U-M's Mcity will soon have a new director.

ANN ARBOR – Robert Hampshire, associate professor at the University of Michigan’s Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, has been appointed to work in the U.S. Transportation Department under the Biden administration, it was announced Thursday. He was appointed principal deputy assistant secretary for research and technology at the Transportation Department. The office, which receives an annual investment of $1 billion for transportation research and development, coordinates technology and research programs. He will oversee the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, the Transportation Safety Institute in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and the Volpe National Transportation Systems Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Hampshire was a research associate professor at U-M’s Michigan Institute for Data Science and Transportation Research Institute’s Human Factors group.

ANN ARBOR – A University of Michigan effort focused on the safety of automated and connected vehicles will be bringing more than 20 “smart intersections” to the city of Ann Arbor. These intersections will be capable of collecting and sending information to connected cars in real time. This information will be transmitted to nearby connected vehicles, prompting onboard alarms when cars are in hazardous situations. At its peak, it became the largest connected vehicle deployment in the world, with nearly 3,000 vehicles on the road. Through these projects, researchers were able to provide evidence that connected vehicles can reduce unimpaired collisions by 90%.