MISSION

The consortium of Cooperative Mobility for Competitive Megaregions (CM2) aims to advance research, education, and technology transfer initiatives to improve the mobility of people and goods in urban and rural communities of megaregions.

VISION

The CM2 consortium will build legal, governmental, technical, and analytical frameworks for megaregion transportation planning. Our center supports research that establishes a legal framework for cooperative megaregion transportation planning; develops analytical framework targeting passenger and freight mobility improvement in megaregions; capitalizes access-enabling spatial strategies; promotes equity for elderly and rural populations in and around the megaregion; creates environmental justice metrics in the megaregion context; improves public participation at the megaregional scale; optimizes multi-modality and inter-modality; and develops a GIS-based planning support system for cooperative mobility in megaregions.

Our motivation for pursing this research stems from the U.S. DOT’s thirty-year framework for the future, “Beyond Traffic 2045: Trends and Choices,” in which the U.S. DOT highlights the significance of megaregions to the nation’s future. Our research follows priorities defined by the FAST Act of 2015.

OUTCOMES

Our center’s research products and activities are expected to:

• Offer advice to the federal, state, and local governments on strategic transportation planning, smart infrastructure investments, and informed policy-making
• Promote multimodality ranging from high-speed rail to slow-moving transportation such as walking and bicycling for diverse populations and communities
• Facilitate public-private partnership for freight mobility planning and operation efficiency.

The megaregion framework of cooperative mobility that our UTC CM2 promotes will help turn the challenges of tomorrow in megaregions into the opportunities of today for their constituents.

OUR HISTORY

In December of 2016, the United States Department of Transportation (USDOT) awarded The University of Texas at Austin a five-year grant to lead a consortium under the University Transportation Centers (UTC) program. CM2’s consortium partners include The University of Texas at Austin, Louisiana State University, Texas Southern University, and the University of Pennsylvania, with affiliates at Cornell University and Rutgers University. CM2 is a designated Tier 1 University Transportation Center. Please see our funding announcement to learn more.