IRF R2T Virtual Conference: Full Schedule

10:00am EDT

Opening Session - Delivering the Next Generation of Roads

Speakers

Mohamed Abdel-Aty

Trustee Chair & Pegasus Professor and Chair, University of Central Florida

Dr. Mohamed Abdel-Aty, PE is a Trustee Endowed Chair at the University of Central Florida (UCF). He is a Pegasus Distinguished Professor and the Chair of the Civil, Environmental and Construction Engineering Department at UCF. He is leading the Future City initiative at UCF. As part... Read More →

Daniel Avdagic

CEO, AV Living Lab

Daniel previously served as External Digital Transformation Leader at Deutsche Telekom and Telekom Slovenije, as well as Account Manager at Cisco. He began his career in 1998 at cable company. Daniel was a project coordinator of Smart City consortium consisted of 16 entities from... Read More →

Wednesday July 7, 2021 10:00am - 10:45am EDT

Plenary Session

11:00am EDT

Readying Roads for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles

Various regional initiatives are currently underway to propose an automation-readiness classification method applicable to the road infrastructure (similar to SAE levels for the vehicle feet). This session featuring industry representatives with complimentary expertise will discuss these nascent initiatives while providing expert views on ensuring both the physical and digital infrastructure provide an optimal environment to deploy Connected and Automated Vehicles (CAVs). The overarching question to be answered is whether it would be possible to bring all this together into a globally recognized ‘CAV Infrastructure Readiness Level’ assessment system’.

Speakers

Paul Carlson

Chief Technology Officer, Road Infrastructure, Inc.

Paul Carlson has over 20 years of experience associated with highway safety, traffic control devices, visibility, and identifying driver needs. While he has authored or co-author over 100 technical papers or research reports, his ultimate drive is to move research findings from reports... Read More →

Stamatis Manganiaris

Senior Researcher, Project Manager, I-SENSE Research Group of the Greek Institute of Communication and Computer Systems (ICCS)

Stamatis Manganiaris has obtained his Diploma in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens in 1992. He obtained his MBA in Telecoms from Athens University of Economics and Business in 2008. He has got experience in high-end technology and... Read More →

Jan Ellsberger

Vice President, Industry Development I Corporate Strategy, Huawei

Jan Ellsberger is Vice President of Industry Development in Huawei’s Corporate Strategy department and is responsible for research & innovation and industry & standardization activities in the areas of automotive and transportation. Jan is currently member of the ERTICO Strategy... Read More →

Johannes Peter Bauer

Safety Director, European Automobile Manufacturers' Association (ACEA)

Johannes Peter Bauer is Safety Director at ACEA the European Automobile Manufacturers Association. He has more than 25 years of working experience in automotive industry as employee of BMW Group with many years in senior management positions. Starting in power train development followed... Read More →

Wednesday July 7, 2021 11:00am - 12:15pm EDT

Executive Session

12:30pm EDT

Break

Wednesday July 7, 2021 12:30pm - 12:45pm EDT

Networking

12:45pm EDT

Deploying ITS for Climate Impact Mitigation

Faced with a climate emergency where transport is one of the largest contributors, policies and programs that support the deployment of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) have a major role to play in the fight against global warming. Potential ITS and business measures comprise a wide range of tools such as electromobility, connected & automated vehicles, traffic management, public transport, city logistics and Mobility as a Service. How might these be optimized and deployed for maximum impact on CO2 emission reduction?

Speakers

Laura Coconea

Head of Innovation, Swarco

Laura Coconea holds a PhD degree in Electronics and Telecommunications Engineering from Politecnico di Torino, Italy. She joined the SWARCO team back in 2011, now the Head of Innovation of the ITS Division, dealing with R&D activities connected to the area of future mobility.

