The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is the largest transportation agency of the U.S. government and regulates all aspects of civil aviation in the country as well as over surrounding international waters. Its powers include air traffic control, certification of personnel and aircraft, setting standards for airports, and protection of U.S. assets during the launch or re-entry of commercial space vehicles. Powers over neighboring international waters were delegated to the FAA by authority of the International Civil Aviation Organization.
The United States Department of Transportation is one of the executive departments of the U.S. federal government. It is headed by the secretary of transportation, who reports directly to the president of the United States and is a member of the president's Cabinet.
Kendall Square is a neighborhood in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The square itself at the intersection of Main Street and Broadway. It also refers to the broad business district east of Portland Street, northwest of the Charles River, north of MIT and south of Binney Street.
The MIT Lincoln Laboratory, located in Lexington, Massachusetts, is a United States Department of Defense federally funded research and development center chartered to apply advanced technology to problems of national security. Research and development activities focus on long-term technology development as well as rapid system prototyping and demonstration. Its core competencies are in sensors, integrated sensing, signal processing for information extraction, decision-making support, and communications. These efforts are aligned within ten mission areas. The laboratory also maintains several field sites around the world.
John Anthony Volpe was an American businessman, diplomat, and politician from Massachusetts. A son of Italian immigrants, he founded and owned a large construction firm. Politically, he was a Republican in increasingly Democratic Massachusetts, serving as its 61st and 63rd Governor from 1961 to 1963 and 1965 to 1969, as the United States Secretary of Transportation from 1969 to 1973, and as the United States Ambassador to Italy from 1973 to 1977. As Secretary of Transportation, Volpe was an important figure in the development of the Interstate Highway System at the federal level.
The Research and Innovative Technology Administration (RITA) is a unit of the United States Department of Transportation (USDOT). It was created in 2005 to advance transportation science, technology, and analysis, as well as improve the coordination of transportation research within the department and throughout the transportation community.
The Electronics Research Center (ERC) was a NASA research facility located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, across the street from MIT at Kendall Square. The ERC opened in September 1964 as the successor to the North Eastern Operations Office which opened in July 1962. The Center took over the administration of contracts, grants, and other NASA business in New England from the North Eastern Operations Office, and was closed in June 1970. Its former campus is now the site of the United States Department of Transportation's John A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center.
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) is an agency in the United States Department of Transportation that regulates the trucking industry in the United States. The primary mission of the FMCSA is to reduce crashes, injuries, and fatalities involving large trucks and buses.
The MIT School of Engineering (SoE) is one of the five schools of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. SoE has eight academic departments and two interdisciplinary institutes. The School grants SB, MEng, SM, engineer's degrees, and PhD or ScD degrees. As of 2017, the Dean of Engineering is Professor Anantha Chandrakasan. The school is the largest at MIT as measured by undergraduate and graduate enrollments and faculty members.
James Nelson Hallock is an American physicist. He has contributed to NASA's Gemini and Apollo missions and served on the Columbia Accident Investigation Board. He is a leading scientist in wake vortices, and co-authored two patents and over 150 papers.
The American Trucking Associations (ATA), founded in 1933, is the largest national trade association for the trucking industry. ATA represents more than 37,000 members covering every type of motor carrier in the United States through a federation of other trucking groups, industry-related conferences, and its 50 affiliated state trucking associations. Former Governor of Kansas Bill Graves was replaced by Chris Spear as the ATA's president and CEO in July 2016.
Raymond P. Martinez was a Senior Advisor at the U.S. Department of Transportation and the former Administrator of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. From 2010 to 2018, Martinez served as the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission Chair and Chief Administrator in the Cabinet of Governor Chris Christie. He previously served as Deputy Chief of Protocol for the United States Department of State and as New York State Commissioner of Motor Vehiclesin the Cabinet of Governor George Pataki.
The Maritime Safety & Security Information System (MSSIS) is a freely-shared, unclassified, near real-time data collection and distribution network. Its member countries share data from Automatic Identification System (AIS), coastal radar, and other maritime-related systems. MSSIS combines the data from participating nations into a single data stream through secure Internet-based servers. Through MSSIS, participating governments can view real-time AIS data from around the world in a wide range of geographic display options, including text, photo overlays, electronic charts, and Google Earth. Displays can also integrate additional features such as user-provided radar overlays.
The Transportation Technology Center (TTC) is a railroad equipment testing and training facility located northeast of Pueblo, Colorado, owned by the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA). It was built in 1971 as the High Speed Ground Test Center (HSGTC) for the Department of Transportation (DOT) and its original purpose was to test several hovertrain concepts. When those projects were completed in the 1970s, the site was handed to the FRA.
The National Transportation Library (NTL) maintains and facilitates access to information necessary for transportation decision-making in government and coordinates with public and private transportation libraries and information providers to improve information sharing among the transportation community. It is currently under the administration of the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS).
Cambridge Systematics, Inc. is an independent, employee-owned transportation consultancy firm with corporate headquarters located in Medford, Massachusetts. Cambridge Systematics provides strategic planning and management services, objective analysis, and technology applications for passenger, commercial, freight, and transit systems to public and private sectors both nationally and internationally.
The United States has an extensive air transportation network. In 2013, there were 86 airports in the U.S. that annually handled over 1,000,000 passengers each. The civil airline industry is entirely privately owned and has been largely deregulated since 1978, while most major airports are publicly owned. The three largest airlines in the world by passengers carried are U.S.-based; American Airlines is number one after its 2013 acquisition by US Airways. Of the world's 50 busiest passenger airports, 16 are in the United States, including the top five and the busiest, Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport. In terms of cargo, in 2015, eight of the world's thirty busiest airports were in the U.S., including the world's second-busiest, Memphis International Airport, just behind Hong Kong International Airport in Hong Kong. Private aircraft are also used for medical emergencies, government agencies, large businesses, and individuals.
Peter H. Appel was the administrator of the Research and Innovative Technology Administration (RITA). From 2009 to 2011 Appel was the Obama Administration point person on transportation technology issues and research. He left RITA in late 2011 for the private sector to work on emerging technologies in the transportation industry.
Pedestrian railroad safety is concerned with the protection of life through regulation, management and technology development of all forms of rail transportation. In the United States there are some 180,000 miles of track. Pedestrian railroad accidents are the leading cause of death on railways. More than 7,200 pedestrians have been killed by trains in the United States since 1997.
Stephanie Pollack is an American government official who served as the deputy administrator of the Federal Highway Administration. Pollack also served as acting administrator pending Senate confirmation of administrator nominee Shailen Bhatt. From 2015 to 2021 Pollack served as the secretary and CEO of the Massachusetts Department of Transportation. Pollack previously worked for the Conservation Law Foundation (CLF), the Greater Boston Institute, BlueWave Strategies, and Northeastern University before starting her position at MassDOT. Pollack was the first female secretary of transportation in Massachusetts.
