2017 Letter from the former Director
2017 Annual Report
Letter from the Director
I am pleased and proud to present this annual report. It summarizes the activities and accomplishments of the Center for Transportation Research during our 45th Anniversary year at the University of Tennessee. In this span of five decades, CTR has become an internationally recognized center of innovation, with more than $10 million in sponsored research under contract. CTR plays a critical role in the Tickle College of Engineering’s training of Tennessee’s future transportation professionals.
CTR’s longevity has fostered many cooperative, cross-discipline, cross-institutional, and cross-cultural relationships that are essential to our productivity. The nature of transportation work requires us to combine expertise from engineering, economics and supply-chain management, geography, law, health care, and other related disciplines. This fundamental need is reflected in the interdisciplinary makeup of CTR’s internal faculty and resources (engineers, geographers, planners, and economists) and is further addressed by our numerous interdisciplinary partnerships, such as our CTR Fellows Program.
The movement of people and things is an essential human activity. This can be as complex and modern as the simultaneous movement of 20 million shipping containers, or as simple and timeless as walking from Point A to Point B. Moreover, the ubiquitous need for transport means that we are all stakeholders with interdependent transportation interests, and
that very little of our inhabited environment can be isolated from ongoing transportation activity. In this way, transportation is the most public of all activities.
For 45 years, CTR has built its successes upon academic collaborations, delivered top-notch
research results, furthered the careers of students and faculty, and improved how our state and nation moves people and goods safely and efficiently. We look forward to at least another 45 years of pushing the transportation boundaries.
That is why CTR exists.
David B. Clarke, Director
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