Andy Taylor

Senior Strategy Director, CUBIC

Andy Taylor is a global transportation professional having worked in the domain for over 30 years. He has strong technical vision combined with first class interpersonal skills have enabled him to engage with a broad customer base within the Transportation arena. This has led to new... Read More →

Paul Kompfner

ITS4 Climate Alliance

Paul Kompfner – First career at UK Transport Research Lab, leading studies in transport safety, public transport, advanced systems etc. A second career in Brussels at ERTICO – ITS Europe from 1992-2018: conception and management of EU research projects in ITS for safety and mobility... Read More →

Juliane Höbarth

Head of Standardization, Processes & Product Security, Kapsch TrafficCom AG

Since 2020, Juliane Höbarth is heading the Environmental Sustainability team at Kapsch TrafficCom, a world leading company specialized in electronic toll collection and intelligent transport systems.Juliane joined Kapsch TrafficCom as a process manager in 2011 and leads the Standardization... Read More →

Wednesday July 7, 2021 12:45pm - 2:00pm EDT

Executive Session

2:00pm EDT

Break

Wednesday July 7, 2021 2:00pm - 2:15pm EDT

Networking

2:15pm EDT

Building Acceptability into Road User Charging Programs

The societal pressures we know today – increased population and economic activity around geographic hubs – will all worsen over the next decade, placing additional stress on transportation infrastructure and increasing commuting times, absent demand management policies. The need to charge according to a growing number of parameters (such as location, destination and number of occupants) will thus become even more appealing to policy-makers. For drivers, journey time will no longer be the only variable, since frequent trade-offs will need to be made between time and cost, possibly embedded within the vehicle’s navigation system. Faced with this changing paradigm, what are ways to ensure road users recognize and accept the merits of Road User Charging?

Speakers

Steve Morello

Business Development Strategist, CDM Smith

Steve Morello has 29 years of experience in the transportation sector focusing on the development of projects covering light and heavy vehicle road usage charging, ITS rollout, traditional tolling, urban congestion charging, electronic road pricing, and automated enforcement.

Asha Weinstein Agrawal

Director of Education, Mineta Transportation Institute

Asha Weinstein Agrawal is Director of MTI’s National Transportation Finance Center at San José State University, the MTI Education Director, and a Professor of Urban and Regional Planning at San José State. Her research agenda is guided by a commitment to the principles of sustainability... Read More →

Nina Elter

Senior Vice President, EROAD

Nina, based in Germany, has over 20 years of experience working within the technology, trucking, tolling and fuel card sectors globally. She brings extensive expertise in these areas and is considered a global expert in transportation funding. Nina joined EROAD in 2012 and is responsible... Read More →

Barbara Rohde

Executive Director, Mileage Based User Fee Alliance

Barbara Rohde is the Executive Director of The MBUF Alliance that was created as an educational organization to further information on mileage based user fee projects in the United States and worldwide. Currently, members include State DOTS, local units of government, various consulting... Read More →

Wednesday July 7, 2021 2:15pm - 3:30pm EDT

Executive Session

9:45am EDT

Big Data for Pavement Management

Although a relatively new phenomenon, the arrival of massive, often real-time, datasets supported by widespread portable sensing devices, presents opportunities and challenges for road agencies everywhere. One of the most promising use cases of road-related “big data” generation & usage concerns the automated identification of pavement distresses in support of local maintenance decisions as well as wider policy considerations. This panel will recall the high-level stakes of introducing large data sets for road monitoring before presenting enabling technologies and their associated use cases.

Moderator

Mohammad Sayyar

Principal Product Owner, AgileAssets

Mohammad Sayyar, PhD, PE, PMP, CSPO, is a Senior Consultant/Product Owner with AgileAssets Inc., a global provider of transportation asset management enterprise software. For nearly 15 years, he has led complex infrastructure asset management projects, with a special focus on the... Read More →

Speakers

Margo Briessinck

Chairman, PIARC TC 4.1

Margo Briessinck is the senior advisor at the Agency for Roads and Traffic in Belgium; and the chair of PIARC's technical committee TC 4.1 on Pavements.

