For this research, Clemson brings together a combination of professionals with expertise in transit coordination and service offerings, as well as years of experience with South Carolina organizations and public sector interactions. Dr. Anne Dunning will lead the project team as principle investigator with several years of experience dealing specifically with questions of institutional collaboration for transit service. Drs. Jim London and Barry Nocks will contribute their years of experience with the public realm of South Carolina and their indispensable insight into the interactions that take place between institutions, communities, and regions in the state. In addition to faculty involvement, graduate students will also contribute the insights they have gained from reading on the latest theories and research into system interactions on other transit-related research projects.
Principal Investigator
Dr. Anne Dunning, with academic degrees in transportation planning and civil engineering, brings to this project an interdisciplinary background. She has expertise in transportation planning and institutional issues, as well as the elements that contribute to institutional impacts on population mobility. Of greatest relevance to this project, she has spent four years examining transit in national parks and surrounding rural communities. In this work, she particularly focused on mechanisms for partnering and coordination between federal, state, and local governments; local business, nonprofit, and environmental organizations; and, transit operators. She has actively contributed research to the Transportation Research Board groups, such as the Rural Transit Committee. She now sits on a Transit Cooperative Research Program panel overseeing the research project, Understanding How to Motivate Our Communities to Support and Ride Public Transportation, for the National Academies of Science. She will contribute her range of experience in identifying institutional strategies for statewide coordination of transportation services in the South Carolina institutional environment.
Dr. Dunning earned a Ph.D. in civil engineering with specialization in transportation planning from the Georgia Institute of Technology, and she conducted research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on the design and implementation of a focused interview methodology for discussions with airline industry leaders. She is engaged in task forces and subcommittees of the Transportation Research Board, and she is currently involved in research projects on hurricane evacuation and rural highway crashes in South Carolina. She actively participates in Sustainable Transportation in Europe and Links and Liaisons with America (STELLA), a consortium of international researchers focused on improving transportation sustainability across borders and among disparate institutions.
Team Members
Dr. Jim London earned the Ph.D. in applied economics from Clemson in 1979. He currently is professor of both city and regional planning and policy studies at Clemson. He has previous teaching experience at the College of Charleston, Griffith University in Australia and the Western Australia School of Mines. His areas of specialization include: economic development, infrastructure and natural resource policy. He has published extensively in academic journals and technical reports in these areas. Among a number of policy-related research projects in the state is a recent three year study entitled “Funding Options for Transportation in South Carolina” completed for SCDOT and FHWA. Other state level projects include: issues and options for water resources in South Carolina, the impact of infrastructure investments in the state, a comprehensive economic development strategy for regions in the state, solid waste management options, and the state shoreline management plan. He has worked with counties and cities across the state on local planning efforts and has worked internationally with the World Bank, United Nations Development Programme, and Organization of American States. He currently serves on Pickens County Council.
Dr. Barry Nocks has over 30 years of professional experience in SC dealing with planning issues, having taught classes in local planning, planning process, planning methods, planning studio and social policy planning. He has directed the Masters program in City and Regional Planning at Clemson University, and currently serves as associate dean for research and outreach in the College. Dr. Nocks’ research activities include a number of studio projects (one of which earned the American Institute of Certified Planners’ award for best student project) and a master plan for the sixteen-mile corridor surrounding the Reedy River in Greenville, SC, which won the 2002 Outstanding Multi-jurisdictional Plan award from the South Carolina American Planning Association chapter. In addition, Dr. Nocks has published articles and papers on planning methods and their application to practice and education. In the area of transportation, Dr. Nocks was involved in a recent South Carolina Department of Transportation research project (~$200,000) to model trip generation and pollution under different growth scenarios. From 1992-1998, Dr. Nocks was a faculty member of the Institute for National Rural Economic Development. In addition, Dr. Nocks’ dissertation focused on developing a process and methodology for establishing health programs in rural areas of North Carolina, and worked four years for a regional health planning agency in the Upstate.
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Clemson University will contribute a rare asset to this project: graduate students with academic training in transportation planning and, specifically, transit systems. For the first time in 2005, Clemson offered a course in public transit, which, despite its offering in the summer term, received remarkable interest and student enrollment. Students in that course demonstrated strong interest in transit systems that fit the scale of South Carolina, and students chose to pursue term projects examining existing and possible systems throughout the Upstate, in downtown Greenville, along the coast, and in Columbia. Now, these students will bring their experience and insights gained through their research in the state to this project. They will bring fresh perspective and identify the latest concepts and schools of thought surrounding collaboration for transit systems. Beyond contributing directly to this project, graduate student involvement will also sensitize and prepare the next generation of professionals for the challenges and opportunities of collaboration for transit service provision. |
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