Record Breaking Road School

Event Date:	March 5, 2018

Tuesday's Opening Session Speakers: Pete Buttigieg, Darcy Bullock, Joe McGuinness, Bill Hanna, and John Haddock

Keynote Speaker: Jennifer Rumsey, Vice President and Chief Technical Officer at Cummins, Inc.

We did it again! The 104th Purdue Road School Transportation Conference and Expo was the largest Road School on record at 3,010 attendees. This year's event included 191 technical sessions involving 375 speakers and moderators. The program had 175 Professional Development Hours (PDHs) available, including 4 hours of Indiana Statutes and Ethics for Professional Engineers.

Purdue's Associate Provost of Engagement, Steve Abel, kicked off the Opening Session with updates on the attractive new buildings around Purdue's campus and what incredible attributes they house.

The Opening Session featured three keynote speakers. Indiana Department of Transportation Commissioner, Joe McGuinness explained how maintaining our roads contributes to our state's economic development and introduced INDOT's new app (iTunes App Store or Google Play Store for Android). Bill Hanna, President and CEO of the Northwest Indiana Regional Development Authority explained his past experience with the investments of infrastructure as well as his involvement in the largest investment in commuter rail transportation in the state's history. South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg spoke about improvements to the streets of South Bend and creating a more appealing community.

At Wednesday's luncheon the Dean of the College of Engineering, Mung Chiang, introduced the ME Purdue graduate and keynote speaker, Jennifer Rumsey. Rumsey is the Vice President and Chief Technical Officer at Cummins Inc. She explained the research and engineering involved in Cummins' brand portfolio of power solutions for its global customers while reducing the environmental impact.

Many have noticed the impact of the technical program lasts well beyond the four-day event. Since 2011 we have archived Road School presentations in the Purdue Libraries' online repository, and in 2015 we added Road School proceedings dating back to 1924. To date, these proceedings and presentations have been downloaded more than 262,000 times. To view this site: http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/roadschool/.

Purdue Road School is a great Indiana tradition that brings together federal, state and local agencies, elected officials, and professionals from industry, consulting and academia to collaborate and reflect on diverse transportation topics. Again, this year we introduced our new mobile app. The app provided a quick access to the schedule, a list of speakers, location of exhibitor booths, maps and allowed attendees to upload pictures.

Additional photos from 2018 Road School can be viewed here: https://www.flickr.com/gp/jtrp/b4iC4Y

Please mark your calendars for next year's Purdue Road School, March 4-7, 2019.