Daisuke Oshima

i-Probe Inc.

Daisuke Oshima is a Chief Operating Officer (COO), and a Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of i-Probe Inc. i-Probe Inc. was founded in the US in 2019 by three Japanese companies and the company is trying to develop a new technology to support road pavement maintenance utilizing probe... Read More →

Benjamin Schmidt

CEO, Roadbotics

While working on autonomous vehicle sensors at Carnegie Mellon University, Dr. Christoph Mertz asked, “can the same image processing and A.I. technologies that are used to navigate autonomous vehicles be used to evaluate the conditions of the roads on which they travel? And, could... Read More →

Gerardo Flintsch

Director, CSTI, Virginia Tech Transportation Institute

Gerardo W. Flintsch is a professor of civil and environmental engineering and the director of the Center for Sustainable Transportation Infrastructure at the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute, part of the CAIT National UTC consortium. His research interests include pavement engineering... Read More →

D.J. Swan

Director of International Operations, AgileAssets

Mr. D.J. Swan has 20 years of experience in the transportation asset management field. With projects helping agencies to implement transportation asset management in North America, Europe, and the GCC he has seen a range of approaches and technologies. He has worked to understand... Read More →

Thursday July 8, 2021 9:45am - 11:15am EDT

Executive Session

11:15am EDT

Break

Thursday July 8, 2021 11:15am - 11:30am EDT

Networking

11:30am EDT

Innovations in Pavement Assessment Technologies

New methodologies and technologies are now emerging that allow for better and more cost effective ways to assess the condition of our pavements. This session will feature some of the organizations that are implementing some of these cutting solutions across the globe.

Speakers

Jacopo Alaimo

NA Sales and Business Development Manager, XenoMatix

Jacopo Alaimo joined XenomatiX to lead the expansion of its revolutionary and simple LiDAR technology in the North American region. With the vision to contribute to safer roads and transportations he is convinced of the advantages that the True Solid State could bring to the AV world... Read More →

Masato Matsumoto

President & CEO, Nexco-West USA

Masato Matsumoto is a globally recognized structural engineer, is currently a Committee Member for the IRF Asset Management Committee. He is a registered professional Engineer both in the United States and Japan in Civil Engineering. He is an expert on technical aspects of bridge... Read More →

Timo Saarenketo

CEO, Roadscanners Group

Dr. Timo Saarenketo is the CEO of Roadscanners Oy. He also works as an Adjunct Professor of traffic infrastructure diagnostics at the Tampere University of Technology. He is internationally known “Road Doctor” specialized in Non-Destructive Testing based road and bridge and other... Read More →

Curtis Berthelot

Chief Technical Officer, PSI Technologies

PSI President and Chief Technical Officer, Dr. Curtis Berthelot (P.Eng.), earned his Doctorate of Civil Engineering with a focus on Materials Science. He has built a team of more than 100 engineers, geologists, lab technicians and industrial operators with decades of experience. Dr... Read More →

Moderators

Magid Elabyad, MBA CP3P

IRF Global

Mr. Elabyad is the Vice President and Deputy to the President & CEO of the International Road Federation. He has over 16 years of management experience in organizations focusing on national and international transportation and construction industry issues with a special focus on Road... Read More →

Thursday July 8, 2021 11:30am - 12:45pm EDT

Executive Session

12:45pm EDT

Break

Thursday July 8, 2021 12:45pm - 1:00pm EDT

Networking

1:00pm EDT

Incorporating Climate Resilience into Asset Management systems

Speakers

Kenneth Tang

Asset Manager, StreetsLA

Kenneth Tang, Professional Engineer, has served as the Asset Manager at the Los Angeles Department of Public Works, Bureau of Street Services (StreetsLA) for the last three years. He helps establish the Bureau’s first Asset Management programs with over $16 billion of the asset... Read More →

