Technical

Technical activities offer our members the opportunity to gain knowledge on various transportation related topics. Our members are encouraged to seek out industry professionals to educate the student chapter with a guest lecture or technical tour of their facility. We also provide a large number of webinars through the many professional organizations that our members are associated with.

Conferences

Our Student Chapter members are heavily involved with professional events and meetings. If you wish to attend a future conference contact president@iteumanitoba.ca for possible funding from the student chapter. The following are some of the events that our members have been to:

ITE Canada - CARSP/ACPSER Joint Conference 2023, Winnipeg, MB

Centered around the theme of Road Safety, the Student Chapter sent a delegation to ITE Canada's annual conference, which was closer to home. The chapter's hard work this past year was recognized as we were awarded the Student Chapter of the Year Award for 2023. The various technical sessions and evening events provided our students with many opportunities to learn and network with professionals and students. The traffic bowl team showed off their hometown pride during the Traffic Bowl Competition and went home with the cup (unfortunately not the Stanley.. Go Jets Go!).

Awards

ITE Conference 2022 - New Orleans, LA

We sent three students to the ITE International Annual Meeting in New Orleans. We faced off against other district champions for the Grand Championship. While we didn't win the final prize, we did have a lot of fun! Congratulations to Clemson University.

We would like to thank CITE, the Price Faculty of Engineering, the UofM Faculty of Graduate Studies, and the UMGSA for supporting our chapter's participation in this event!

Traffic Bowl Champions at CITE 2022 

Student Chapter Momentum Award at CITE 2022

CITE Conference 2022 - Vancouver, BC

The Student Chapter sent three students to CITE 2022. We won the CITE 2022 Student Chapter Momentum Award for showing resilience in the pandemic, pivoting to virtual meetings, recruiting members, offering technical presentations, and growing our vibrant chapter.

We also won the 2022 Canadian Traffic Bowl in Vancouver thanks to the hard work of Vidhi Modha, Katie Wiebe, and Cassidy Zrobek making UofM ITE the 2022 Canadian District Champion.

Awards

Technical Tours

For our 2020 technical trip, eight Student Chapter members travelled to Europe's two most populous cities: London and Paris  to explore transportation/pedestrian facilities, metro-subway system and how the traffic management. We split our six-day reading week trip, into three days per city to  gather as much of the knowledge we could. We were extremely lucky to have three amazing tours. In London, we explored London's Transport Museum where we learned how transportation infrastructure has in the city over time. Secondly, our group had an amazing bike tour in Hyde Park. Beside this, we experienced various facilities throughout tthe city such as implementation of traffic signals, pedestrians crossings, bike boxes, and so on. In Paris, we visited Université Gustave Eiffel and experienced bike and car simulators and took part in university's on-going research experiment. Furthermore, we experienced a guided tour of their traffic management facility and full scale research facility; Sense City. 

We also had lots of fun, and ate lots of food!! We were fortunuate to experience some of the world iconic places such as Eiffel Tower, Louvre Museum, London Eye, and experienced London city from top of the Shard. 

Five Chapter members travelled to New York City in 2019 to learn more about their vast transportation system! Over the four-day reading week trip, we squeezed in as much of the city as we could, and were extremely lucky to have five amazing tours. A great big thank you goes out to Marvin Sousa from the ITE Met Section, who went above and beyond by helping our group arrange the majority of the tours! Our group experienced a guided bike tour over the Brooklyn Bridge into Brooklyn, a tour of the construction taking place at the LaGuardia Airport, a visit to the NYC DOT's Traffic Management Centre, a tour of one of PANYNJ's marine ports in Brooklyn, and a presentation from the NYC DOT Office of Bicycle and Pedestrian Programs on the Vision Zero initiatives being implements throughout the city. 

We were also fortunate to have time to explore a bit of the Big Apple during our trip! We walked through Central Park and Times Square, visited many museums, ate lots of pizza, became experts of the NYC Subway system, made a trip to the Statue of Liberty, and experienced a birds eye view of the city from the Top of the Rock Observatory. 

