On Friday, April 12th, The Alabama Transportation Institute (ATI) hosted its inaugural Transportation Awareness Day, at the Hale County College and Career Academy in Greensboro, AL. This event aimed to provide elementary and middle school students in the area with unique opportunities to explore careers in transportation.By engaging with interactive exhibits hosted by transportation researchers and entities from across the state, 310 students in grades 5-8 gained valuable insights into the diverse array of career paths available within the transportation industry. Read more...
April 2024: Alabama Transportation Institute, in collaboration with various educational and scientific entities, proudly hosted its first-ever Community STEM Festival at The Greensboro High School Gymnasium in Greensboro, AL. A total of 255 community members, including students, parents, educators, policy makers and STEM enthusiasts, attended the festival, underscoring the community's eagerness to embrace and explore science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Read more...
MAR 2024: The City of Greensboro Senior Leadership team visited NCA&T's rural AV test facility on March 20, 2024. This gathering brings together department heads and representatives from the city manager’s office to visit the facility and also share timely information regarding city operations, programs and services. Read more...
FEB. 2024: From February 19th to the 23rd, NCAT celebrated Engineer Week! Our Outreach program played a pivotal role in engaging young minds and fostering interest in engineering. Read more...
JAN. 2024: Yardbird in Washington D.C. played host to CR2C2’s first in-person Networking and Information Exchange event on January 8, 2024. Read more...
JAN. 2024: CR2C2 Researchers presented their research works at the 2024 Transportation Research Board Meeting. Read more ...
OCT. 2023: On October 13th at the Greensboro History Museum, the first pilot program for the Aggie Auto Shuttle project bid farewell to its successful journey - for now. Read more...
OCT. 2023: UNC-Chapel Hill Students visited Aggie Autonomous Shuttles effort as a part of PLAN 637: Public Transit course. Read more ...
SEP. 2023: CR2C2 researchers launched Aggie Autonomous Shuttles to serve the underserved community in East Greensboro. Read more ...
SEP. 2023: Dr. Evangelos Kaisar co-organized a workshop on Smart Freight Transportation: Last-Mile Logistics Challenges in the “New Normal” at the 26th IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems ITSC 2023 that took place in September 2023 in Bilbao Bizkaia, Spain. Read more ...
SEP. 2023: CR2C2 Researchers and NCDOT organized a workshop for first responders on Sep 13, 2023, to discuss the incident management plan for Aggie Autonomous Shuttles before their public deployment. Read more ...
SEP. 2023: A team from CR2C2 is organizing a workshop for first responders on AV incident management. The workshop is expected to provide hands-on experiences on different aspects of incident management for autonomous vehicles with a focus on Aggie Autonomous Shuttles ahead of their public deployment in Sep 2023. Read more ...
SEP. 2023: What are the challenges to developing connected autonomous vehicles for rural roads? Watch the PBS documentary about the effort of CR2C2 researchers to develop autonomous cars. Read more ...
AUG. 2023: Interested in joining our research team? We are hiring a postdoc in advanced transportation technology! Read more ...
AUG. 2023: The Center for Regional and Rural Connected Communities (CR2C2) is calling for project ideas to be awarded as Research and Education Exploratory (REE) Grants. Read more ...
JUL. 2023: CR2C2 supported the Summer Transportation Institute and hosted a record of 20 participants. The participants were rising juniors and seniors hailing from North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, New York, Texas, Maryland, and Virginia. Read more ...
JUN. 2023: Around 40 high school students and teachers from Eastern North Carolina toured the CR2C2 facility. Saunders Science Scholars Program was modeled after Morehead’s family science enrichment program, which encourages young people and their families to get more involved with science. The program is part of outreach initiatives that address gaps in STEM education across North Carolina, specifically in rural communities such as Gates County. Read more ...
MAY. 2023: NCA&T hosted the Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CAV) Strategic Plan Workshop on May 24-25, 2023. The objective of the workshop was to engage stakeholders across North Carolina to update the CAV Strategic Plan to reflect the needs and goals of North Carolina as reflected within the industry. The Plan will have four distinct topics, including:
Operations and Maintenance
Education and Outreach
Multimodal and Freight
Legislative
During the workshop, attendees also had the opportunity to visit the transportation technology facility at NCA&T, including a state-of-the-art CAV simulator.
APR. 2023: A team from CR2C2 received $172k technology transfer funding. In this technology transfer funding, the team will pilot the autonomy-enabled Polaris GEM E6 vehicles in a microtransit service on a route that connects NC A&T’s campus to downtown Greensboro. This will be achieved through (1) Identifying the appropriate route and safe stops in coordination with stakeholders, (2) Developing the in-vehicle data collection systems and surveys to assess the acceptability of the Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) and public perception of AVs, (3) Developing communication systems to connect AVs to a control room, to the cloud, and the users, (4) Developing user-friendly application software for users to request a ride and track the vehicles, (5) Building a map and address the technical challenges for deployment of vehicles throughout the identified route, (6) Actual deployment of the autonomous vehicles between NC A&T’s campus and downtown Greensboro, and (7) Analyzing and reporting the collected data and the deployment process. Read more ...
FEB. 2023: North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State has been selected to initiate the Center for Regional and Rural Connected Communities (CR2C2) using a $3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation with up to four years of additional support, totaling $15 million. The consortium members will contribute $15 million in matching funds, making the total investment in this project $30 million. Read more ...