Theuns Hennings

Team Leader, Climate Adaptation Platform

Dr Theuns Henning is a senior lecturer at the University of Auckland, specialising in the areas of Asset Management. Theuns received his ME (Transportation) from the University of Pretoria, South Africa. He completed his PhD at The University of Auckland, New Zealand and was a recipient... Read More →

Jolanda Prozzi

Division Head: Environment and Air Quality Program Manager: Environment and Planning, Texas A&M Transportation Institute

Ms. Jolanda Prozzi is a Division Head, Program Manager, and Senior Research Scientist at the Texas A&M Transportation Institute. She is responsible for identifying and conducting research of state and national significance. Ms. Prozzi has 25 years of professional and research experience... Read More →

Moderators

Eric Cook

Senior Advisor, IRF Global

Eric Dean Cook is a Managing Director with Manchester Consulting Group. His professional fields of practice are infrastructure, construction, and finance. He is a registered Professional Engineer with over 20 years of experience in the planning, design, construction, and financing... Read More →

Thursday July 8, 2021 1:00pm - 2:15pm EDT

Executive Session

2:15pm EDT

Break

Thursday July 8, 2021 2:15pm - 2:30pm EDT

Networking

2:30pm EDT

On the Road to Dubai: 18th IRF World Meeting

Speakers

William Sowell

President, Argonaut International Consulting, Inc.

Dr. Bill Sowell is a global industry leader of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CAV), the development of advanced ITS technologies, and sales to B2B /B2G/B2C market sectors for >30 years, with successful multi-million Dollar P&L responsibility... Read More →

Brendan Halleman

IRF Global

Thursday July 8, 2021 2:30pm - 3:00pm EDT

Special Session

10:00am EDT

Safe Roads by Design: Forgiving Roads

Forgiving Highways is a concept that designs roads to "forgive" mistakes made on the road and thus eliminating many needles deaths. In this session, we will discuss the latest developments and technologies that help make roads "more forgiving". We will also examine and discuss the latest developments in data collection, testing and standards.

Speakers

Mike Dreznes

Retired

Michael G. Dreznes assumed his current position of Executive Vice-President of the International Road Federation (IRF) in February of 2012. Dreznes has spent the last thirty years working to make the roads safer around the world. He is recognized as one of the world’s leading specialists... Read More →

Andrew Vernon

Senior Business Development Manager, Lindsay

15 years in Sales, Leadership, and Solution Design.ExperienceCHR Robinson – 7 years; Manager, Brokerage SalesFreightquote – 7 years; Various roles across Sales, Operations, and Customer ServiceEducationBachelors in Management– Kansas State University

Arun Kesavan

Senior Product Manager, Lindsay / Elecsys

25 years in engineering and product development across industrial, heavy construction and mining OEM business segments with P&L responsibility.ExperienceESCO – 5 years; Director, Smart Products, LHD & CrushingJoy Global (now Komatsu) – 5 years; Global Director, Control & Automation... Read More →

John Durkos

VP Technical Support & Marketing, Road Systems, Inc.

John Durkos has 38 years’ experience in providing technical support and product promotion in the highway and roadside safety industry, specifically with barriers, end terminals, and crash cushions. For the past 22 years, Mr. Durkos has been Vice President, Technical Support for... Read More →

John Griffith

Vice President, ETI, USA

John retired from the US Army as the First Sergeant of the US Army's largest military recruiting district.. In his 20 years of service, John served in a number of challenging positions, including Military Police Traffic Accident Investigator. Prior to military service, John served... Read More →

Moderators

Sudeshna Mitra

Transport Specialist, The World Bank, Global Road Safety Facility

Sudeshna Mitra is a Transport Specialist with the Global Road Safety Facility (GRSF), at the World Bank. She is responsible for the coordination and implementation of the GRSF Research program, funded by UK Aid. Sudeshna is an experienced transport professional with a Ph.D. in Transportation... Read More →

Friday July 9, 2021 10:00am - 11:15am EDT

Executive Session

11:15am EDT

Break

Friday July 9, 2021 11:15am - 11:30am EDT

Networking

11:30am EDT

Safe Roads by Design: AI for Road Safety

When it comes to evaluating road injury risk, AI algorithms will probably never replace the keen human eye, but they can supplement human-led analysis and provide valuable support to the work of traffic engineers in the field, in many cases by putting to use road data which they already have access to. This panel will explore opportunities to combine emerging AI applications that assist road agencies datamine their asset and traffic information in order to produce effective “heat maps” of road risk.