For our 2018 technical trip six Student Chapter members spent their reading week break in Colombia! Over the 9-day long trip, we visited the cities of Bogota and Cartagena. In Bogota, we had a tour of ciclovia and an awesome 5-hour bike tour of the city! Although we were unable to coordinate a tour of Transmillenio in Bogota, we had several opportunities to ride the new BRT system. In Cartagena we had a tour of the largest container port in Colombia (4th largest in Latin America). In addition to our tours, we experienced many other forms of transportation throughout our trip including a boat ride to a small island near Cartagena where we had a chance to snorkel and a cable car ride down from Mount Monserrate in Bogota after we climbed the 600m tall mountain! It was a successful trip in teaching the students about transportation systems in other cities.

On Thursday, March 8th, 2018 the Student Chapter visited Winnipeg's new Traffic Management Centre for a tour of the facilities and to learn about traffic operations in Winnipeg. We had a similar tour last year but due to new membership in the chapter we decided to go back again this year! Thank you to Ryan Patrick for giving us the presentation and tour!

Technical Workshop - Planning for Public Transportation

On Wednesday, April 12th, 2017, we held a technical workshop for industry and students on Planning for Public Transportation. It was a successful event and thank you to Bjorn Radstrom from Winnipeg Transit and Bob Hastings from Trimet (Portland, Oregon) for presenting.

Networking Event

On Monday, November 21st, 2019 our U of M ITE student chapter organized a networking event at Kings Head Pub and it was a huge success!! Members got an opportunity to share some food and drinks with some of Winnipeg's finest transportation professionals from both the public and private sectors.

On Thursday, February 17, 2022, we had a virtual networking event on the platform Wonder which allows for more organic online networking as users can move around the virtual room to make their own groups. The event served as a great opportunity for students to meet practicing transportation engineers in the public and private sector, learn about different transportation engineering jobs, and receive career guidance.


Technical Speakers

On September 29, 2021, Dr. Jeannette Montufar from MORR Transportation Consulting presented about the new Transportation Association of Canada (TAC) publication on bike infrastructure safety. She described the characteristics of different facility types for cyclists, listed key factors affecting observed and perceived safety, and described ways in which cyclists can be safely accommodated in the transportation system. It was great to have our previous faculty advisor back to give us industry insights!

On October 19, 2021, Dr. Orly Linovski from the Department of City Planning at the University of Manitoba presented about equity and transit systems. She explained the meaning of transportation equity, its importance in transportation planning, what inequity looks like, and the importance of data in measuring and  assessing equity. Thank you Dr. Linovski for teaching us about this important topic.

On December 16, 2021, Professor Ed Manley from the School of Geography at University of Leeds in the United Kingdom presented three interesting case studies about using movement data to analyse behaviour during the COVID-19 pandemic. The U of M ITE student chapter was happy to invite ITE Manitoba to attend this excellent presentation. Thank you Professor Manley for sharing your research with us.

On January 21, 2022, Dr. Prasant Sahu from the Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS), Pilani in India presented about freight transportation planning for infrastructure development. He discussed the distinction between freight and passenger transport, freight research in India and Canada, freight data, and freight traffic management. Thank you Dr. Sahu for setting your evening aside to share your expertise with us!

On February 7, 2022, Shawn Doyle and Auja Ominski introduced us to Dillon Consulting's Multi-Modal Level of Service framework, which is an integrated system for understanding how well a street or road serves all modes of travel, and how changes to the street or road may impact performance for each mode. Fun fact: Auja was once our student chapter president! Thank you Shawn and Auja for this intriguing presentation.

On March 16, 2022, we had two presentations. Sushreeta Mishra presented about her research on optimizing the operation of semi-flexible transit for low-demand conditions. She is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Civil Engineering at the UofM and the secretary of our student chapter. Adam Budowski from the City of Winnipeg presented about the trials, tribulations, and successes of Winnipeg's on-request transit pilot project.

On April 12, 2022, UofM ITE was invited by the UM Office of Sustainability to the UM Researcher Panel: Building a Sustainable and Equitable Transportation Future. This panel featured 5 UM researchers including Dr. Orly Linovski, Dr. Paul Larson, Dr. Adele Perry, our own Sushreeta Mishra, and Dr. Jocelyn Thorpe. The panelists shared and discussed their vision for an affordable, equitable and sustainable transportation future. We thank the panelists for sharing their insights!

Jeannette Montufar Presentation


Orly Linovski Presentation

Ed Manley

Prasant Sahu Presentation

Shawn and Auja Presentation

UM Researcher Panel: Building a Sustainable and Equitable Transportation Future