Transportation in California
February 24, 2023
12 PM – 1 PM ET
Based on years of real-world experiences in the transportation field, this presentation will share the observations, reviews, and suggestions for transportation development from the angle of a government official. The transformation of the transportation industry from policy to performance measures, from technology implementation to collaboration of stakeholders, from investment to government practices will be discussed. It is intended to broaden the audiences’ views of transportation, deepen the understanding of government operations, and inform classroom education to better prepare the students for real-world challenges and opportunities.
Zhongren Wang, Ph.D., is the chief of the Office of Mobility Programs at the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans). Currently, he manages multiple statewide mobility programs such as connected corridor, operational improvement analysis and investigation, and project environmental impact analysis. Prior to this assignment, he was the office chief managing the statewide 80,000 lane-km pavement maintenance and rehabilitation programs from data collection to project programming using a pavement management system called PaveM.
A registered civil and traffic engineer in California, Dr. Wang has more than 30 years of experience in transportation project development and management, program administration, and academic teaching and research. Dr. Wang serves on TRB Standing Committees including Traffic Flow Theory and Characteristics and Pavement Management. He also serves on several NCHRP research project panels and chairs one on new mobility options and modeling solutions. Dr. Wang published more than 40 journal papers in various refereed journals and is now an associate editor for the International Journal on Transportation Science and Technology.
Dr. Wang graduated from the University of Tennessee, National University of Singapore, and Tongji University, China. Dr. Wang is a Fellow Member of the Institute of Transportation Engineers.
