Volpe's Beyond Traffic 2045 series to tackle greenhouse gas

The Beyond Traffic 2045 speaker series hosted by Volpe, the U.S. Department of Transportation's National Transportation Systems Center, is scheduled to continue Thursday with MIT Professor John Heywood discussing alternatives and options for decreasing the quantity of greenhouse gas emissions.

Previous speakers in the series included Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) Assistant Administrator Edward Bolton, who was previously worked with the White House National Security Council as the director for defense policy. He has also held the position of deputy director of systems engineering and integration while he served at the National Reconnaissance Office.

NextGen proposes a series of projects that could transform the infrastructure of the future. The company’s satellite-based global positioning system could be implemented for the majority of cargo and commercial aircraft flight patterns by the year 2030. This would replace radar technologies that are severely outdated.

The series, titled "Beyond Traffic 2045: Reimagining Transportation," was started in September by U.S. Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx and Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology Gregory Winfree.