Moderator

Brendan Halleman

IRF Global

Speakers

Darryl Keeton

Founder and President, Sensagrate

Darryl has over 15 years of business, risk management, and technology development experience. He graduated from the University of Arizona, earning a BS in Accounting and Management Information Systems. His background includes Deloitte & Touché, American Express, and CDOT’s Connect2Dot... Read More →

Noah Budnick

Senior Director, Together for Safer Roads

Noah directs TSR’s three program areas: Safer Companies and Fleets, Safer Cities and the Safer Roads Studio. Each area builds partnerships and delivers projects aimed at saving more lives faster on the world’s roads. Noah was previously the Data Practice & Policy Director for... Read More →

Craig Milligan

CEO, MicroTraffic

I am the lead road safety engineer and CEO at MicroTraffic. MicroTraffic turns any traffic camera into an AI-powered diagnostic sensor so that we can create intersection safety plans based on near-miss measurements.Our technology is used by 64 communities to drive road safety investment... Read More →

Gareth Robins

Director of Analytics, EROAD

Gareth Robins is the Director of Analytics at EROAD, his work focuses on the use of GPS data to fuel a new wave of transportation research from dynamic risk modelling to fair cost allocation of maintenance funds. Currently Gareth is working on methods to visualise billions of vehicle... Read More →

Friday July 9, 2021 11:30am - 12:45pm EDT

Executive Session

12:45pm EDT

Break

Friday July 9, 2021 12:45pm - 1:00pm EDT

Networking

1:00pm EDT

Safe Roads by Design: Work Zone Safety Innovations

Work zones present an increased risk for workers who build, repair, and maintain roads, bridges, and tunnels, as well as for a variety of road users, including pedestrians, bicyclists, and motorcyclists, who are confronted with less than ideal safety conditions in these work zones. Global statistics on work zone-related injuries are not available, however the US Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) reported 25,485 of work zone crashes involving at least one injured party in 2015, of which 642 resulted in at least one fatality. These figures suggest that, taken at the global level, hundreds of thousands of injuries, and thousands of fatalities occur every year in work zones.

Speakers

Lu Li

Global Marketer, 3M

I am a Global Marketer within the 3M Transportation Safety Division. My responsibilities include roadway materials such as those used in work zone signs, devices, and markings. Prior to joining the global team, I held similar responsibilities within 3M Canada.

Stijn Goossens

Director, AVS / Signco

Stijn Goossens is an engineer with a passion for research and development. After his studies he started working at the Flemish Government, being in charge of all the temporary measurements and to create added value for the community. . In 2009 Stijn won the Flemish Innovation Festival... Read More →

Phil Luke

Commercial Manager, International, Highway Care

A Commercial Manager who graduated with a Masters degree in Mechanical Engineering from a top London university and followed a career in the Oilfield services sector before swapping over to promoting road safety through consultation and use of technically superior vehicle road safety... Read More →

Felipe Almanza

Vice President, New Product Design, TrafFix

Mr. Felipe Almanza is the Vice President, of New Product Development for TrafFix Devices Inc. Engineering Department based out of San Clemente in Southern California, USA. A Cal Poly Pomona graduate with a Degree in Mechanical Engineering, his experience spans more than 17 years in... Read More →

Moderators

Eric Cook

Senior Advisor, IRF Global

Friday July 9, 2021 1:00pm - 2:15pm EDT

Executive Session