Abstract:The UC Davis IGERT grant for Transportation Technology and Policy (TTP) began October 1, 1998 and officially concluded September 30, 2005, although no students were funded in its seventh and final year. The TTP theme of the grant was shared by the degree-granting program of the same name (the students in which overlapped, but did not completely coincide, with IGERT recipients), and focused on the need to integrate the often-segregated policy and technology sides of transportation, so as to better prepare students to address today's and tomorrow's complex transportation-related challenges. The budget totaled $2.66 million, which directly funded 43 students in eight different degree programs (including research, teaching, international internships, and travel activities), 14 distinguished speakers, two graduate research conferences, a variety of recruiting practices, laboratory and computing equipment, project administration, and this evaluation. More than 2/3 of the budget directly funded students.

In less than 15 years, the Institute of Transportation Studies at UC Davis (ITS-Davis, established in 1991) has vaulted into the top ranks of university transportation centers. IGERT has had everything to do with this meteoric rise: the IGERT grant was active for nearly half of that period, and was seminal in supporting numerous and diverse research and educational activities of the Institute.