MS2 Blog

Wednesday, January 10, 2018

2018 TRB Convention is a Big Success

MS2 attended the Transportation Research Board’s 98th Annual Meeting this week at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C.  The conference featured hundreds of professional sessions, lectures and committee meetings and was attended by more than 10,000 transportation professionals from around the world.MS2 had an exhibit booth and many of our friends stopped by to say hello and to give us feedback on our software.  We met pro... [Read More]

Friday, December 8, 2017

Will Performance Management Provisions Dates Be Changed?

This email came to us today from the Association of Metropolitan Planning Organizations and we wanted to pass it along to you: "On behalf of AASHTO, AMPO and APTA, please find our joint letter requesting USDOT to delay the single common effective date for the performance management provisions by one year in order to allow time for our members to comply with the implementation of the federal transportation performance management requirements.  Th... [Read More]

Thursday, November 9, 2017

MS2 to Attend 2018 TRB Annual Meeting and NaTMEC Conference

MS2 will attend, and have a booth at, two important 2018 transportation industry conferences:  the January 2018 TRB Annual Meeting in Washington, DC and the June 2018 NaTMEC conference.The Transportation Research Board (TRB) 97th Annual Meeting will be held January 7–11, 2018, at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, in Washington, D.C. The information-packed program is expected to attract more than 13,000 transportation professionals from ... [Read More]

Tuesday, November 7, 2017

Kistler and Gridsmart technologies integrated using MS2 Autopolling software

MS2 software developers have created two new custom data import routines for popular transportation data collection hardware manufacturers.Since 2003, MS2 has worked hand in hand with data collection device manufacturers to help its clients import data using the available software. It has pioneered and implemented an innovative cloud-based Transportation Data Management System (TDMS) for state DOTs, MPOs, counties, and cities.Kistler (Amherst, Ne... [Read More]

Tuesday, October 24, 2017

Calculating ADT from TMC Data

Adding vehicle volume data into MS2’s Traffic Crash Location System (TCLS) benefits traffic engineers since the software can then calculate severity and crash rates at study locations.  But sometimes traffic count data is not available at all study locations.  What to do?  Our client, the City of Redmond, Washington, has a good solution – use turning movement count data (TMC) to derive vehicle volumes and enter those values into the TCLS.The City... [Read More]

Tuesday, October 10, 2017

MS2’s TDMS Brings Award to TxDOT

On October 9, 2017, the Texas Department of Transportation’s (TxDOT) Transportation Planning and Programming (TPP) team was awarded the Gold Level Winner for the 2017 Journey Toward Excellence (JTE) Award. JTE Awards recognize TxDOT employees and teams who demonstrate leadership and commitment to improving services, products, and processes and obtaining tangible results. Recipients must demonstrate results in a wide variety of areas including cus... [Read More]

Friday, September 22, 2017

MS2 DOT User Conference a Big Success

The Colorado DOT hosted MS2’s bi-annual DOT User Conference at the Magnolia Hotel in Denver September 18-19, 2017. We had an excellent turnout of 33 people representing 12 of our 15 state DOT clients. On Monday evening we had a client reception at the Broker Restaurant in Denver. This gave us a chance to catch up with old friends as well as personally introduce ourselves to our newest clients in the user group. After dinner we had a prese... [Read More]

Wednesday, August 9, 2017

MS2 Software Manages 2-Billion WIM Vehicle Records

You’ve heard of the Peter Principle (in bureaucracies, people work to the level of their incompetence) and Moore’s Law (the number of transistors in an integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years). At MS2 we‘re not sure it’s a “law” but it sure is “big data.” It took us four years (2011-2015) to reach 1-billion WIM vehicle records managed. Two years later, in August 2017, it’s now 2-billion WIM vehicle records managed in our Transpor... [Read More]

Wednesday, July 26, 2017

FHWA Publishes SEMCOG AADT-Calculation Case Study

As part of their Roadway Safety Data Program the FHWA recently published an interesting case study featuring one of MS2’s oldest and most technical clients, the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments (SEMCOG).  Titled “Innovative Traffic Data QA/QC Procedures and Automating AADT Estimation,” the case study focuses on AADT calculations – an important traffic engineering function to MS2 clients throughout North America.According to the case stud... [Read More]

Tuesday, June 6, 2017

Bicycle and Pedestrian Data Management Software

Midwestern Software Solutions (MS2), Ann Arbor, Michigan, recently created a 3-minute video highlighting the features of their new Non-Motorized Database System designed for transportation planners and engineers.