Dr. Novak Gets Transportation Research Grant

2/28/2007

David Novak, assistant professor in the School of Business Administration, Lisa Aultman-Hall, director of the Transportation Center at the University of Vermont, and Darren Scott, associate professor of geography at McMaster University have been awarded a peer-reviewed grant for approximately $92,000 from the New England University Transportation Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The research project, “Using Network Disruptions to Measure System Robustness,” expands on previous published work by Aultman-Hall, Novak and Scott involving the Network Robustness Index, a system-wide modeling approach to evaluate network performance with an aim to maximize reliability of the overall transportation system and to minimize system vulnerability. This particular research project specifically addresses the need to improve the NRI to account for sparsely connected nodes/areas such as those often found in rural areas that have only one link connecting them to the remainder of the network. These critical links are essential for emergency evacuation and provision of essential services.