Richard Wallace

Richard Wallace, M.S., is director, Transportation Systems Analysis Group at the Center for Automotive Research (CAR). He has 18 years of experience in designing, conducting, and managing transportation projects and research. Currently, he plays the leading role in CAR’s work in the connected vehicle and transportation infrastructure realms. In this capacity, he serves as project manager for CAR’s IntelliDrive (vehicle-infrastructure integration) efforts for the Michigan Department of Transportation and for CAR’s work on a US DOT RITA projects to apply remote sensing to bridge health monitoring, as well as on projects for the U.S. Army’s National Automotive Center (NAC). His research has been presented at leading transportation forums, including conferences such as the annual meeting of the Transportation Research Board, the ITS America annual meeting, the annual meeting of the Community Transportation Association of America, and published in leading journals, such as Transportation Research Record and the Journal of Public Transportation.

Prior to rejoining CAR in April 2007, Mr. Wallace held the positions of research scientist with the Michigan Tech Research Institute (MTRI) and lecturer in the College of Engineering at the University of Michigan. While with MTRI, he served as the lead scientist for MTRI’s “Transportation Applications of Restricted Use Technology Study” and led two of the four pilot studies that MTRI implemented in cooperation with the Michigan Department of Transportation, including those associated with traffic queues and delay and estimation of AADT with remote sensing.
Prior to the formation of MTRI (formed out of the sale of a division of the Altarum Institute), Mr. Wallace completed and served as co-principal investigator for a study entitled the “Cost Benefit of Providing Non-emergency Medical Transportation.” This groundbreaking study (TCRP B-27), completed under contract to the Transit Cooperative Research Program of Transportation Research Board of the National Academies, compared the healthcare costs and benefits to the additional transportation costs of providing non-emergency medical transportation-to-transportation disadvantaged persons that face transportation barriers to obtaining needed medical care. While at Altarum, he also led one VII subcommittee and served as a member of another VII subcommittee under the auspices of ITS Michigan. He currently sits on the Board of ITS Michigan.

Prior to joining the Altarum Institute (where he first worked for CAR before it spun off from Altarum), Mr. Wallace worked for several years at the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI) and for several more at the UM Intelligent Transportation Systems Laboratory. At the University of Michigan, his work focused on the evaluation of several intelligent transportation systems (ITS) field tests in the State of Michigan (including the FAST-TRAC, DIRECT, DIRECT II, and SMART and AATA advanced public transportation system tests). He also has led a statewide survey of motor-coach operators in the transit industry for the Michigan Department of Transportation.
In addition to his current work with CAR, Mr. Wallace is a Ph.D. candidate in Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Michigan. He holds an M.S. in Technology and Science Policy from the Georgia Institute of Technology and a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Northwestern University.