On May 17th, the Institute of Transportation Engineers Southern California Section in collaboration with the Orange County Traffic Engineers Council (OCTEC) held its annual job fair and Student Presentation night at Knott’s Berry Farm Hotel, in Buena Park, California.

(Photo by Eric Shen, ITE USC Chapter Faculty Advisor)

Representatives of more than ten transportation companies and agencies attended the job fair, giving current and recent graduates who are interested in traffic, transit, and technologies the opportunity to make valuable connections and learn of potential job opportunities.

Iteris representative discussing opportunities with Anders Hasselquist

After the job fair, teams representing PSR partners USC, UCLA, UC Irvine, and CSULB showcased their research projects in ten-minute presentations.

ITE USC chapter students Anders Hasselquist (MSCE 2017), Kaitlyn Zhang (MPP 2017) and Siyuan Yao (MSCE 2018) presented their design project Reverse Engineering UberPool/ LyftLine Pricing Strategies Using Big Data Analytics. They adopted a creative way to build their own “Big Data” set, collecting 10,611 data points for study in total.  After statistical analysis, they reached interesting conclusions: (1) In most cases, LyftLine is about 50% more expensive than UberPool; (2) Total trip price is positively related with distance, although price per mile decreased for both; (3) Uber pricing saw larger fluctuations, lower minimum and higher maximum prices; (4) Peak hours increased prices around downtown Los Angeles’s Financial District while non-peak hours increased price around L.A. Live. The USC team’s topic showcased creativity in compiling a dataset by themselves when one is not readily available.

The UCLA team presented Trip Generation Study on a Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) in Culver City. Their study focused on answering two questions: how do mixed-use TODs affect vehicle trip rates and how do they compare with the ITE Trip Generation Manual rates? The team analyzed total trips by mode on three different dates and got the results that vehicle usage remains high despite being from a TOD and the platform’s trip generation rates were lower than the ITE trip generation manual’s. According to the conclusion, the team discussed whether the platform a real TOD. They concluded that a TOD should target the whole community rather than a single development and that a TOD should promote but not force transit use.

Left to right: USC participants Eric Shen. Balraj More, Kaitlyn Zhang, Anders Hasselquist, Siyuan Yao, Yiqi Li, David Roachford, Griffin Kantz, Jimmy Mai, Meiduo Ji

The USC team earned second place in the presentation competition and won a $2,000 cash prize.  Pacific Southwest Region partner UC Irvine took 3rd place; partners UCLA and CSULB received honorable mentions. Cal Poly Pomona took home first place with their presentation titled “Gold Line Foothill Extension Study.”  Cal State Fullerton also presented.

About the Author: Meiduo Ji

Meiduo Ji is a second-year graduate student majoring in Urban Planning at the University of Southern California. She is also pursuing a GIS Certificate in Geospatial Intelligence. She works as a student assistant at METRANS Transportation Center, both as a staff writer and as a research assistant helping to document and describe current shipment patterns in the LA region for the Cyber Physical Regional Freight Transportation System. She is also an intern in Kendall Planning + Design, designing maps for Metro First Last Mile Training Workshops.  She is interested in transportation planning and aims to apply her GIS skills to the planning field. She can be reached at [email protected].