TMIP News - July 21, 2009

Travel Modeling Workshop Webinar Series Wraps Up

The journey began back on October 16, 2008 and exactly nine months later, on July 16, the ninth and final installment of the Travel Modeling Workshop webinars was held. TMIP sincerely thanks Mr. Thomas Rossi and Mr. Yasasvi Popuri from Cambridge Systematics for their efforts in putting on these well-received workshops. Also thanks to Mr. Kermit Wies, CMAP, for his presentation at the last session. And finally thanks to all of you that participated, asked questions, and gave us feedback on how to improve the experience.

We estimate that, on average, 178 people attended each workshop. That equates to over 3,200 person-hours of professional development over the nine months! The audience was quite diverse with approximately 41% coming from MPOs, 29% from federal, state or local government, 23% from the private sector, and 7% from academia or other areas. When we asked the participants in Session 9 if they would recommend these webinars to others, they unanimously said "yes". About 83% said that the number of workshops (nine) was just right. A similar percentage said that the monthly frequency was good (with the remainder saying they would like them more frequently).

Recordings of most of the Travel Modeling Workshop webinars are available on the TMIP Web site. Unfortunately a few technical glitches prevented us from obtaining good recordings of every single one. However, you will find copies of all the slide presentations (with notes) in PDF format and the homework assignments, solutions, and transcripts of the question-and-answer sessions.

Recommended Reading List Sought

Feedback from our TMIP community suggested that we put together a "Recommended Reading" list for those that are new to the discipline. As often is the case, we turn to you for your input and advice. Please tell us what books, texts, or reports you would recommend to a novice transportation planner. Once we have compiled the list, we will post it on the TMIP Web site on a permanent page. To submit your recommendation(s), go to the feedback page on the Web site and select "Recommended Reading" from the drop down menu.

TMIP Email Lists

Last year TMIP set up a new email list TMIP-News. The intent was to use this list to distribute news about the program (such as webinar announcements) and leave TMIP-L strictly for the discussion of travel modeling issues. In the interim period, we’ve been posting TMIP announcement to both lists. We realize this means that some of you get double messages. However, the TMIP-News list has less than 300 subscribers compared to the over 1,200 subscribers to TMIP-L. Therefore, before we stop sending news to TMIP-L, we encourage you again to sign up for TMIP-News. It’s very easy and only takes a minute. Just send go to this web page, enter your name and email address, and click the "Join TMIP-News" button. Or you can send an email to listserv@listserv.tamu.edu. Leave the subject line blank and enter "subscribe TMIP-L firstname lastname" in the body of the email.

After August 31, we will stop sending news announcements to TMIP-L.